Tracing the Threads of History and Fantasy

The Feast

October 02, 2024

The table has been set for an opulent Renaissance feast. A roast pheasant is accompanied by three additional dishes and of course there is fine wine as well. The pheasant and the three dishes are new releases from Del-ka Aedilis for the SL Renaissance Festival and both are donation items raising money for the American Cancer Society.

The lady hosting the feast wears a gown by Les Encantades, which features a wide variety of colour combinations via the texture HUD, and a beautiful head ornament with matching earrings from Zibska. Along with the skin from Mignonne, these are all Renaissance Festival releases. The skin includes eyebrow options, add-on lipstick and blushes as well as a special version with a powdered face.

The Longship

September 13, 2024

Time to get in touch with my Viking roots and set sail on a longship. At least virtually and once this ship is ready to be launched. Right now, it is still in the shipyard and needs to be guarded against those who might steal or sabotage it. Fortunately, I have some wickedly sharp weapons from Angelicus on hand.

The shipyard with the in-progress longship is a new release from Moon Coven for We Love Role-Play. It comes in a handy rez box that allows you to easily adjust the positioning once it is rezzed out. This is a beautifully detailed build with ladders and walking planks that allows for proper roleplay as a worker on the ship and there is a room with tools and drawings of the design as well for added atmosphere.

The weapons from Angelicus are also from WLRP, a set of prop weapons with different options for how you hold the spear and on which side the knife and axe hangs. They are modifiable, which is good because I needed to size up the belt.

Finally, we have the Fosca dress from Les Encantades, also from WLRP. A bit of a ragged dress with some runic embroidery at the neckline and a raven design on the skirt, so very appropriate for the Norse theme.

The Altamira Cavern

August 16, 2024

Have you upgraded to a PBR viewer yet? If not, and if your computer can handle it, do make the jump! The benefits when it comes to textures is amazing and showcased beautifully in the latest release from Fanatik, the Altamira Cavern. With this building kit you get 26 mesh building elements, 6 props and a texture HUD that includes 3 variations on the rock materials. You also get 7 pre-built cave examples, to give a sense of what you can do with this kit. I headed over to Fanatik’s own demo on their sim and shot a quick little video to show off the beauty of the PBR textures. As usual, you can find credits at the end.

Fantasy Faire 2024: A Meeting of Magic

May 02, 2024

The magical isle of Avalon, Alia Baroque’s creation for this Fantasy Faire, became witness to a meeting between two fantastical beings. One, a fae called to this realm as the dragon nearly woke from his slumber. The other, a spirit horse lured down from among the clouds and starts by magic required to send the dragon back to sleep.

At the Jail & Bail for Alia, I bought the Ancient Spell version of the special skin. I was really curious to see how the sim would change if the dragon awoke, but alas, that did not happen. But I knew I wanted to create a post with this skin and when I got the opportunity to blog the Qamariki mod & texture kits for the Teeglepets, created by Tutto E Vanita, I had an idea for bringing the two together.

For the rest of the fae’s look, I used one of the RFL releases from deviousMind together with one of the new colours of the SteamWings released for the Faire and a crown from Les Encantades.

As for the Qamariki, I modded my Teeglepet Pegasus with the kit as I have a copy version of the Pegasus. The first time I tried I managed to skip one step and had to start over, but once I actually followed all the instructions it was not difficult at all as long as you have some basic understanding of how to use the editing tools. The Qamariki mod kit is available for most Teeglepets, including even the new Kelpie and Hippocampus pets. In addition to the mod kit, you need one of the special texture kits and the toughest part about that will be to pick your favourite. This is a really fanciful mod kit and the texture kits use glow and emissive marking for an ethereal appearance.