For the HOARD! ~ Love is in the Details

I'm back! I didn't go anywhere but I had a bit of an artistic block putting this outfit together, not helped by the disaster of SL chewing up and spitting out my castle, so I've been busy remodelling the place. It now has a waterfall grotto and a lot of alien plants, which are prime examples of how artistic people can be with raw tortured prims - from back in the day before mesh and sculpts (or even flexis!) - but also of how many prims they take up in your parcel allowance. My six Shiny Things exotic plants combine to 50 prims, so although I love them, I never really had the space for them until now. Opportunity out of crisis indeed!

I have a lot of Finesmith jewellery, because her designs are fabulous, but mostly I go for things in the sales as her prices are also pretty fabulous; but she is a very generous as well as talented designer with frequent sales and hunts. I picked up a lovely pair of earrings on sale in May last year, spun from driftwood and cubic beads and little glass hearts; now, almost exactly a year later (remember I'm still blogging my May purchases - this is not a 'what's on sale right now' kind of blog!) I finally had the cash to buy necklace and bracelet to match. I didn't bother with the ring as I don't often wear them.

I also picked up the month's group gift from my favourite dress designer, Purple Moon, and decided it would set off the jewellery very well, but couldn't quite get the hair right. This morning I decided to catalogue (i.e. photograph) my Crazy Ass Hair Hunt prizes as there are so many, and they are so varied and outlandish, that there's really no other way of remembering what they are all like; and doing this, I found the perfect complement to the outfit, a style which is both striking and simple, setting off rather than outperforming the jewellery and adding to the classic elegance of the dress.

Scenery: [AD] 'Nerissa' Forgotten Cascade and Fallingwater Cellardoor (Shiny Things) Crazy Tulip

The tulips are the least exotic of the bunch, which include animated bug eaters, spore pushers and an odd sort of serpent vine with petalled maw - I'll show them in another post. The surrounding cave and other visible plants are all from [Angelic Designs] too. It's my Go-To store!

PurpleMoon 'Aria' dress (mesh gown, flexi skirts).

Finesmith 'Love is in the Details' necklace with 

'Love Doesn't Grow on Trees' earrings and bracelet.  'Lady Saelanar' hair 

by Sky Everett Designs for CAHH 2010.

Al Vulo 'Debbie' Ohh Deer Chantilly (promo) skin
with White~Widow 'Petals' face paint and KOSH 'Sweet Lips'.

Finesmith 'Love Doesn't Grow on Trees' bracelet and 

'Illustrated' SLink enhanced nail polish (purchased in June).

I had to be artistic with this shot and cut it up a bit, because the thumb of my hand was partially obscured inside my hip, and somehow looked like I had been struck with a Withering curse; there was no way anyone short of a Photoshop genius was going to repair it.

No, really, look D:

My poor, withered thumb!

This is why a lot of people are buying mesh hands, but that just adds yet another nightmare of skin matching and position-tinkering each time I use a pose, and I've always liked how the default hands are done in SL, with a lot of animation potential. Too much mesh and we're all going to look like a clone army of shop window mannequins - if anything can be seen of us at all for the LOD lag! Don't get me wrong, I do love mesh - I own enough of it! - but it has its drawbacks. I think I'll stick with the default skeleton for a while yet, cursed thumbs and knobbly knees and elbows notwithstanding.

~ : ~