You only have to look at Her straight on to see Her…

TUNES

“The cavern cracked and groaned. Dirt, rocks, and glow worms rained on their heads. With a wave of panic, Andy swung around and dashed into the next cavern. “Run!” The ceiling collapsed. Behind him, Medusa laughed, her snakes still hissing.”
[A.P. Mobley, The Helm of Darkness]

Finally my favorite season arrived… October is here!!!

Now I can be freaky, scary and dark without being asked if I am ok or being called weird and a freak – not that I do really care during the year, but these days I can feel “normal” *giggles*

So the first one today – kinda my annual brake-free – features some new releases from Salt & Pepper and Nefekalum Tattoos and some of my long time favorites like CURELESS[+], UTOPIA@Design, Avanti and one of our latest releases, as it did fit in so nicely.

First I wanted to do a scary Medusa typical picture and the Salt release her “Guardian” for the Salem event. I t looked so cool, that I could not wait for another post and so I gave myself the challenge to find an idea, how I could use both. The result was the vision of a gatekeeper for an old, mystic cave with lots of cobwebs and spiders.

Recently I love to play with lights and projectors, as well as with new Photoshop tricks a lot. The result is, that I tend to use a plain dark background, to be able to add in some layers and basically try create the background in Photoshop. With additional lights and my new drawing pad it is a lot of fun to play with different brushes and as well even draw parts of it – even if iI really need more practice with that damn pad and pencil. Sometimes It feels even more easy to draw with the computer mouse, even if that sounds ridiculous for those who have more experiences with it.

I always loved strong contrasts. With many of my past pictures I wanted more depth as Second Life had to offer and now finally I found a way how I can do that with some tricks I found in Youtube tutorials. It took a while until they did what I wanted, but for me it was worth the time and I really found new inspiration and motivation with learning new techniques. It felt like unlocking new doors to have more possibilities to achieve what I was looking for a long time. I am still practicing and with every new picture I come closer to what I desire.

I lately was talking to a sweet lady, which I recently feel like a good friend. She does the wonderful sweet and smooth art, which I tried a lot of times but never could do – maybe it just isn’t in me or I did not yet find it… it always feels awkward when I try to do this kind of pictures and moods. She helped me with my tribute for Autumn Rose a lot, as that required exactly that way of art (HERE).

In the past it felt like I would have to have the ability to feature all kind of styles, but the more I turn into my personal favorite direction, the more I feel secure and my pictures do have way more impact  – at least it does feel like that!

I am not saying I will not still try other things, but I took the pressure of myself that I HAVE TO do so. For now I will do enjoy the dark season as much as I can and hope that I can get all my ideas done in time, before the cozy Christmas times will start… or maybe the dark times turn into dark scary “Krismus”? *eyes “The Nightmare before Christmas” DVD over there in the shelf*

Clothing

Outfit: Scandalize – “Nicole Harness” (Maitreya)

Gloves: Wicca’s Originals – “Ryn Gloves (Scales)” (Maitreya)

Stockings: .:Avanti:. – “Ripped Nylons V2” (Maitreya Applier)

Shoes: UTOPIA@Design – “Halloween – V2” (Maitreya)

Accessories

Dragon Skelleton & Spider Legs: Salt & Pepper (S&P) – “The Guardian” – NEW @ Salem

Collar: [CX] – “Hell’s Harbinger (Black Out+Gold)” (Maitreya)

Tounge Piercings: LeLutka – “BDYART-TBRBL” (Bento)

Hair & Makeup

Hair: Salt & Pepper (S&P) – “Medusa Head Dress” (Part of the Outfit Medusa) – NEW @ UBER

Faceart: Nefekalum Tattoos – “Shaman Series – Fire” (Omega Applier) – NEW

Makeup: alaskametro<3 – “Impressionist” (Omega Applier)

Lipstick: Izzie’s – “Black Lipstick” (Maitreya Applier)

Body & Tattoo

Head: LeLutka – “Simone 3.4”

Body: Maitreya – “Lara 4.1”

Eyes: CURELESS[+] – “Seerees Eyes”

Poses, Props & Tools

Poses: Poseidon

Face Animation Tool: LeLutka – “Axis HUD Face 1.1”

Model & Photographer

Wicca Merlin

“Visionaries and dreamers have always been dusted with a little oddity.”

“The key to success is to risk thinking unconventional thoughts. Convention is the enemy of progress.”

[Trevor Baylis]

Today probably is the last chance to visit this incredible, awesome sim if you not yet did! Cica Ghost did it again… she amazed me with one of her installations and over exploring her newest built, I again forgot to take pictures and when she said it will only last a few more days, I really had to make something!

I really think that our RL affects our SL, especially in the creative department. I was kinda paralyzed the past few weeks. I never ever had experienced mobbing at one of my working places before and now, being over 40 I have to learn about that. I still have no clue what the motivation for those people can be, but to me it is just a senseless power game for no reason. Probably just because they can and they are bored in their own little life. A mixture of disappointment, anxiety and anger did really throw me out of place because of that and I had a hard time to be creative while all this bullshit was going on. Now that I do have holidays and started to sort myself again, some creativity seems to come back even if it is weird. Yesterday I already had those weird thoughts about that poor little octopus and today I had the strange vision about taking my goldfish out for a walk. Certain the “Dogwood by Cica Ghost” did parts of that too as I loved the idea, IF iI should take out goldfishes for a walk it does have to be in a super dry and dusted environment to make it even more surreal :p

Both of my quotes, the title and the one below the first picture are from Trevor Baylis. I recently discovered him and I do have to admit, many of his quotes hit right into my soul. He was an English inventor best known for the wind-up radio (LINK). With thinking a lot about myself and the world in general the past weeks, I read a lot of biographies and just let my mind flow over the world wide web finding some really interesting people that I never had heard of before. Reading some of their statements about certain things, really changed my personal visions and thoughts a little. Most of them were not actual celebrities but older ones or some that lived in past centuries, but still their visions do apply to the present tense. I feel weird saying it did help me but some of their thoughts really made me think about myself again and I was able to step out of that weird mood that RL and my work situation had put me in.

Clothing

Dress & Headpiece: Fellini Couture – “Yuko” (Maitreya)

Panty: Scandalize – “Nicole” (Maitreya)

Jacket: [Azuchi] – “Amber Jacket Black” (Maitreya)

Shoes: EQUAL – “Nixie Platforms” (Maitreya)

Accessories

Leg Bands: Gemini – “Sis Leg Bangles” (Maitreya)

Collar: CODEX – “Perception” (Maitreya)

Glasses: HAYSURIZA – “Eyewear Lawyer”

Rings: .:E.A.Studio:. – “Thunderstrike” (Maitreya, Bento)

Nails: FORMANAILS – “Wedding” (Maitreya, Bento)

Hair & Makeup

Hair: .shi – “Kuwn”

Makeup: Look At Me – “Submissibe Eyeshadows” (Omega Applier)

Lipstick: Izzie’s – “Spring Colors Lipgloss” (LeLutka Applier)

Hairbase: Mina Hair – “”Myla” (LeLutka Applier)

Body & Tattoo

Head: LeLutka – “Simone 3.3”

Body: Maitreya – “Lara 4.1”

Ears: .:E.A.Studio:. – “Akasuna”

Tattoo (Leg): Redfish – “Masa” (Maitreya Applier)

Poses & Props

Poses: Poseidon

Fish Props: *[BB] – “The Friendly Fish Companion Set 04” (Gacha)

Location

Dogwood by Cica Ghost

Model & Photographer

Wicca Merlin

Dark Style Christmas

Finally I can post again!

After having my website hacked for nearly a month, we were able to solve the problem. I never would have thought, that the jetpack plugin from wordpress would be an open entrance for bot and hacker attacks… Everytime when I thought we fixed it, I wanted to log in the next day and same cryptic dashoard grinned at me and my own website was telling me I would want to cheat, when I tried to post something as I would not have the permissions to do so.

Lesson learned, jetpack plugin deleted!

Thank you to all of you, who had  patience with me for not being able to post something.

So I am actually a little behind on things, that I wanted to post over all that time and I would like to start the wrap up with one of the styles I made during the Dark Style Fair. I just re-did the pictures and added some newer things to it to make it some more ‘festive’ loooking for the upcoming season 😉

I am not too much of a Christmas fan in general… I do like snow, I like red and black, but all the Jingle Bells music and always when I hear the “All I want for Christmas is You” yelping on the radio I just wanna throw up :p

I have my own Christmas feelings and likings and so I wanted to make a look with some twist on it for my own personal mix of dark style and Christmas :p

I used a lot of different parts to mix and match my todays look. The jacket I found at COCO, the top is from Scandalize, the corset with the cool warp around and ribbon I found at Paperdoll’s, while the pants are a part of the amazing “Y6” collection from [sYs].

I do love mix and match a lot, even if it became significantly harder, since mesh is on the grid as layering different designers can be a real hard challenge if the clothing is not meant to go with each other.

The “Leisha” choker from Salt & Pepper ran right in to my heart when I saw it :p I love the look of the 2 skeleton hands, that wrap their bony fingers around your neck 😉 While I went through my headpiece & hats folder I came across the “Dia De Los Muertos Hat” from .AiShA. with the same cool grabby bone fingers holding the top of the hat!

If I would wash off the blood from my top and take off the eye patch, I really could see me going out on a christmas party *snickers*

What I really had to do for this post, is a close up for the shoes… I LOVE the eye for details, that UTOPIA puts on their designs. You can see every seam, every fold and the typical used spots that you get with leather shoes usually. I just could sit and stare at the shoes for hours and discover all their love to the realistic scale and details. Since the other pics did not show even a hint of the shoes I thought they deserve a close view 😉

I hope you had fun with my first ‘catch up post’, there will be more over the next days 😉

Details

Outfit & Accessories:

Jacket: *COCO* – “Jacket Over Shoulders”

Pants: [sYs] – “Y6 Pants” (Maitreya)

Top: Scandalize – “Good Night”

Corset & Bracers: …:PD:… – “Cadaveric Doll” (Maitreya)

Shoes: UTOPIA@Design – “Tera” (Maitreya)

Hat: .AiShA. – “Dia De Los Muertos Hat Red Moon”

Eyepatch: *elise* – “Chiara”

Bracelet: BEO – “Day of the Dead”

Rings: V.R. – “Dia De Los Muertos Rings” (Maitreya)

Nails/Claws: MEVA – “Bento Claws” (Maitreya)

Choker: Salt & Pepper – “Lisha” (Maitreya)

Hair & Makeup:

Hair: EMO-tions – “Thea”

Face Art: .ARISE. – “Death Mask” (Omega Applier)

Body & Tattoos:

Head: LeLutka – “Simone 3.0”

Body: Maitreya – “Lara 4.1”

Tattoo: PICHI – “Mexicannos Tattoo” (Maitreya Applier)

Poses & Props:

Poses:

Wicca’s Wardrobe

Props:

Curtain: [Cb] – “Cornice Drapes Free Hanging Closed Satin”

Skull & Candles: Ariskea – “Muertos Skull Candle & Flower”

Model & Photographer:

Wicca Merlin