It’s a kind of magic

Aeon

Solas from Blue Moon Enterprises offers a beautiful set of robes (for men and for women) with a wizard’s hat for the Medieval Fantasy Hunt XV!

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The hunt start is here, and there there is a Medieval Fantasy hunt group for discussion.

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The Wizard robe is slink fitmesh.  I had to alpha out arms, but that’s easy, and the result is gorgeous.  Did I mention I love purple?

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Okay, so what about the hat?  Hats are such a royal PITA in SL, but they’re not impossible – and some hats are worth the work.  If you’re comfortable – or willing – to try editing hair, you can make them work.  If you haven’t tried it, here are a few basic ideas for making hats work.

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  1. Find hair that is small/tight to the head.  Depending on the look you’re going for – the type of hat – this might be sufficient.  I couldn’t get too small of a hair with this, I wanted something long.  Calico‘s ‘Katie 1’  (left) was exactly the style I needed/wanted to flow out from beneath the hat, but you can see in the centre image that the curls up top would not work with the hat. So,  time to edit!
  2. MAKE A COPY OF THE HAIR.  I tell you three times, and what I tell you three times is true: MAKE A COPY OF THE HAIR.  DON’T SKIP THIS STEP.
  3. DID YOU MAKE A COPY OF THE HAIR?
  4. If you’re using this hair for other things, then make sure you now use the copy, not the original.  If you can rename it, do so, otherwise throw this copy into the folder with the hat that you’re going to use it for.
  5. Wear both the hat and the hair, and go into a pose stand.
  6. I wanted to have both my bangs AND the tresses in back.  I resized the hair down as much as I could first — I didn’t need to worry too much about not having enough hair out the back (there was plenty), but I wanted to make sure I had my bangs in front.  So I resized down 10 percent or so, and adjusted the hair forward to make sure that the front looked good.  Now, WITHOUT the hat on, my scalp was showing on top of and in spots on the back of my head – but the hat will cover that well, and leave the hair flowing out from underneath the brim behind.
  7. Here’s where things get complicated.  right-click on the hair, and select ‘edit’ from the circle menu.  There is a little box next to the words ‘edit linked’.  Check this box.  DO NOT UNLINK THE HAIR!  You will need to start all over if you do, and you’ll make a gynormous mess.
  8. Select individual curls on top of the head.  If you can delete them outright, do so – I could not with the calico hair, but I could move them in and down.  That means there are a bunch of curls inside my head, but no one can see them.    This is a lengthy trial-and-error process, depending on the complexity of the hair.  For Katie 1, there are a bunch of static curls to move, plus some flexi pieces.  The flexi pieces aren’t sticking up too much, but be careful with these – these are the top ends of those tresses that we want to keep.  I just slide them down and slightly in until they disappear.  In effect, I’m just trying to drop them down the length of the tress, if that makes any sense.
  9. Back up your cam and look around your head a lot.  Check both sides – when you move a curl from one side in, it may shove out the other side!

And that’s really about it.  When you move around, flexi tresses may flutter beyond the brim – but I’m not too worried about that.  I can forgive a few sins during motion.  I think that it really can be worth the work to get a nice hat to work.

I hope that’s useful.  Good luck!  Oh!  Did I mention?  MAKE A COPY OF YOUR HAIR FIRST!  😀

This is a fantastic hunt, and not to be missed. Head over to the hunt start, and visit Blue Moon!  It is a kind of magic!

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Mahalo, and aloha!