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.

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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!

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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

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