For the HOARD! ~ Harpiya Knight

This is something of a landmark post, as it concludes my gifts and purchases for the merry month of May. I wrote most of this post about 6 weeks ago but then never got around to finishing, as I haven't been in SL much; there doesn't seem much point any more with nobody around to talk to; but I still have so much STUFF to blog! Or at least to stick up on Flickr. I might just do that from now on as there's a massive backlog to get through.

Snake Plisskin, Human Ambassador, with his assigned Protector
for diplomatic talks with the Harpy Nation

I'm showcasing three things in this post, which I assembled into a little story scenario, of sorts, with the help of a friend to pose. Another friend, Jon Nielsen; the very person who got me into SL; had sent me two gifts. The first was a build of his own, 'Silk Road', a sumptuously decorated skybox in Arabian Nights style. It isn't yet available but will be sold by Jon's Ancient Treasures, which will still have a prize up for the September Renaissance Hunt for one more day if your fancy is tickled! (Not the skybox, just to be clear.)

Jon's second gift was a set of harpy attachment parts from !deviousMind, 'Harpiya' Spirits of the Sky made for the February Fantasy Gacha Carnival, including wings, tail and birdleg boots. The textures of these make use of the new materials, which are a bit of a mystery to me, but they do make for some gorgeous effects under lighting.

The third thing was a July purchase, the PurpleMoon mesh outfit 'The White Knight' from the Month of Games event, which has beautiful flower piecework and a fine sword. This was the outfit which tempted me to the event, but as you know from a previous post, I ended up with two Chess themed outfits! Although I had to leave the skirt off to show the harpy legs, I thought this dress was the perfect complement to both the Harpy warrior and the skybox.

The Ambassador's assigned Protector makes a grand entrance.

Diplomatic guests are not permitted weapons, nor bodyguards of their own choosing, but they need not fear for their safety while in Harpy territory. Harpy Knights live by a strict code of honour and are sworn to protect whomsoever they are assigned, without personal bias. Such a knight would fight to the death, even to protect a charge who abused his diplomatic status and turned against his hosts. Their dedication to their code is as unswerving as their ferocity, but there is a cautionary note. 

Fair but deadly.

There is a chilling legend of a merchant trader who used his invitation to trespass into the Royal Quarters and steal a Harpy egg. His assigned Protector safe-guarded his passage all the way out of Harpy lands, shielding him from the furious onslaught of the Palace Guard, though she herself was sorely wounded in their flight. The robber, not knowing everything he should of Harpy ways, enjoyed the irony of the Knight's protection right to the border; where, the moment he stepped foot outside Harpy jurisdiction, and the remit of her code of honour, his former Protector turned upon him and rent him into bloody pieces for his betrayal. This was deemed a righteous action, even though the trader dropped the egg he carried and an unborn Princess of the Royal Line was killed in the name of vengeance.

This last shot shows the effect of lighting on material textures in the wings, giving them a lovely rainbow iridescence.


~ Outfit Credits ~

!deviousMind Carnival of Wonders 'Harpiya' Spirits of the Sky (from the Feb Fantasy Gacha Carnival) ~ wings, tail & bird legs or 'hooker boots' as the creator likes to call them!

PurpleMoon 'The White Knight' dress from the July Month of Games Chess section, incorporating mesh skirt, top & sleeves, gauzy flexi drapes, sword, flowered face mask and belt flowers.

Schadenfreude 'A Doomed Flock' bird skull jewellery from a past event (Taxidermia).

Grendel's Children 'Harpy' avatar head feathers (v.2) & skin, eyes & ears (v.3).

ContraptioN 'Carnivorous Jaw' toothy smile.


Puppy manicured claws (with wide range of colour options on HUD).

~ : ~

For the HOARD! ~ Gryphon

You all know I love dragons most; but I have a secondary spot for gryphons in my heart. I think it's the combination of big cat and eagle, both beautiful, magnificent predators, coupled with my love of chimaeras. (A dolphin is also a beautiful, magnificent predator, but a half cat, half dolphin would... well okay, I had to go and google this and I did find quite a fine fish specimen, but I prefer the aerial mix.)

I have found many fine dragon avatars on SL but for some reason, never until now did I find a satisfactory gryphon. They were all too cartoony or too chunky for my tastes. Seawolf, the makers of the sim-sized sculpt-prim dragons (I have one of the smaller versions) have done a gryphon, and done it proud. 

Soaring: Seawolf Adult Gryphon v1.2 (L$2400)

A friend had one and when I saw it, I just had to get it. The beast has interchangeable parts so you can make it the standard eagle-cat (as in the first two images), eagle-wolf or eagle-horse (hippogriff) or simply a normal big cat or wolf, with or without wings. It has very smooth, natural looking walk, run and flight motion and lots of small detail such as talkjaw, twitchy ears and idle scratching. It also has the most complex HUD I have ever seen, with several coat texture changes, eye, ear and muzzle shapes, a huge range of cool animations (chase tail, pounce, rear etc.), sounds, even hand positioning for a bipedal furry variant I didn't try out.

Nesting (nest included)

Hippogriff! (Rear hooves and horse tail; note the long ears)

Winged panther

Wolf, drinking at neighbour's waterfall (land owned by a wolf pack...)

It is gorgeous but it has a couple of issues. For one, every time you change between poses - standing to sitting or flying - the legs and wings switch out to a second set, with a script to turn the unused set invisible. This is standard practice with this kind of avatar, because you can't animate prims the way you can the default (human) SL skeleton. The problem with the gryphon is that it uses sculpts, and the load on my graphics card each time it switches is pretty intense; and I have a good computer. I get graphics lag - parts not switching out properly and leaving untidy feathers sticking out where they shouldn't be, or missing bits of limbs. I know it isn't the scripts because other observers see differently. This is obviously not ideal, but I haven't checked it since raising the LOD above 4, which might help; and it's possible I could do with a new fan for my graphics card. 

A second, more minor issue is that every time I play the sounds, there is a distinctive button click before each vocalisation, which rather spoils the effect. Not sure what is causing that but I think it may be a recording artefact they missed. I need to do a bit more experimentation and then get in touch with the creators to see if they have any advice. But on the whole I am still very happy with my gryphon and the high, but fair, price I paid for it (nearly $10 real money). I just hope any update fixes come free..!

~ : ~

For the HOARD! ~ Finesmith ~ Bathing Beauty I

More Finesmith, this one 'Danit', a mesh swimsuit in yellow with a texture change jewellery set to go with it; again using my new gold merrow avatar (because, seaside!). Not really much to say for this post, just pictures of me enjoying myself in the sun - and I have to say, I am LOVING how good my feet look now in all these shots :D The teeth could fit a little better though - I think when I changed shapes to fit the suit, there was a slight misalignment. I'll have to check the shape I wore for those and see what to tweak.

Wheeeee!

Leaping into a rubber ring floaty at my neighbours' on the Foxkin Estates. They buzzed my castle in an army helicopter when I first arrived, but I haven't seen hide nor hair of them since. Maybe I can entice them out by playing on their parcel *g*.

Lookit dat pout!

I have these surfboards too, from What Next, great low-prim beach props. The beach is at Envious, a shopping sim I found through Implings (of all places!) and not Finesmith.

Formal beach attire. Dragons wear jewellery everywhere.

The jewellery looks great with a little glow (menu driven) and you can choose from a variety of different gem colours.

Chillin' in the sunshine.

Continuing to look good in a side shot lying down; I noticed some animations on loungers (elsewhere) were pushing my abdomen up and out of the mesh, which was not pretty, and with a suit in this style you couldn't alpha it out. Wearers of split-front mesh, beware of awkward animations!

If I sound less than usually enthusiastic in this post, it's because I didn't realise the jewellery was colour-change and so I bought this set for the yellow jewels; there was another swimsuit I would have preferred, had I known, although yellow is pretty too. And it wasn't very expensive. It certainly looks good on me!

~ : ~

For the HOARD! ~ Finesmith ~ Top to Toe

Going back to early May purchases, and a pair of mesh boots from Finesmith which I'd been pining over since they first came out (they can now only be found on the marketplace). I also ventured into the store after some pieces to complete a jewellery set, and inevitably came away with a couple more items than I had intended, including the Bar Tiara already shown on my teeth post - and taking pride of (second) place on my new Flickr icon. 

Boots are generally worn with trousers, an unusual form of dress for me, so I had to play around to get an outfit I was happy with. I just happened to be wearing an avatar I made for the Colour Challenge as I tried the boots on, and continued to tinker until it was transformed; same species, but a wilder, sassier, more modern look. And a colour change. Don't ask how I fit those big clawed feet into the boots...

Merrow ~ Spring Fresh

Finesmith 'Fresh' Boots (spring)
Finesmith 'Lika' Porphyra jewellery
Silky drape top by Lillith Anatine

This gorgeous mesh top was made by my friend Lily. It is tintable, and makes use of the new materials texturing so that you can set it to shine with different coloured highlights. It is a backless halter-top so there is plenty of room for wings, spines or other spinal adornments.

Additional Items:
BySnow Sea Sprite skin (starfish) with anglerfish lure & body spines
Rue Horn'd/Diver: Zexmenia
*TSM* Laurel of Water (pearls) & Swansong S.E. Elemental Earth eyes
Schadenfreude Mer-Elf ears
ContraptioN Carnivorous Jaw
Grendel's Children Uthgolian Dragon head fins
Sweet Antidote makeup 'deep blue sea' (gold)
Livid Nosferatu's (sculpted) claws; store gift
Diva Designs gold trim jeans (from 2007)
My own belly claw-ring
L&E solar & lunar armbands

~ : ~

All Ponied Up!

Wishing everyone a Happy New Year after my looong hiatus (goodness I last posted back in June..!) - the reasons for which being, 1) we found, bought and moved into a new house, our VERY OWN and first ever place :D and 2) partly due to that but mostly for other reasons, I haven't been in Second Life.

Anyway, the Bean has become a huge My Little Pony fan and we found an online pony creator, so I made myself and thought I'd put it up here for posterity. Note the toothy smile and slit pupilled eye }:=8>

~ Alicorn Fledhyris Dragonfire ~

The program is http://www.dolldivine.com/mlp-fim-pony-creator.php if you want a go yourself - you can make a lot of ponies from the show too, but you have to download and import the cutie marks (Google images is your friend). You can't see mine very clearly but it's a stylised, flaming dragon head. Of course. (Creative Commons licence from http://tattoos-and-doodles.blogspot.co.uk.)

I might just be tempted to come back into SL to customise this avatar... I could use the Grendel's Nightmare for the base but it's a lot chunkier. If anyone knows of a moddable, graceful, full-quad horse/unicorn/pegasus avatar, especially one in mesh, please let me know!

Health and happiness to all my friends ^.^

For the Hoard! April - Week 2b - Bee Fair

Continuing the record of my mammoth SL purchasing spree in April, which I have now decided to split into three posts as I bought so many things that week (first post on Tekeli-li jewellery here; there is a set in this one too).

So, Rudh casually mentioned that she had been to the Bee Faire. My reaction - at least internally, I may have been too excited to type - went something like:

"OMG THERE IS A BEE FAIRE? WITH BEES? LOTS AND LOTS OF SHINY THINGS I CAN BUY WHICH ARE ALL BEE RELATED? ARE YOU SERIOUZZZ? 8)"

As you will gather, I like bees. Not as much as dragons, by a long way, but still. They are cute and fuzzy and sunny and yellow and incredibly fascinating insects, whose worth both to the environment and the human economy has been considerably underestimated (to our cost, as the world is currently experiencing an alarming decline in honeybee numbers). In summary: BEES! So I immediately demanded a taxi to said faire, donned my Queen Bee outfit and spent another large chunk of Lindens.

The faire itself - titled Bees Through the Seasons - was beautifully set up, with all the shops in giant beehives in a flowering meadow and pretty bunting and (obviously) bees everywhere. The items on offer were delightful (as evidenced by the amount I bought) although a little pricey in some cases. It could really have done with a landmark and info provider, because I had no idea how long the fair would last and ended up missing the deadline for when blogging would help others to buy - after which further delay was irrelevant. So I hope items are still available in their respective stores, but if not, I'm sorry - blame the fair organisers, not me, for this one!

Actually it seems there was some sort of conspiracy not to promote any future trade, because only ONE of the four designers I bought from included a lm to their mainstore! Honestly, and people wonder why their business isn't flourishing...

My bee queen, treated to a (fourth) set of Tekeli-li jewellery, the 'Danae' collection. I am at the Hopscotch stall on their 'My Buzzy Friend' posing flower (which I didn't buy, but has several nice poses). Just to be clear, Tekeli-li was not at the fair; I just had to showcase this set here because it suited my bee queen so much.

Jewellery in detail (Danae headpiece, earrings, bracelets; bikini flexi-belt below). I didn't buy the necklace or bikini top as they were a little too heavily ornate for my liking; it's good that you can mix and match pieces from each collection, or buy the whole set at a discount. I think the design looks almost like stylised insects (bees, since I coloured it yellow). 

The little wings aren't part of the Danae headband, they belong to the bee outfit. The honeycomb necklace is from Bewildebeest, which sadly has closed. Note that I am wearing my Fae shape, I have elongated and enlarged the eyes for a more exotic appearance. The eyelashes were murder to mod-fit a second time!

Outside HANDverk, whose gorgeous ruffle parasol I could NOT resist; also the matching beehive jewellery (the parasol has a beehive pommel!) - this time in a slightly dressed down avatar, with 'Oh Honey!' striped tights, oozey honey mess layer & bees knees patches combo, 'bee on yer nose' pose & attachment all from Sugar Heart.

If you got the fatpack of tights you also got some prim bees to crawl up the honey spill, but they were flowered tights and I didn't like them. I was sort of sad I couldn't get the bees separately but pretty sure I can make my own out of something and at a distance they just looked like black specks anyway (or so I console myself! I was having to be very strict with my finances by this point).

Another gratuitously show-off pose, this one at Olive - I would have liked to have bought it but the fair ended by the time I could come back with more money. It shows my lovely boots, which were not bought with the outfit in mind but complement it perfectly. The black thing sticking up out of my rear and through my wings is not a tail, it is a stinger. I'm a bee fairy!

Look, I've got a bee on my nose! Close-up to show nose bee from Sugar Heart and beehive jewellery from HANDverk. The bee is a prop for a set of poses (including this one) showing various states of excitement over having - a bee on your nose! Really zooming in shows that the bee has a little daisy on its head ^.^

I just HAD to have this 'Peaceful Daisy' collection from Noodles - necklace, earrings and flower crown - but they were quite pricey and I later found the daisy wreath from Shar's Design (posted for May Week One, yes the posts are out of order, there was a lot to do!) and I'm sorry to say that I think the Shar's Design wreath is a much prettier build (and a great deal cheaper!) so if I'd found that first I might not have bought the wreath in this set. Still, at least it matches, and it is pretty. The peace pose is by Frooti.

Last but not least, is this glowing filigree bee necklace (with matching hair slides) by O.M.E.N. They had several designs and at L$88 were easily both the best and the cheapest item at the fair, in my view; Rudh bought me this one, and I had to show it in close-up for the amazing detail. I had to employ every ounce of self control I possess not to buy several others (because really, this was the best suited to me, and when would I ever find time to wear them all?) It is absolutely gorgeous, and if I had to have only one thing from the bee fair it would be this, so thank you sissypoo! x

I must mention that O.M.E.N. gets lots of Brownie points, not only for the best/most cost effective item but for actually including a lm to their mainstore, which the others neglected to do - I have linked everyone to all stores but I had to put in a bit of research to find the other lms! However, O.M.E.N. lose a few points due to making a box that, although gorgeous to look at, was practically unopenable - the jewellery is no copy, so the inventory transfer script didn't work and you couldn't edit-drag them out while wearing the box. I had to find a sandbox to rez and drag everything out manually, then go back to the faire. I think designers ought to beware of this no-copy transfer bug, because some people may be careless and delete a package, thinking it has unpacked when it hasn't.

I would say 'roll on summer' but I am scared. MOAR BEES @.@ Though bees seem to have more of a spring/summer combined feeling for me, and how they will even fit into a winter theme, when bees normally hibernate, I don't know! In any event, the organisers need to work on getting the word out, because I don't have the slightest clue about dates :P If I discover when the next one runs I'll let you know. If I'm not running hard in the opposite direction while my wallet screams blue murder...

~: :~

~: Store Links for Items :~

Jewellery: Danae by Tekeli-li
Beehive set and Ruffle Parasol by HANDverk
Peaceful Daisy set by Noodles
Spring Bee Gem ~ Silver Lily by O.M.E.N.

Sugar Heart - 'Oh honey!' Oozey honey mess, mixmeup BEE-eautiful spring tights (sheer ~ striped knees) Bees Knees patches & Bee on yer nose pose set

White~Widow face tattoo 'Fee' (butterflies) bought at Gypset Market

Other items purchased in 2008 and not likely to be on sale any more (but you never know!)

Fancy Fairy Queen Bee outfit incl. fur shrug, scripted flutter wings and winged crown
and 'Marilyn Sun' skin - orange lips

Kitties Lair 'Venice' boots in brown (tinted)

Deadly Nightshade Design Marmelade contacts

ETD 'Casual' hair - short, copper (store now known as [e] )

Grendel's Children Wasp Pet (on shoulder)

Antennae and sting by me (if you like them I'll be happy to give you a copy :)

~: :~

For the Hoard! April - Week 2a - Tekeli-li

This week is the reason I am so behind with my April posts. I went a bit nuts and spent a whole month's savings, plus another week's stipend borrowed from Rudh, on two sales. That equates to a LOT of items, and a lot of outfit and photo preparation. I want to showcase them all but I don't want everyone's eyes to glaze over, so I'm splitting this week into two posts.

~: TEKELI-LI! :~

Prompting my purchasing rampage was the news that Tekeli-li, one of my favourite exotic stores, was having a downsizing sale. Now, it has to be said that I want just about everything he makes, so I have to try to be sensible. However, a 50% sale is like a candle to a moth; add in the fact that he said he would be retiring some "older stock" - but not which stock. (Cunning, eh?) I immediately bought up everything I'd had half an eye on which could conceivably go; including several sets of sculpted lanterns which I won't bother to blog because you can't get them now anyway (his furnishings range was a definite retiree and I half suspect he will remake them in mesh, which will be lower prim and thus more suitable to my small parcel, but oh well). 

Since this whole post is going to be about his creations, I may as well combine it with something I've wanted to do for a while, which is to showcase my favourite designers. His sim was gorgeous, very beautiful in an alien way, and I'm very sad to see it go; you can see a little of what it was like in my Colour Challenge: Patina post from last year. I don't know why he has scaled down, one would imagine sim costs, though when I IM'ed my regrets he replied that it wasn't so much that he was forced to give it up as that LL had given him the opportunity. Very Zen and mysterious. Almost immediately after his announcement, another favourite designer, Epic Toy Factory closed - rather abruptly! - for good, and I started having paranoid panic attacks that LL had done something heinous and forced out a wave of designers. I only recently discovered ETF and I'm really sad that it's gone, but I'm glad Tekeli-li remains, even if it's on a much smaller parcel.

I bought 4 whole sets of jewellery, as well as some other items, at the sale and will showcase three of them here (the fourth set is perfectly suited to the main theme of the next post). I love Tekeli-li creations for several reasons, and I think my purchases show why. They are beautiful and intricately made; they are versatile, because each piece has texture and colour change scripting, or you can mod them yourself if the default colours aren't quite to your liking; and they are exotic. Everything he makes is a work of art and perfect for any fantasy setting or roleplay, from the fae to the monstrous. His inspiration comes largely from SFF works, in particular the horror paradigm of H.P. Lovecraft; he has a special affinity for the undersea races; and George R. R. Martin's unfinished epic Game of Thrones (he has begun making mesh jewellery to represent the royal Houses of that world and his first set was kraken based, for House Greyjoy of the Iron Islands). Although many of the elements of his craft could be considered horrific, they are so stylised and intricate that they evoke admiration rather than repulsion. In any case, it is best to let the pieces speak for themselves, so here they are: three jewellery sets to complement three very different and (in two cases) unique avatars.

~: Orange Blossom Dryad :~

Jewellery and prim-kini ~ Flora ~ by Tekeli-li

Poses ~ Changes ~ by Ma Vie for the Attic (April)

Purchased on 30th April, the last day of that theme at the Attic but a Tuesday [pay day] and so technically the first purchasing week of May; yes, I posed for these shots long after I bought the jewellery! I had a lot to do. The poses may still be available at Ma Vie mainstore.

Wheee, I'm an orange tree!

Plucking fruit

Pensive - maybe thinking about the environment?

One of the things I LOVE about Tekeli-li is that his prim bikinis fit me perfectly. I only have to adjust them very slightly on the movement arrows. When I think of all the time and trouble I have taken in the past on very inferior quality primkinis..! (Not actually that much, because I just didn't bother.) I purchased this Flora set, the full jewellery (necklace, headpiece, earrings and bracelets) and bikini, as a treat for my dryad. 

The flower petals, butterfly wings, leaves and connecting metal parts all change colour separately, so you could make it any colour combination you wanted. It works by simple chat command and all pieces respond to the same command so you can change the whole set in a few lines; there is a notecard with a wide choice of colours. Because of the colour change versatility, you wouldn't want to descript the items, but Tekeli-li promises low lag scripts (though I probably wouldn't go changing things during a high traffic event!) Of course, as with all his items, the set is copy/mod so you can tinker happily if that is your thing; I must admit to being an inveterate tinker, there is hardly a thing I own that I haven't messed about with in some way, but his jewellery really doesn't need it. I did tint the flexisilks on the bikini orange to match (they are the only unscripted part). 

Obviously I went with orange to complement my skin, and then looked for somewhere lovely to take pictures. The Botanical Gardens is a beautiful public sim and I soon found orange trees to make my new floral dryad feel at home. For details on the rest of the dryad avatar, please see my Colour Challenge: Wales post.

~: Lionfish Mermaid :~

Jewellery ~ Eldritch ~ Tekeli-li (purchased at sale)

Helm/hair ~ Kraken ~ Tekeli-li (purchased at sale)

ni.ju tintable claws

Avatar ~ Lionfish Deep One (reddish female) ~ Tekeli-li 
Full avatar with shape (but I used my own), skin, eyes, all fin/spine parts shown, spear and net, fishy shoulder pet and swimming AO. Also comes with a very pretty but unscripted set of seashell jewellery, which I exchanged for the Eldritch set.

Hunter of the Deep

I'm amused that in my previous post I was all dressed in pink, and then I made a completely different avatar, all wild and monsterish, and it's STILL pink! Tekeli-li gave me the avatar a long time ago and she is just the model for the new hair and jewellery. I took these pictures at the Ordovician [prehistoric] reef beneath his shop, which used to be a satellite and is now his main store. 

The Eldritch jewellery set comprises necklace, bracelets, earrings and a headpiece (not worn due to the  Kraken helm). The angry looking little squids are actually representations of Great Cthulhu, and if you don't know who he is, that's probably for the best! The hairstyle has a stylised squid (kraken) helmet with colour change on the eyes, suckers, connective (here, copper) and central (here, black) metal parts. The tentacular 'hair' is scripted to writhe gently, although you can turn this off, and is available in several colour packs (not colour-change scripted); I purchased the Neutrals pack because the light grey lends itself to tinting, as I did here (told you I like tinkering!) It was quite fiddly to make sure all the hair was tinted and avoid changing the helmet, so if you can't be bothered, just pick the best colour pack to suit your needs. 

Apart from my own shape and the ni.ju claws, everything on this avatar is from Tekeli-li and 'as is' (except for tinting the hair) so it isn't particularly creative on my part, but I think it looks great and makes a very interesting and animalistic mermaid. 

~: Eater of Souls :~

Jewellery ~ Pnath ~ Tekeli-li
Bloodlight Daggers ~ Tekeli-li
Hair/horns ~ Efreet ~ Tekeli-li (previous purchase)
(see credits below for everything else).

Something wicked this way comes...

And like a thunderbolt she falls...

The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!

Detail.

I went to town on this avatar. I call it my Soul Eater, the dark version of my Shinigami (Death Spirit) from the Colour Challenge: Ghost White. Essentially the same creature, the Soul Eater specialises in taking the souls of the wicked, and consumes them. Note how the skin, eyes and mouth are the same on both avatars, though the Soul Eater's eye-teeth are bloody from devouring its prey. The eyes are based on the Corinthian, a [literal] nightmare of Neil Gaiman's creation in his Sandman graphic novels, one of my favourite works of fiction. I found the perfect gothic setting at the HQ for the Woeful Wednesday macabre sales collective, at Hobbs End (Woeful Wednesday, as you might expect, features a bunch of my favourite designers) and used one of the new Phototools windlight sky settings, Jessica Light 04, which shrouds everything at a distance in fog. I'm not too impressed with most of these new settings, which aren't a patch on the old standards, but I do like the fog effect.

The Pnath jewellery set was perfect for this avatar, though because of the cloak, you couldn't see the necklace. I enlarged it and set it around my waist as a girdle instead, and used a high posture collar with ankh detail from Rasetsukoku to set off the neckline. As usual with Tekeli-li jewellery, this set comprises bracelets, earrings and a headpiece as well. The eye in the middle of each piece moves around as though alive and watching! 

The hair, horns and hairpin knife (which I also used on the Shinigami, minus the horns) are a combined style called Efreet, very suitable to a demonic look. You could use a hairbase tattoo if you didn't want to look bald, or fit it to another hairstyle as I did with the Shinigami. The knife is scripted to draw/sheathe, switching between the hair dagger and a hand-held version. The two Bloodlight daggers at my waist are likewise scripted to draw (held in the hands) and sheathe, are mod so you can add your own weapon scripts, and have a lovely animated, flickering effect in the blade texture which of course would not show on a still photo. I don't fight in SL, but I do have a penchant for bladed weapons and have a collection of esoteric swords. These daggers make a very nice addition to the collection. All the items are shown with their default colours, which match the skin and outfit, but are colour change just like all Tekeli-li products.

In total I used items from 11 different stores to make this avatar, two of which unfortunately are no longer around. Besides Tekeli-li, the credits go to:-

Pose ~ Divinely Naughty angel pose set ~ Juicy
Skin ~ Fear (in goth) ~ Frick @Saint Helene
Eyes ~ "Corinthian" stained contacts ~ Nomine
Mouth ~ Shark Teeth ~ ContraptioN
Tongue ~ Forked tentacle tongue ~ DMMDI (store doesn't seem to exist anymore)
Outfit ~ Soul Eater Lady ~ Bare@Rose
Collar ~ Unseelie Collar ~ Rasetsukoku (hunt prize)
Feet ~ Harpy Myth Boots ~ Lazy Places (store doesn't seem to exist anymore)
Claws ~ Bloodsilver Talons ~ HEX - Get Nailed!
Wings ~ Aurora particle wings ~ by Coadey Concord (free, full perms)

The Aurora wings are absolutely mesmerising wings with around a dozen preset values in varying patterns and colours, but if you are confident you can tweak the values to create your own style. These were the first wings I ever bought on SL, for my [then main] alt account. They have since been released onto the marketplace for free, and I would be happy to give a set to anyone who wants them.

~: A final shout-out to this amazing designer :~

No more pictures! But at a rough count, including the aforementioned items, I have accumulated 14 jewellery sets including 3 matched bikinis; 15 hairstyles; 5 avatars (2 Starspawn, 3 Deep Ones of differing fish species); 2 monster sculptures, a throne, countless lanterns & various odds and ends! I think it's fair to say that Tekeli-li holds a good sized chunk of real estate in my inventory, and I used his hair and/or jewellery in several of my Colour Challenge posts last year:

Coral mermaid, Bright Turquoise Mystic Mog, Pistachio Deep One Elder Priestess (the Star Spawn staff had to make an appearance), Unmellow Yellow Twi'lek dancer, some earrings sneaked onto my Royal Blue Cyberpunk Angel, Ghost White Shinigami (as mentioned), and Tangelo Phoenix Dancer for the "Alluvium" abstract mesh set which is a newer and rather simpler (but still gorgeous) style - and pretty nearly all that I am wearing! ;)

Tekeli-li you are a fabulous, incomparably talented designer and I hope you never leave us. Thank you for the artistic joy your many builds have brought to me.

~: :~

...the nightmare, plastic column of fetid black iridescence, oozed tightly onward through its fifteen-foot sinus, gathering unholy speed and driving before it a spiral, rethickening cloud of pallid abyss vapor. It was a terrible, indescribable thing vaster than any subway train - a shapeless congeries of protoplasmic bubbles, faintly self-luminous, and with myriads of temporary eyes forming and unforming as pustules of greenish light all over the tunnel-filling front that bore down on us, crushing the frantic penguins and slithering over the glistening floor that it and its kind had swept so evilly free of all litter. Still came that eldritch, mocking cry: 'Tekeli-li! Tekeli-li!'
-- H.P. Lovecraft, At the Mountains of Madness (1936)

I am extremely cross with the studio execs for passing over Guillermo Del Toro's At The Mountains of Madness (based on the HP Lovecraft story which features Shoggoths and their endless "Tekeli-li!" chanting). This, according to rumour, was due partly to Prometheus bearing a certain superficial resemblance (hey; HP Lovecraft wrote in the early 1900s! Whose story should get priority?) and partly to Del Toro insisting it live up to an R rating; which is blatantly hypocritical [of the execs], since Prometheus is rated R. Frankly, if a horror film isn't an R one has to wonder if there is any point to it. I hope he does manage to make it at some point.

~: :~

Zombies and skeletons and CREEPERS, oh my!

HALP! Creeper on my house!

Post #2 as promised! This one will probably leave most readers going 'huh?' but it's an attempt to explain what I've been up to since not coming into SL these past months.

My little boy, who will be 5 in a week's time, likes to browse YouTube for computer game reviews, which feature commentary with video of the gameplay. He discovered Minecraft this way, which is a very popular game because it isn't just about fighting monsters, it also has a creative and social element just like SL. He really wanted to try it and I let him have a go, even though I thought it might be a bit difficult for him. Turns out I was wrong, he is a whiz - at least with building and fighting, he isn't so great at resource gathering and conservation, but that's what mummies are for ;-) I got hooked too, and another SL friend set up a multiplayer server, to which I have now attracted three more friends from SL! It's like I am spearheading a mass exodus, muahahaha *ahem*. Anyway, Bean loves playing on his own in Creative mode, where you can just build without worrying about resources or monsters, or dying when you fall off the roof; but he especially loves to come adventuring with me on the server, despite the fact that we frequently die in horrible ways. More about that, and creepers, in a moment, but I will explain a bit more about the game first.

The creative element of Minecraft is that you get to build things, just like in SL but with NO PRIM LIMITS!!! although there are very few shapes to work with and you can't individually texture things. There are also no space limits as you have a whole world to explore, with computer generated terrain equivalent to the surface area of Neptune (so you really can't complain of being cramped). Another fun element of the game is that you have to go out and gather your resources from the world around you instead of simply rezzing what you want, so for example if you want to build a wooden house, you must make an axe and chop down trees; if you want to build with stone, you have to make a pickaxe and go mining. This is where the monster fighting comes in, because during every night cycle of the game, they spawn in the wilderness and come to get you. Some of them also hang around during the day, and since it is always dark underground, there are always monsters when you go mining. It helps to have armour, but iron ore is underground, so that you have to encounter more monsters while finding it, a somewhat circular scenario especially since your armour wears out and you keep having to craft a new set -- though in theory, if you play with friends, you could stick to a purely building and farming role and let them do all the dangerous work bringing home materials. You have to farm to generate food for survival, as hunger also plays a part in the game and you don't heal up on an empty belly.

Anyway, this brings us to the monsters, and specifically, the pictured avatar. (Bet you were wondering when we'd get to that.) The game has your typical zombies, skeletons and giant spiders - and big cubic slimes that bounce on you, which Bean loves attacking - but by some accidental* stroke of genius, the game creator also came up with one of the best monsters ever (imho). They are called Creepers, and they are totally silent and, in the dark (and particularly among trees) very well camouflaged. They scuttle up to you soundlessly on their four shuffling feet, and when they get within range, they explode. This obviously isn't good for your health, though not fatal if you are wearing armour, but it has an extremely annoying side effect. The explosion doesn't just damage you; it takes out everything within blast range,   carving craters in the ground, destroying your buildings, letting in flood water, or knocking out bridges and dropping you hundreds of meters down into a chasm - or worse, when you're deep underground, a lake of lava. The only warning you have of this impending doom is the soft 'psssss' of a primed creeper just seconds before it goes off - enough time, if you aren't backed into a corner, to sprint in the opposite direction and at least escape the worst. You could probably walk around in real life and determine the Minecraft players by sneaking up on people and going 'psssss!' behind them; the ones who leap forward like Olympic sprinters are a sure bet.

*It really was accidental. He was trying to make some kind of explosive pig.

As you can imagine, Minecraft players grow to hate creepers. As a concept, and when you aren't directly confronted by them, they are awesome. Close up and personal, they are anyone's worst nightmare. I'm sure I am no different from most Minecraft players in having a love/hate relationship with the little hissers. (Bean adores them. He will set them off deliberately with no regard for his own health, or adjacent architecture. But then his first attraction to the game was through TNT, so go figure.) So when I found out that someone had made a creeper avatar, I had to get it. It's a little bigger than it should be (dwarfing other residents, when it should be person-sized) but I might be able to shrink it with some careful modding; unfortunately it's no copy, which is always a bugbear with worn items. It also doesn't have any sound or explosion animations. However, it was only L$80 and looks great, so I'm not complaining. I climbed up onto the 'roof' of my house, an up-ended ship, and love the photo I got (top image) which is now my desktop. If I saw that in Minecraft I'd be going NOOOOOOOOOOOO! - best thing to do in these circumstances is run out of range then take the critter out with a bow and arrows before it wrecks your build.

Explosive new design on the catwalk

While wandering around in my new avatar (some time back in February) I visited SL Fashion Week because of something I'd seen on Rudh's blog. The entrance to this market is a catwalk, so I found myself in a hilarious situation as a creeper doing a fashion walk. You had all better raise the rafters with your applause or this creeper will take out the whole stage! Nobody wants a creeper to have a hissy fit. "This season, it's all about camouflage - work those greens, baby!"

If you want to know more about Minecraft, besides trying a free demo from their website, you could watch some fan songvids on YouTube. There are some hilarious and beautifully made parodies of current pop songs, staged using in-game graphics, and you can pretty much just type in 'minecraft song' and surf, but because I've been discussing creepers, here's one of my favourites about them. Actually I think the song is completely original, and a pretty catchy tune!

Creepers Gonna Creep by ThnxCya

Item Credits:

Creeper avatar by Mai (maimoamimo) sold on marketplace.

Shipwreck, fully furnished with undersea themed low-prim mesh furniture, FREE from the Arcadia Asylum Recovery Library (I will have to make a post about this soon, there is some awesome stuff there and word deserves to get out). The palm tree at the bow is my Khargo tropical log (see last post) which I have since rearranged.