Three Twisted Knots

Hm. I’m not going to do a story blog today, because I have so many cool things to talk about, but I do want to write about Gwyneth. You see, in the New Year, we’re going to be opening a role-play sim, and it’ll have a much more modern feel than the places I’ve played Gwyneth regularly over the past six years. Some of you know that both TAC and The Gypsy Davey are all personae under this avatar. Showing up as The Gypsy Davey to writing workshops has surprised more people than would admit it!

Anyway, in our new modern role play sim, Gwyneth will be dressing as a modern-day person, and she’ll get to use a computer at her own home, rather than having to realm-hop to leave her blog entries all over the place. TAC will also get more of a role as a character. I don’t know about The Gypsy Davey, but we shall see.

While I’m thinking about new looks for Gwyneth, I have some beautiful hair from Wasabi Pills to show you. Becoming a Wasabi Pills blogger was a huge surprise and a rush for me; I’ve always loved the hair that the very talented Miss All Sunday Lemon creates, and my role play characters have been in her hair since I first started roleplaying with Gwyneth as a character something like five years ago.

The Visionaire course is teaching me so much, and this week’s lesson was about portraits, so for each outfit here I’ve tried to create a portrait that would stand up as more than “just” a blog photo.

Oh, Gwyneth, Queen Gwyneth. No matter where she is living, Gwyneth, once anointed, will always be a Queen of the Fae. You can’t just hand that title back, and in communities where there are Fae, you can’t hide from it, either: other Fae will always know if there is someone Royal among them. And now that she’s a Winter Queen, she has more options. Here, she’s in Wasabi Pills‘ gorgeous Marisol hair, which you can get at Uber for just a few more days! Uber’s new round will open on the 15th, so hurry! After that, the style will be available at the Wasabi Pills Main Store, of course. This dress is from the ever-amazing Enfant Terible, a late addition to the October Treasure Chest. It just arrived yesterday as I was putting together these outfits, and I knew it’d be perfect for showcasing Gwyneth as a fantasy Queen in a modern setting. The leather bodice over the draped silk skirt conveys the perfect marriage of old and new, and of course Enfant Terible’s quality is impossible to beat: the dress is perfectly sized for my Maitreya body, and the fatpack that came to the Treasure Chest has an array of choices via HUD. I don’t usually photograph Gwyneth in tattoos, but when I saw this one by White Widow at The Winter Trend, I just had to have it. Gwyneth loves roses, and of course roses have many associations with the Fae in literature and balladry. The headdress was a chance find, at Cosmopolitan, not surprisingly by Persefona, whose headgear continues to surprise and delight. The necklace is one of the most gorgeous things I’ve seen from The Plastik in a while (and that’s saying something!). It’s called Skein, and I love its simplicity and the fact that there are an array of stones and metals to choose from. Thank you, Vae, for this beautiful necklace: it’s one of those things that if I had it in RL, I’d never take it off! Of course, in RL, we can’t change gems and metals with a touch of our fingers….

Roses. Gwyneth loves them, and I wanted to show both that and the luminance of this beautiful DeeTaleZ skin. I love blogging for Lumae and 7 Deadly s{K}ins, but if I could add any skin maker to my blogging list, it would be DeeTaleZ. This is the Fonda Catwa applier in tone Celtic, and of course the Maitreya appliers for the body are sold in the DeeTaleZ main store.

Here’s Gwyneth dressed for a Pacific Northwest winter. This beautiful wind-blown hairstyle is new from Wasabi Pills at this month’s Chapter Four. The style is called Solana,  and it’s in the Gacha section. It comes both as the windblown and the non-windblown style, and of course the multi-packs and ombres are rare, but the great thing is all the regular Wasabi Pills colours are commons, so if you wear one of their plain colours, you can probably get your shade pretty quickly. This lovely outfit is by Purple Moon Creations, the Sonia Jacket+Sweater and trousers (sold separately), and you can get it at The Winter Trend, which opened on 9th December and will stay through the 23rd of December. The boots are from Phedora, the Matilda Boots, also available at The Winter Trend. 

Dragons in Winter? Well, anything can happen on White Owl Island. This skin is from Avenge, the Anya Albino applier for Catwa, in Ivory. It’s another one of my finds from The Winter Trend. Throughout all these photos, Gwyneth is wearing the Catwa Destiny head, Mandala Steking ears, and Mesange Omega eye appliers; the eyes are from various sets, but these are the Taiga appliers, which again are available at The Winter Trend. 

Sense of Wonder. This photograph was inspired by some of the photos we saw at this week’s Visionaire class on portraits, even though my guess is it wouldn’t be considered a “real” portrait, since the focus is more on the interaction between Gwyneth and the little dragon than on Gwyneth herself. But you can see the beautiful highlights in the Mesange eyes here. The little dragons are by Half Deer; they were gachas from one Arcade or the other, the Solstice Dragons. Here, you see Leviathan; the previous photo’s dragon is called Permafrost.

I’ve envisioned Gwyneth as a brunette a couple of times over the years, but with the DeeTaleZ Fonda applier, she really seemed to come alive for me. The hair is Wasabi Pills Deirdre, which is new at Collabor88 this week. I should mention that for all events, demos are always available at the Wasabi Pills Main Store, which means you can try before you buy even if you can’t get into a super-popular event on the first day! The headband comes with the hair, which is a nice bonus. This blouse is a favourite recent release of mine; it’s from TETRA. It’s called, prosaically, Lace-Up Wool Sweater, and it comes in a variety of colours. Pretty sure the event I found it at has closed by now, though. The boots are from Breathe, the Satomi Boots in black. These are a gacha at The Chapter Four event.

With a closer look, you can see the intricate texture of the hair, the almost glowing quality of the skin, and of course the way those gorgeous eyebrows set off the rest of the skin.

Here’s a final outfit, because I wanted Gwyneth to be able to be a bit whimsical, even if she’s now in a place where everybody wears a stocking cap and it’s misty and moisty a lot of the time. For this I chose the Wasabi Pills Romy hair, which is available for a few more days at Ultra. You can wear the hair with or without the hat, and the hat comes with loads of textures, both solids and this little anime-type not-sure-what-kinda-animal-this-is face. This adorable sweater with super-long arms is from EVIE; it was part of November’s The Forest event, so I’m not sure if you can get it from their main store, but it’s worth a look. It comes in a number of colours, and, oh look! I have a pair of these cool Satomi boots to exactly match!

Gwyneth can look classy even in a silly hat, it appears; I’m not sure if I could bear to make her look ridiculous, but one day I’ll try. Once again, it’s the DeeTaleZ Fonda applier that makes her appear to glow like this; even under normal lighting conditions and not in a photo studio, she appears almost luminescent when she’s wearing these skins.

Thanks for reading, if you’ve made it this far, and I’ll try to get back to story-blogging as soon as possible—but in the next post, I have (yet more!) hair to show you, this time from the wonderful Hairology event, which opened today.

No Style Cards today; everything’s covered in the text, except: all poses by an lar, from the Illa Series, available now at The Liaison Collaborative.

Spiffy photos taken with the indispensible aid of my LumiPro. I never try out all the new portrait tricks I learned in the guise of a fashion blog without it!