“Fantasy is escapist, and that is its glory. If a soldier is imprisioned by the enemy, don’t we consider it his duty to escape?. . .If we value the freedom of mind and soul, if we’re partisans of liberty, then it’s our plain duty to escape, and to take as many people with us as we can!”
[J.R.R. Tolkien]
Isn’t Second Life a place where we can escape reality? Isn’t Second Life a place to experiment and live visions and dreams? – To me it is!
I am not saying my way is the best or the only one, as Second Life is a platform where everyone can do and life what ever they want. It should be a place where you can do everything that you can imagine and dream of for yourself. As kids we played Barbie or enjoyed various roleplay like Cowboy and Indian, Robin Hood and the Lady Marian or what ever we wanted. To me Second Life is just an extension of that.
I can dress up with everything my mood is leading me to. Mostly it is something I could not wear in RL. Sometimes it can be casual as well but usually it has some twist on it to make it my own. Often I was told, you need to decide to a certain direction to set a trademark or make yourself a brand – I never could decide for one and why should I in a world that gives you like nearly unlimited options? I thought by myself if it could not be my trademark to not have a certain look or style 😉
Since I decided about that, I felt so much more free to experiment and play with all kind of things. There is only a few things, I set as my own limits to myself. I never would do porn, as I personally think there is no need to do that on a virtual fashion blog, as you can do so much more with nudity or semi nudity in an artistic way and it is nothing that I would like to share with a wide range of people anyways. As well i never would touch any illegal things, that go against common sense or the law, I never felt the desire to do such at all. That said, I just have fun playing with several things and lately I do love creating my own sceneries and backgrounds or add something personal to places I do love to snap at.
One of my favorite sim collectives for fantasy themed pictures is the Ippos Collective. A consortium of 4 sims. Sylpha, Nymphai, Ippos and Pegasoi. Each sim has a certain theme to it and all of them are decorated in an amazing way with much love to the details. All of them are changing their seasons, which always gives new things and settings to discover. There are a few parcels that are rented, but as long as you respect their privacy you can even rezz some props and pose stands to make your perfect shot. The owners are extremely sweet and kind and always have an open ear if you need help or advice. Most of them do amazing pictures like for example Duchess Flux. I am very happy to be allowed to call her a friend. She was there, backed me up and trusted me in some of the darkest hours of my SL. I won’t ever forget that – Thank you Duchie ♥
I only can give a rough view of the sims as no words I know would satisfy the beauty of those very special places. You need to wander all across the collective and even then you won’t see everything on your first walk 😉
Ippos is mostly a residential sim. It has a beautiful landscape of a fantasy world, like a hidden treasure in the middle of a forest. No wonder that it is built in such an beautiful way, since well known SL bloggers and photographers call that palce their home and the parcels are really desired and not often open for new rentals.
On Nymphai you will find all the amazing events like the Enchantment or the Secret Affair as well as some main stores of fantastic and creative designers.
Pegasoi to me looks more like the romantic and sweet fantasy part of the group. You will find the Lady Garden Cabaret there, which shows monthly shows of amazing and creative artists.
Last but not least we have Sylpha, the water sim. Any desire you have for water based pictures you will find there. Weather you would like to do some peaceful island pictures or you actually would like to really swim in Linden water together with fishes and dolphins – everything is possible!
If you like more and detailed info about the Ippos Collective just take a look at https://threadsandtuneage.com/ippos/
If you are in such an amazing fantasy environment you have to dress up to fit in there 😉 This time I wanted to showcase one of the amazing hats from Spartin Parx. The “Milli” hat comes with a huge HUD. You can change the base to 6 different colors and the sweet roses on the top have a variety of 9 colors to chose from.
I thought a long time about how I could style it to not loose the focus on the hat but as well have a cute fantasy look. First I thought about something uniform based, I do not know why and I discovered very fast that this was not the way it would work out. The hat had a Victorian touch to me and finally I found a sweet doll looking outfit that just did the trick 😉 For the boots I went with the “Kora” boots form UTOPIA@Design. I do have an addiction to over-knee boots, maybe because I do not often have the opportunity to wear them RL, as they would not fit into my everyday job most of the time ;). With the laces in the front, they totally matched the Victorian look, while the steel caps in the front added some strong, modern feelings to the whole look, which i loved a lot for the whole photo composition.
Outfit & Accessories
Outfit: Violent Seduction – “Madame Chevaliere” (Maitreya,Gacha – Bra, Corset, Paudrons & Skirt)
Gloves: Maddict – “Starlet Gloves” (Maitreya)
Shoes: UTOPIA@Design – “Kora” (Maitreya)
Hat: Spartin Parx – “Millie”
Collar: Zombie Suicide – “Willow Collar”
Hair & Makeup:
Hair: No.Match – “No.Call”
Makeup: Slackgirl – “Kam” (LeLutka Applier)
Lipstick: Zibska – “Chooli” (LeLutka Applier)
Body & Tattoo
Head: LeLutka – “Simone 3.0”
Body: Maitreya – “Lara 4.1”
Face: Izzie’s – Pores & Blemishes” (LeLutka Applier)
Poses & Props
Poses: Foxcity
Props: JIAN – “Wolf Pack & Companion” & Moon_Sha – “Cinderella’s Pumpkins” (Gacha, Ultrarare)
Location
The Ippos Collective
Model & Photographer
Wicca Merlin
