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! ~ Garden Party

This post showcases PurpleMoon in a double set, as not only am I wearing the gorgeous group gift gown, "Drew" in Dreams of Chocolate (mesh), I just had to buy the jewellery that was modelled with it - Lazuri "Fall Romance". This colour of dress is exclusive to the group gift (which is still available at the time of posting) but her styles are released in multiple colours. Lazuri seems to be a protégé brand as it is by a different designer but managed by PM, so her designs are recommended alongside various dresses (a cunning sale strategy!). The pearl drops on earrings and necklace have a choice of textures, but intriguingly show a different one on left and right, with lots of sparkling coloured gems to complement and up to 3 bracelets on each arm.

With the richness of the dress and jewels, I had to dress up a bit. I have an absolutely ridiculous number of hats, mostly by The Mad Hattery, but I never seem to wear them; so although it hides the hair a little, I decided to hat up for this shoot with the "Forgotten Orchid" topper.  TMH hats are hugely creative and (I think) both elegant and entertaining at the same time; this one is made in the style of a greenhouse containing a potted orchid which is escaping out of the louvred roof!

The hair is "Ophelia" by La Boheme, made for the second Crazy Ass Hair Hunt, which I also wore for my Vampire Burlesque Circus post in the 2012 Colour Challenge. It has tiny metalled flowers in the back which you can see better in that post, and is colour change scripted, but also handily mod.

Then I thought that a little something extra was needed and put on this fabulous "Wrapped" feather boa by Schadenfreude. It comes in five body hugging pieces (arm and chest/spine attachments), has detailed flexi feathers, and is tintable (of course I chose the white version for maximum modification) so I matched it to the embroidery of the dress. No lady's outfit is complete without a wrap!

I didn't want to swamp the delicate gold of the dress or jewellery with my customary gold skins, so I went with one of my {Frick} designs, "Alt Geisha Tamarind" in cream. I love the soft, painted look of her skins, all of which have beautifully designed make-up schemes; although they are more human than the scaled skins, the fantasy element suits my nature and adds variety, and I find that they stand up better to a range of lighting than some of the more photo-realistic skins on the market. (Ha ha oops, just noticed I forgot to re-tint my feet!)

This skin shows bright stars of orange behind the "Travel" petal make-up by White~Widow which seems to be turning into something of a staple. I also have on some contour blusher by Dead Apples and brass "Sweet Lips" by KOSH, along with the now habitual ContraptioN fangs. The eyes are "Caesius" in copper from the Aquamer collection by Plastik, which came with the gold skin from most of my previous posts.

As a final mention, the chairs are from the "Butterfly Kiss" set by Angelic Designs, along with her "Avalon" antique sterling wine serving tray (purchased last weekend) on an Indian summer side table by What Next, with an apple tree by ForestFloor Creations and disappearing Cheshire Cat by SHD. Because I am always finding little incidental things in other bloggers' backdrops and wondering where they are from :)

Note that I am not using one of the chair animations, I am actually posing with one of a Poseway Fashion Model set exclusive to the Couturiers Docks, which was a completely accidental purchase - it was late, I was tired, I thought I was buying the jewellery on the ad model and failed to register the significance of the pose stand in front... lol oh well. One set of poses won't break the bank, and now I'm just trying to get my money's worth out of them!

~ : ~

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.

~ : ~

For the Hoard! May - Week 2 (Cascade)

Continuing with the May catch-up and all the other items I bought in week 2. Again, this will be a short post (for me) as I think the pictures have more stand-alone aesthetic appeal than telling a story, and I managed to get all the detail in relatively few shots. This time you can see the grass and trees of the same sandbox I used in the previous post. Clever, huh? ;)

My acquisitions this week are the Forgotten Cascade and Ruined Bench from Angelic Designs, Universa hair and Darkness eyes (last image only) from The Stringer Mausoleum, Angelus sword from Illusions and Nugget jewellery from Vintage Jewels. The only non-mesh item in the set is the hair. 

I'm really pleased with how this shot came together. I chose the skin and some free eyes to highlight the hair and this elegant evening gown because of the jewellery, but I still felt something was missing and rummaged through my wing collection to find this unusual set which really complements both the hair and sword with its futuristic and blade-like design. I ran through my poses in a similar manner and came across this Divinely Naughty (Angel 13) pose from Juicy, which is almost identical to the position of the statue on the Forgotten Cascade behind me!

PurpleMoon "Meryl" gown in black (with contrasting gloves and bodice wrap);

Angelic Designs new mesh "Ruined Bench" with large number of animated poses and "Forgotten Cascade" fountain sculpture in background.

Illusions new mesh sword "Angelus" with colour change options on blade, hilt and gems;

TSM "Universa" hair made for Aeva Heartsick event but still possibly available in mainstore;

Will's Wings/Niangao Ltd. "TechAlpha" wings (very old acquisition).

Amacci skin "Liane" in goth (silver tattoo 2) and free hairbase in snow;

DAMNED "Tribal" make up with pouty lips (the black eyeliner and lip shadow);

Free eyes whose creator SL was refusing to divulge but matched the colour scheme;

Vintage Jewels "Nugget" jewellery set (group gift).

TSM "Darkness" mesh eyes, which come in two packs, the warms (red, orange and yellow) and the cools (blues and greens) which I didn't buy. These, like the hair, were special editions for the Aeva Heartsick event but were made available in mainstore afterwards, possibly only for a limited period.

And, not that you can see them for the long skirt, I am wearing +DV8+ "Lust for Life" stiletto heels. The store has sadly closed.

Don't forget, if you just noticed this post, to check back a few as I have finally been able to post a batch of updates. Thank you for reading! <3