When you’re feeling a little bit of denim come upon you (hey, no chortling over ‘little bit’), here are a couple of fun choices: the Fiona Denim Jacket from Addams, and the Miss Butterfly Shorts from Unscrupulous.
The jacket comes in 41 single colors as well as a fatpack, and is for all major mesh bodies. It features an open style allowing you to nicely display any top you choose to add. The shorts come with a lovely belt detail, and the shorts can be hidden to just use the belts over something else if desired. In keeping with some of my recent full perm posts, these shorts are also available from Gunshot as a full perm item (the Azour short) if you want more color options; however if you like this color the Unscrupulous offering is pretty darn cheap and includes a small little top and some pasties.
I have a soft spot for cute… and then I just go nuts and keep tossing things at an outfit to make it cuter, lol
So here I’ve done my usual thing and just gone totally to town with everything except the kitchen sink. This first one is my unicorn look, with three major pieces from three vendors with three different unicorn patterns.
The Hawt jacket from Promagic comes in 30 prints, as singles and a fatpack, and is just for Maitreya mesh. I added some cute lace cuffs from Sweet Thing to it. The jacket fits just right to be worn without a bra or shirt underneath, if you are so inclined (as I am). The skirt is Brianna from CandyDoll, available in fatpacks of 10 solid light colors, 10 solid dark colors, and 30 patterns; or as singles, for all the major mesh bodies. It has a nice cut up one side with a long mesh tie. The shoes/socks are the Smexy Babydoll Heels by Candy Kitten, in fatpacks for 12 solids, and 12 patterns, for all major mesh bodies.
Now if you want silly cute, I got that too! The basis for this one is the Crazy Kawaii outfit from Envious. It is old school, for system bodies, but hey does that stop me? Not on your life! I use all the mesh bits and then add my own mesh top and skirt and there you go, one super silly (but cute) outfit.
The mesh bits of Crazy Kawaii come in five sizes and include the winged headband, arm and leg warmers, hoove boots, and backpack. I supplemented these with an applier top from Butterfly Design’s Pauline outfit; and my fave full perm skirt, Angel from Gunshot. For the latter, I textured it to match the knit pattern of the Pauline top.
Accessories: Betsy Garters by Avaway; High Elf Lace Collar by Zenith; Armour Waist Chain and Seacrest Waist Chain by La Sirena (Marketplace store); Applier Stockings from Stuff My Turkey by Strive Design (Marketplace link)
To round out this round, here is a sweet-but-not-too-sweet ensemble built around the Celebrity Rebel leather jacket by Dirty Princess. This features exquisite detailing all around, and a proudly open front to display… whatever bra or shirt you might choose to wear. Or not. In this case I chose to wear (barely) one of my full perm bras from Cool Big Bird along with the Angel skirt from Gunshot which I textured to match the jacket’s color and patterns. The shoes are Candy Kitten’s Fairy Princess Heels that include the garters.
The jacket features a texture HUD of 20 pastel colors and a metal changer of silver and gold; it comes for Maitreya, Slink, and TMP mesh bodies. The shoes come with 14 styles in a HUD and are for all the major mesh bodies.
Accessories: Hip bows from Kawaii Babygirl Princess by Dirty Princess; Heart Charm Necklace by Bowtique (Marketplace link); Giftwrap Garters and Lolita Lace Cuffs from Sweet Thing; Armour Waist Chain and Seacrest Waist Chain by La Sirena (Marketplace store); Lollipop Guild Necklace by Violet Voltaire
Lately I have taken an interest in doing clothes texturing, using purchased full perm models that allow one to selectively edit texture faces. While I have pondered selling some of these, which is what most people do who work with the full perm models, so far I have just been tinkering for myself, in order to get unique looks and/or make outfits that reflect ‘me.’ The full perm models are not inexpensive, being in the range of 500L to 1500L typically, as the expectation is that one is selling your new creations and thus eventually recoup your expenditure. However, if the cost does not deter you… follow me on a little path to see what you can do 🙂
For this first installment I will focus on something simple (and very small!). The common component in all of these outfits below is the Angel skirt by Gunshot, which is also a very reasonable 250L. This is a teeny-tiny skirt that really doesn’t cover much at all (which… frankly, was my goal). 😀 Now most people would supplement this with a pair of panties but I chose not to.
The skirt contains three material faces that can each be textured in different ways. They can also be different between front and back but the design of the skirt tends more toward it being the same all the way around front to back. The Gunshot package for the skirt contains models for all of the major mesh bodies as well as four sample textures, a shadow map, and a UV map. All of these latter items can be used in an external graphics program to create your own textures, which can then be uploaded to SL and applied to the mesh model.
In this first outfit, I textured the skirt with an opaque white band around the top, and the two main layers all in lace, to match the lace top and the lace cuffs on the sleeves. This is an example of where I mixed and matched a ton of things, along with the custom pieces, to get just the look I was after, an innocent snowflake faerie (okay, maybe just snowflake faerie…)
For this one I wanted to match the skirt to the top, which is also a full perm model. Before I found the original model, I had purchased a version of it from a vendor who had made her own texture for it. As I liked that shade of blue I wanted to match everything to it, which I did with the Angel skirt and the full perm sleeves from another full perm creator. In this case the top two bands of the skirt are solid, and the small band along the bottom is a lace pattern that matches the lace along the bottom hem of the top.
Top: Kara Top by Vaxer (the full perm model is CBB106 by Cool Big Bird )
Accessories: Good Kitty Collar by The Sugar Garden/tsg; Heart Charm Necklace by Bowtique (Marketplace link); Endear Ladies Key Necklace by EarthStones; Giftwrap Garter and Cuffs by Sweet Thing; Armour Waist Chain and Seacrest Waist Chain by La Sirena (Marketplace store); BoHo Style Hand Jewelry Butterfly by SilveryK
Another vendor who took the Gunshot Baude top and created a nice texture for it is ArisArisB&W, who applied a pretty denim pattern. I created a matching version for the skirt across all three texture bands.
Top: Nicety top by ArisArisB&W (the model is the same Gunshot Baude top as I used in the Snowflake image above)
Accessories: Dragonfly necklace by Pixel Box; Elaine Belt and Garter by Nanika; Armour Waist Chain and Seacrest Waist Chain by La Sirena (Marketplace store);
Arm Harness by L’Emporio
And finally, back to lace, this time with a rose tint and a slightly Victorian look (is not sure the Queen would approve). Here I used the actual Gunshot Baude top with the Angel skirt, modifying the lace pattern from Snowflake to be a little softer in color (as well as a bit more see through… blushes!).
Accessories: Jabot collar by Cog & Fleur; Lolita Lace Cuffs by Sweet Thing; Armour Waist Chain and Seacrest Waist Chain by La Sirena (Marketplace store)
Pose: The Irie Series – Four (m) by an lar (closed)
While these examples of re-texturing have been pretty simple, they’ve been fun in allowing me to make things that are just right for what I want. 🙂 In future installments of Do It Yourself I hope to show you some more complex examples.
Back to Photoshop! More lacy and frilly things await! Cheers!
Sometimes you see an item over here, and then later you see see another item over there, and you say, “Oooo I wonder if those would work together… and more importantly, actually fit together without mesh pokies.” Fortunately such was the case here, where I had originally seen the high-waisted leather legging appliers from Indyra and thought “Those are just begging for some sort of short-waist coat…” And lo and behold a few days later I find the perfect candidate in the Eclipse Design Nemo jacket!
The coat is nicely detailed with mesh bits, coming in five colors, along with six interior shirt colors and an option to turn the coat tails on or off. It is available for the major mesh bodies.
The Aziza high waist appliers include an edgy retro inspired top along with a pair of glossy high-waisted leggings. It was the leggings that caught my eye, both for the high waist part (very hard to find!) and the great fold detail, particularly at the knees. Aziza is available in a fatpack & in single colors and appliers are included for Belleza, Maitreya, Omega, Slink & TMP.
This is an ensemble that will really show you mean business!
Second Life is a world where we can be just about anything we want to be. One popular variation of this is to turn back the clock a bit and be a young girl again, with all the innocence and joy that represents. While one can do so with the widely used mesh bodies like Maitreya Lara, there are also more specialist mesh bodies for this as well, such as Tweenster. Here I would like to show you some adorable dresses from Dolly Daydream, who have a delightfully warm pastel color palette to their offerings. Their products are primarily oriented toward the Tweenster body but they have also recently begun adding Maitreya versions, as well as V-Tech.
The Elizabeth dress comes with a 20 texture HUD and also a pair of panties with its own 10 color HUD. I think I’m ready to step into the carriage and be whisked off to a fantasy world of pink!
Elizabeth also comes with both opaque and sheer versions of the dress, which is giggly-cute when the panties are showing through. Hmm, wonder what came in this giant doll case box?
The Summer Florals dress is my favorite, with such happy patterns including these butterflies! And pretty lace sleeves too! The dress includes 12 textures and nine sleeve textures, with the option to turn the sleeves off. The dress also includes cute little shoes with tall leg strappies, in seven colors, though here I used my fave boots, the Candy Lolita.
Sometimes a photo shoot takes you in a direction you hadn’t intended but you end up there as you go along. Such is the case here, where the outfits and settings lent themselves to a, shall we say, ladies of the evening sort of look.
The idea, though, was to do another highlight of how mixing and matching things from your existing wardrobe can give you new looks or new creative ideas. In these shots you can see in terms of accessories and the like there is a lot of crossover. So when you are thinking, “Hmm I want to wear something black, what can I put together?” start sifting through the inventory drawers and experimenting to see what you come up with. You might find yourself going down a whole different path than you had planned. 🙂
Leggings: Shania Mesh Leggins with Suspenders by Addams
Mesh, mesh, mesh… These days everything seems to be mesh. But there are gems to be had among the older non-mesh offerings that are still available! One such is the fancy Mrs. Diplomat set by AEC. It consists of nine parts from jacket to flexi skirt to ruffles and lots of fun bits, including both system layers and a Maitreya HUD applier. The set conveys a lovely regal air and is sure to open many doors for you!
Blueberry is one of my fave clothing makers – the quality and fit are really some of the best in Second Life. Recently they released a new pair of jeans that not only look good but are nicely versatile too, featuring both flare and skinny jeans versions.
The jeans feature a string detail in front and the fabric has richly detailed creases and folds.
The jeans are for Maitreya Lara, and come as a fat pack with 29 single colors, as well as various pattern options and ombre colors. It also includes two sets of options with the belt or without.
The skinny version features a lower cut over the tummy, and string detailing at the back of the ankles.
By now my followers know I love mixing and matching things up. Today let me show you another one where I have gone totally to town, and in fact maxed out my attachment points in the process 🙂
The base bits (body applier and gloves) come from Xtra Ordinary’s Sith Lady Outfit V2, for Maitreya Lara. On top of this I added (and added and added) more things. Most of them are components from Sole, who make some amazing hi tech looking gear. In my photos I have a rotating rainbow swirl light attached to me, and this makes the materials in Sole’s products just shimmer. I also have a variety of smaller attachment items from a couple of outfits by Grave (always a good source for sci fi gear).
The boots are Foxy from Blueberry, who while certainly not the first name that come to mind for sci fi outfits, has some wonderful shiny materials on these boots that are just right.
Here’s a close up and you can see the absolutely wicked detailing on the Sole Mask, as well as the Holocle Visor from PsiNanna. And that hair! Medusa Cyber Hair comes from A&Y and includes various tubes making it perfect for all your cybernetic needs. The tube types can also be colored independently.
Outfit components: Dragon Gloves and Dragonsuit applier from Sith Lady Outfit V2 by Xtra Ordinary (XO); Armtech Mk2, Backpack Mk 2, CLT Gadget, Mask 7M, and Regulator by Sole (Marketplace only); Holocle Visor by PsiNanna (Marketplace Link); Disc, Arm Cuffs, Belly Buckles, Chest Buckles from G369 Gravity and Pocket Belt from G566 Widow by Graves
Here we mean R2 Fashion, a clothier with a unique style all their own. R2 specializes in sci fi outfits with a definite sexy bent to them and often with a great deal of, shall we say, “transparency”…
R2’s clothes feature slick metallic textures and curve hugging designs. For the Kagura outfit, I added sleeves from Caverna Obscura’s Wistera Wind outfit.
A bonus with Kagura is this adorable electro-bunny light up tail that gently pulses.
The Kachou outfit swirls around the breasts and adds discreet detailing to cover the important bits. As with all of R2’s ensembles, one buys the individual components, usually consisting of at least separate boots, panties, and tops, and the occasional additional parts such as modesty covers.
And finally, in the Seiga outfit, we see more of the sharply defined futuristic lines combined with some elegant curving sleeves, and the teasing transparency at which R2 excels.
The number of colors for each outfit varies, but is generally anywhere from five to eight colors. Fat packs are also available which may include exclusive colors as well. All of the outfits are for Maitreya Lara only.
While R2 has their own store as linked above, they are also a regular contributor at the Collabor88 event, where the components of the outfits are generally available at a lesser price than when in the normal store inventory.
