Three Twisted Knots

So, here’s an unusual straight-up fashion blog from me.

I’m trying to get back into the swing of blogging, so I thought I’d take a look around this month’s We Love Roleplay to see if I felt inspired.

This round is low on fabulous dresses, but I did find a couple. I wanted to showcase a few more of the home and garden items, but perhaps I’ll get a chance to do that in a post later this month.

The one thing I was absolutely itching to get my hands on from the preview were these new ears from BentBox. They are flexible, animated, come with a load of jewellery and colour options (and are fully tintable if the colour match isn’t right), and they fit very naturally with Gwyneth’s style. In addition to the ears being animated, they offer several idle styles, so you can change your ears to suit your mood, or just keep them in the perfect place for your avatar. One thing I do wish they had is a way to halt animations altogether, but you can’t have everything, and they’re absolutely gorgeous just as they are. I’ll talk more about this dress in a minute, but note that these are my New Favourite Ears and Gwyneth will probably be in them from now ’til I find a new Favourite.

Now, anybody who knows me knows that my hair heart belongs to Analog Dog. But I’m polyhairamorous. 🙂 And the fact is, nobody who’s making mesh hair has as beautiful a silver as Emo-tions. The style is called Jolene, and the headband is attached to the hair, so it fits perfectly. The Sylvana corset is also from Emo-tions, with great wood texturing and ivy vines for shoulder straps that have bee cleverly designed so they don’t quite meet, meaning that if shoulder straps don’t always fit you, you don’t have anything to worry about. The skin Gwynth is wearing is from Pumens, called Fairy Skin; this is the Light version. Now, since I got my Catwa mesh head (Jessica), I have gone mad for anything that’s offering Catwa or Omega head appliers, so I’ve been demoing and buying them like crazy. The skin has a nice, satiny texture, and I love that the designer didn’t puff up the lips and give poor Gwyneth a duck face.

In this photo you can get a better idea of the skin definition. Eyes are from Ikon, and the tattoos are the ones Gwyneth has been wearing since the most recent Secret Affair event, the Aigneis & Airell tattoos from Things. Bonus: Pumens includes all the major appliers in simple-to-use HUDs, one for the head and another for the body, so it is super easy to apply. The field of flowers, by the way, is the amazing Ichi Fields from The Looking Glass, which I fell in love with at the 2015 Fantasy Faire; it’s been a staple in every iteration of Gwyneth’s Seelie Bower since it became available at the Faire. The stone circle is from Gor Con and again has been a staple of every build; it was an ultra-rare at the Age of Vikings event from yonks ago. Background trees are the Enchanted Wood from Studio Skye.

Here is another stand-out from this month’s We Love Roleplay, the Baroque dress from Moon Amore. With each dress pack you get two colours; I chose the blue and white pack, because blue and gold are Gwyneth’s court colours. The stunning wings were an ultra-rare from the Gacha Garden, the Astralia Warrior Fairy Wings. These wings are so beautifully textured, and there are four texturing options to choose from for the wing membrane and two for the veins. Really lovely work. Gwyneth is still wearing those BentBox wings, and because of their length and the anims on them, you can see them even under fluffy hair, like the stunning Gwen hair from Analog Dog. Yes, yes, I know, but it’s still my favourite hair in all the world, for obvious reasons. I still love everything about this hair, and it’s become the basic hair I put Gwyneth in for just about everything except photoshoots where I’m talking about other hair.

The circlet is one of the beautiful rares from an old Deviance gacha at one of the first Fantasy Gacha Carnivals I ever attended; this is the Erulisse Maiden Circlet. The necklace is from Empyrean Forge: it’s The Dreamer, Barn, Serenity. Again, it’s an all-time favourite and I photograph Gwyneth in it a lot. The skin is Lumae Niska Petals. Lumiya Rae is one of my favourite skin designers, and an all-around nice person. And if you didn’t know if already, she’s getting ready to make a fresh start on her skin lines, so everything in her main store is being retired and it’s all 50% off. She also has fantastic group gifts if you want to join her in-world group, and she’s one of the most accessible designers I’ve ever spoken with.

This White Armory gown, The Shadow Temptress, definitely tempted me! (I apologise for the bad word humour.) The colour way again I chose to represent Gwyneth’s court colours, blue and gold, because I think of this very much as a court gown. My favourite part of it is the fur detailing at the bottom of the skirt. The arch in the foreground of this studio photo is from Solarium; it’s the Medhir Woods Archway, created by Rynn Verwood for her beautiful sim at the 2015 Fantasy Faire. 

Here, you can see the bodice detailing a little better.

There are a couple of reasons I chose to put this photo in twice. First of all, take a look at the beautiful jewellery Gwyneth is wearing. This is from Cae, called Isabelle; the necklace and tiara are from the same set. It’s not new; it’s a staple of Gwyneth’s wardrobe. The tiara works beautifully with one of my favourite Analog Dog updos, Molly. I got this at the 2015 Hair Fair, but it’s now available at the Analog Dog Main Store. The face jewellery is from Spyralle, called the Forest Edge Mask, and it comes with quite a lot of texturing options. I picked up the mask at an event that I don’t think is happening any more, Illusion Point, but it’s now available in the Spyralle Main Store. Now, remember I said I was really loving playing with Catwa head appliers? This is yet another one, this time Morgana from Pink Fuel. Pink Fuel has been one of my favourite skin designers for years; I lived in Harley for most of Gwyneth’s life as a Princess in the Ashmourne Seelie Sithen. The lips on this skin are so beautiful, not over-puffy, and wide enough so that Gwyneth’s mouth looks realistic; Pink Fuel also does an amazing job with makeups, and there are several choices on the Morgana applier, which comes with a version for both the Jessica and the Annie mesh heads from Catwa. These appliers weren’t at We Love Roleplay; they’re available at the Pink Fuel Main Store. The stunning eyes are from Ikon, natch; they are Triumph Eyes in colour Electric.

The Leaf Chairs from Ginger Line come in two different colours; this is Version 2. Version 1 has a green cushion and accents. Gwyneth is wearing the Beatrix gown from Les Encantades, available at We Love Roleplay. I love the sleeve accents on this gown, and Les Encantades has such a deft hand with texturing. So many animals! The Greyhound is from last month’s Chapter 4; he is from meadowWorks. The Winged Cat is from Half Deer, a gacha from a past Kustom9. The Curious Cat was a gacha from Fashionably Dead, and I found him at a past Arcade Gacha event. The Corgi and the Dragon were supplied by Dyisi Oppewall, who helped me set up this shot, and I forgot to ask her where she got them, but I’ll add them in later. The banner hanging behind Gwyneth is custom heraldry created by Nathaniel Ballard, Gwyneth’s IC Consort and one of the wonderful Wicked Wylds storytellers.

Here, you can see a little more of the dress detailing, and also the lovely Amelie Deux necklace from Zibska (at We Love Roleplay). The headpiece is from a past We Love Roleplay, it’s from Distorted Dreams and is called Aila. This is the Rose Gold version. The hair is Oak Leaf Hair‘s lovely Khaleesi, and I got it on Marketplace.

The Mainstay Fireplace has spaces for your own photographs, and I love how it looks in Gwyneth’s house.

You can also see some of the beautiful ear jewellery a little better in this photograph. Izzy’s Taleah applier, in tone Frost, is a lovely, fresh face with a lot of depth and great shading. Izzy Button also provides terrific customer service: when I purchased the appliers for the Maitreya body and my SLink hands and feet, there wasn’t an applier for the Frost shade, so I sent Izzy a notecard about it, and she came back to me with an explanation that the SLink appliers for that shad hadn’t been added to the hands and feet applier and were only on the SLink whole body appliers, and she kindly sent me the applier so I wouldn’t have to go back to her store and make a duplicate purchase.

So, partly because of the inspiration chain from knowing wonderful people who create beautiful things, and partly because I miss the side of me that loves to take photos and share beautiful things with the world, I’m going to try and be a little more of an active blogger now.

Later, this week, expect some posts about great stuff available at the Fair Play and Hidden Sanctuary events, plus some lovely skins from 7 Deadly s{K]ins. And I have an amazing bunch of stuff from the community at We Love To Blog, as well. So many things to show you, so little time.

Thanks to everyone who spends even a little time reading my little blog. I hope you’ve enjoyed my yammering on. I’ll make the next one a story, I promise.

No style cards today: everything’s credited in the text.

Spiffy photos taken with the indispensible aid of my LumiPro. I never leave home without it!