EGadopts - March

I forgot all about these but eeeh I got a little gold dragon out of the last batch! And a cute little flower... thing which reminds me of Plants vs Zombies. And a fat pink squirrel. And a pickle! Missed the Feb batch but here are the March eggs, due to hatch on April Fool's Day (that should be interesting...)

EGadopts - January

Get your own at EGadopts!



I had some of the 2006 egg critters on my LJ but their hosting site went AWOL and they lost all the files. I shall start again and see what happens with this batch :)

Eggs due to hatch February 01.

The Four Elements

My Little Ponies(TM) aren't the only dolls you can create on the Doll Divine website. Actually I'm really psyched because I just found one called Dark Fairy that is TOTALLY up my style alley, so expect some more posts after this! The site has hundreds of 'games', all similar in that you dress up the 'dolls' to your personal and (pretty nearly) unique creative choice with the options available, but widely differing in theme, content, artistic style etc. 

Recently I had a go with the Four Elements scene maker, because I love ideas based around the magical elements. Even though they aren't scientific, they resonate within my imagination, conjuring images of wild, pagan gods, demons and spirits, dragons and faerie. I started (somewhat inevitably) by making a Fire spirit; she was somewhat aggressive, because the Fire choices tend to lean that way, but I determined to make a gentle and aggressive spirit for each Element, to embody various archetypal personalities and show how each element can have both beneficial and harmful aspects. 

Here are my results; you can also visit my gallery on the Doll Divine website to see other creations, from other games. There, the Four Elements dolls stand alone, but here I matched them up so I'd only be loading four images to blogspot. That's why the images have different internal borders, which if I'd planned things properly from the start I would have changed, but it was an evolutionary process. Sorry about the background colour to the descriptions. I copy/pasted them from the site, and there doesn't seem to be a 'remove background highlight' option, only changing the colour - which still won't blend into the blog.

~ FIRE ~

Spirit of Delight ~ Spirit of Vengeance

DELIGHT: The kind face of fire, this is the deity of fun, beauty and sensuality - the patron of all parties, festivals and playtime. She is the harbinger of excitement, generosity and good cheer; and sympathy for those who overdo things just a little too much.

VENGEANCE: The fiery spirit of vengeful wrath, this volcanic deity can be summoned to give one strength against one's enemies and to aid in retribution - whether just or unjust. Fire doesn't care - fire just burns!

~ EARTH ~

Spirit of Joy ~ Spirit of Avarice

JOY: This earth deity represents spring, new life, hope and well-being. She is often honoured as a kind of Lady Luck, benefiting new ventures, especially in matters of the heart. She is the patron deity of dancing.

AVARICE: This is the deity of precious gems and minerals beneath the earth. She is a jealous guardian of her wealth and traps miners in cave-ins; her wrath is the source of earthquakes. She incites avarice among those who plunder her treasures, causing war and spoiling the enjoyment of riches.

~ WATER ~

Spirit of Tranquillity ~ Spirit of Malice

TRANQUILLITY: This gentle water deity is called upon to help soothe the afflicted, calm turbulent weather, and bring peace to any kind of conflict. She brings rest and harmony, helping people to resolve their problems calmly and wisely.

MALICE: This is the malign spirit of stagnant water, of fell swamps and choking weed. Her tendrils of malice can insinuate themselves into the noblest of souls and she is always looking to corrupt, whispering sly, wicked thoughts in the shadows.

~ AIR ~

Spirit of Grace ~ Spirit of Fury

GRACE: This airy spirit is the embodiment of grace, beauty and gentleness, so light she can dance upon the clouds. She is the goddess of twilight stars, jasmine and spring breezes, butterfly wings and soft laughter; ephemeral and lovely.

FURY: This tempestuous spirit is behind all rash, hasty, passionate decisions and flashes of violent temper; but she also empowers the ferocity of protection, quick thinking in a crisis, and flamboyant skill. Neither fully benevolent nor benign, she is a double-edged sword, riskily invoked.

You can see by the position of the matched dolls that you start with a basic body template for each element that cannot be changed. You could use one element to make another, but it would be trickier as the options tend to be themed; for example you won't find any fiery motifs in the water element, and the hair colours tend towards the blue/green rather than the red/yellow spectrum. You can change a huge variety of other things though, from clothing, hairstyles and facial expression to accessories, highlighting and backgrounds, and add minute final touches by dragging and dropping tiny beads and flowers to create delicate jewellery. My Avarice doll has 50 hand-positioned jewels! That's why I wasn't about to go back and redo them just to match the border motifs. Overall, I think my favourite doll is Grace; though Vengeance would make an unmistakeable Fledge avatar in Second Life.

~ * ~

The Bakery Lane Posse

So... I've been playing with the pony creator some more. I made my own pony gang, based around tasty desserts, starting with the ponified version of Strawberry Shortcake. (Amazing how an idle moment can blossom into a full-grown project...) The group are a bit older than the Mane Six, more older teenagers/young adults - a bit like the Mystery Club in Scooby Doo, because they are amateur detectives off the clock. Points to anyone who spots the clue/pun in the name. Their official work is at the largest baked goods manufactory in Equestria, McVitie-Coltbury on Bakery Lane, Sugarville.

I also made this picture into an online jigsaw puzzle which anyone should be able to try (you don't need an account).

Members of the Bakery Lane Posse:-

Strawberry Shortcake - the leader and the inspiration for most of the group's activities, she is a sweet but quite serious and dedicated unicorn. You can see her in her customary posture, searching for clues in the grassland of Mulgore. (Probably they are on one of those annoying 'find X of this plant' quests.) Her bakery job is chief taste tester, a skill which prompts her to believe she is good at unravelling clues the way she can unravel flavours.

Lemonzest Cheesecake - a graceful, artistic soul, she is very demure and often seems wrapped up in herself, but she has a way of disarming ponies the group wishes to question and holds the role of Chief Interrogator and Suspect Handler. At the bakery, she designs the cake decorations, and devises new flavour combinations for Strawberry and Cointreau to try out.

Keylime Pie - Lemonzest's twin brother, laid back and outgoing where she is shy and retiring. He doesn't really have any good detective skills but is called on when the group needs physical back-up or heavy lifting. His job at the bakery is supervising the production lines, a demanding and time-sensitive task for which magical lifting comes in very handy.

Blueberry Muffin - a happy go lucky farm pony, with an emphasis on 'lucky' - although she often exasperates Strawberry with her messing around, her random inquisitiveness seems to turn up a lot of clues. She is the fruit sourcer for the bakery, going to all the farms in Equestria to choose the very best. She is a good friend of Applejack's, with whose farm the bakery has a standing account.

Cointreau Truffle - this plump little pony is actually the most intelligent member of the group and the one who solves the most puzzles, though she is happy to take a back-seat and follow the others' direction, being more of a follower than a leader. Her specialty at the bakery is recipe planning, making her in essence the head chef, though she is modest about her role.

Raspberry Pavlova - zebra pegasi are known for being rash, unpredictable and hot-headed, and Raspberry is all these things and sometimes a bit caustic and liable to tread on hooves. But she is brave and loyal and the go-to pony when daring-do is in the wind. A team of Raspberry backed up by Keylime is a force few can reckon with. Raspberry's role at the bakery is staff supervision, and Strawberry counts on her to keep the group together when morale or motivation lapse.

Banoffee Pie - this little guy lives for gadgets and is always inventing new tools, a bit like Q in the James Bond films. Banoffee's gizmos have a high tendency not to work, but the others humour him because he's fun to have around, and good at solving logic puzzles. Banoffee is the chief technical advisor at the bakery, where his inventions work a lot more often than the ones he creates for detective work!

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! 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

For the Hoard! May - Week 2 (mermaid reef)

(Recall that I already posted Week 1 in its proper time period, for once!)

This post is by way of an aperitif because I bought several things this week, but this item stands out from the others and I didn't want it to get lost amid a bunch of completely different photos.

[Alyah] Underwater Mermaid Reef

Angelic Designs has the brilliant strategy of releasing new creations during the 60 Linden Sunday weekend sales, which means I can pick things up I could not otherwise afford. In truth I'd have to avoid the store if she didn't do this, because I love her stuff so much! This weekend I found an addition to my mermaid collection - a beautiful mesh reef with seating poses around a sunken boat, designed especially for avatars with tails instead of legs. 

Everything you can see in the photo is part of the reef, except for the 'dead' trees* in the background. It comes complete with tropical fish rezzer, sea plants and reef fauna and is only 27 prims and mod/copy. I had bought a similar but much higher prim sculpted reef in the past, before mesh came out, and had always been a bit stuck for prim space to use it; so I pounced with delight on this 'upgrade'. I only wish I'd had it last year when I made this mermaid avatar for Coral in the 52 Weeks Colour Challenge.

*If anyone is interested, I set the reef up in my habitual sandbox which has grass and trees, not the best background for a coral reef! I set down a sandy floor prim and reduced the draw distance to a minimum, which created retreating tidal flats (since the horizon of your draw distance is always water, even when no water exists) and stripped the nearest trees of their leaves, as though they were salt poisoned sentinels caught by an encroaching sea. The windlight setting is Gwen's Light, with its lovely pale lavender and sea tones.