Auteur à scandales

Colette, the jewelry set from Artistry by ~E~ evokes the French novelist of that name.  Elegant, even proper, yet flamboyant.  The necklace is a single strand of large pearls with pendant strands front and rear, catching the eye and drawing the viewer's gaze down....

Colette,

auteur à scandales

In detail:
 Artistry by ~E~: Colette Jewelry Set
Pose: The Muse Poses, Sappho #2, #4 and Karya #2.  The Sappho and Karya sets were exclusive at FFL.

 

Pendant strands front....

....and rear

Earrings with their secrets

 The pearl earrings have their secrets.  On closer examination, the pearls reveal an exquisite diamond nested within.

The real Colette, known for talent and her scandalous lesbian affairs, discovered the young Audrey Hepburn and cast her as the lead in the stage version of her novel, Gigi about a young Parisian being groomed for a career as a courtesan.

Audrey Hepburn and Colette

.... rode out in the desert

The Love Donna Flora event opened July 25 to raise funds for the last ditch cancer treatment of Donna Flora creator Squinternet Larnia.  To cut costs, Donna Flora was moved this week from it's own sim, Cinecittà, to a homestead which already means SL has lost a treasure in it's own right.  Cinecittà is Italy's Hollywood and the sim was as lovingly constructed as Donna Flora's period wear.

Vero Modero's Oki cowgirl combination gives me a rare excuse to revisit the most famous productions of Cinecittà, the Spaghetti Westerns directed by Sergio Leone; A Fistful of Dollars; A Few Dollars More, and: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.  And rare because in the Dollars trilogy, the few female characters usually wore nothing but skin and bruises and worked on their backs.

In detail:

Vero Modero Oki outfit with robe (new)
Pose by The Muse Poses, Donna #1 (new), available from Love Donna Flora
Earrings and Necklace from Donna Flora's Old West Set



The robe from Vero evokes the iconic poncho worn by Clint Eastwood in the Dollars trilogy.  The boots, pistol belt and cuffs are from other creators. 

[click link below to download

 mp3]

Sergio Leone by Jackson Browne

"Sergio Leone"


He came 'round here with his camera and some of his American friends
Where the money is immortal and the killing never ends
He set out from Cinecittà  through the ruined streets of Rome
To shoot in Almaría and bring the bodies home

He said
I'll be rich or I'll be dead
I've got it all here in my head

He could see the killers' faces and he heard the song they sang
Where he waited in the darkness with the Viale Glorioso gang
He could see the blood approaching and he knew what he would be
Since the days when he was first assisting The Force of Destiny

He worked for Walsh and Wyler with the chariot and sword
When he rode out in the desert he was quoting Hawks and Ford
He came to see the masters and he left with what he saw
What he stole from Kurosawa he bequeathed to Peckinpah

From the Via Tuscolana to the view from Miller Drive
He shot the eyes of bad men and kept their deaths alive
With the darkness and the anguish of a Goya or Van Cleef
He rescued truth from beauty and meaning from belief.

The Avie with No Name

 Vero's Oki is an homage to the American western from a Turkish creator which  echoes the origins of the Dollars trilogy itself--Italian films inspired from a Japanese film derived from an earlier American noir film.

'...was how to shoot at someone who outdrew you'

"Maybe there's a God above
But all I've ever learned from love
Was how to shoot at someone who outdrew you
It's not a cry you can hear at night
It's not somebody who has seen the light
It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah"

Leonard Cohen, Hallelujah

Credits:

As The Good: Anne-Elisabeth Jane (lockedfast Resident)
As The Bad: The Avie with No Name
As the Ugly:  (it's SL fashion--written out of the script)

Wardrobe by Vero Modero and Donna Flora
Effects by Audrey Cresci, The Muse Poses

Filmed on location in Deadwood City
Score by Jackson Browne and Leonard Cohen

Abiss Canis

Abiss Canis

Abiss' new Canis bed is an original mesh creation with some 600 animations, most of which are paired in 300 couples pose pairs.  It is 18 prims in either the mod/copy or trans versions.

An unusual and clever feature of the bed is that the menus for controlling appearance and animations have been separated.  Click on the headboard to control appearance and on the mattress for animation selection.


In detail:

Abiss Canis bed
VIOLATOR Baroque Babydoll Lingerie and Leash Me Up cuffs


My partner has this bed in mod/copy so I've been able to experiment with the differences between the two and there are some important ones.  The copy version is of course, more expensive than the trans/no-copy version but the difference between the two isn't just the ability to rez multiple copies.  The trans/no-copy version has a menu for changing the colors of four areas; bed frame, pillows, duvet and mattress.  The color choices available through the menu are limited and tend towards the bold.  With the no-trans/copy/mod version however, there are nine areas that can be independently color controlled and the hues available are essentially infinite.

Breakfast in Beds

The photo above illustrates a few of the color schemes available using the copy/mod version.

His Bed

The styling is bold, even aggressive and when done all in black, the bed is distinctively masculine.  The frame of the bed is inspired by statues of the ancient Egyptian god Anubis who was commonly represented as an Egyptian jackal (Canis aureus lupaster).

Anubis statue from King Tut's tomb

 


As aesthetically pleasing as the bed is, it's not designed to be a pretty prop.  Animations are perhaps the most important reason for buying a bed and the Canis performs.

The animations are smooth and there are so so many.  It had great PG couples and three-some cuddles as well as fun activities (jumping on the bed!).  For romance, it has extended story scenes, couples anims and threesomes.  And while it has D/s anims, it really isn't a hardcore BDSM bed. Poses are set with most common avatars heights in SL-- 100 for male avies, 80 for female.


Two important features Canis does have is swap, which is absolutely essential and is often neglected.  Swapping roles when the anims are reversed is less mood breaking than hopping off poseballs and switching.  The bed uses poseballs but the anims are stored in the Multi-Love-Pose scripts (MLP) in the bed rather than in the poseballs themselves.  When finished using the bed, the poses should be stopped in order to reduce unneeded lag but by plaing the anims in the MLP, it means the bed is virtually unbreakable.  Lose a poseball?  Never mind.  It will rez a replacement.

My Ball and Chain

My Ball and Chain

Many of my friends know the Landmarks Guide I make because I've looted their LM folders to make it.  I've just finished updating the August edition so yay me, no more sorting for two months.  Now I just need to update the version on Marketplace...

With this ball and chain about to be removed until the October edition, I'll be focusing a lot more on blogging and a lot less on playing the librarian. 

The Guide comes in five chapters and you're welcome to any or all:

Shopping
Vanilla (General Interest Sims)
Building/Making
Howto
Adult

IM me for free copies or check on MP in a couple of days

Anne-Elisabeth's Directories



VIOLATOR: Device Pret-a-porter Bodysuit
VIOLATOR: The Gifted collar with silver/black Leash Me Up cuffs
The Muse Poses  Eleos 2

Beachcombin'

Beachcombin'

Vero Modero Gulen Shorts and Shirt

Vero Modero Gulen Mesh Shirt and Shorts (new)
Vero Modero 40s Sun Glasses

Artistry by ~ E ~  The Alicia Earrings
Artistry by ~ E ~  Bracelet from The Allegra Set (not yet released)

Beachcombin'

They say there's wreckage washing up
All along the coast
No one seems to know too much
Or who got hit the most


Nothing has been spoken
There's not a lot to see
But something has been broken
That's how it feels to me

Mark Knopfler and Emmylou Harris, Beachcombing

Mark Knopfley and Emmylou Harris, Beachcombing

Doing things the hard way...

縛り

VIOLATOR: Rising Sin Shibari in red (new)

Slinks flat feet

VIOLATOR's new Rising Sun Shibari outfit is a challenging garment for the perfectionist.  It's lovely straight out of the box but if you want every prim just perfect for your avie, it takes some careful editing--which makes it the perfect expression of shibari.  As a form of restraint, handcuffs are far easier and more effective than ropes.  Click them shut and you're done.  For aesthetics however, cuffs don't compare to the artistry achievable in rope and artistry takes effort and self-discipline.

Lest you think it's a fetish thing, consider karate, the tea ceremony or ikebana, the art of flower arranging.  The gun is a more efficient weapon than the way of the hand, you don't need to spend years learning how to brew up a cuppa nor put some flowers in a vase.  In the Japanese arts it's never really the product that matters, but rather, the self-discipline developed along the path.

Just to make things harder...

VIOLATOR Rising Sun Shibari & Chrysalis Couture Corset

Just to make a challenging outfit harder, I've mixed it here with Chrysalis Couture Corset.  Keeping the prims out of the mesh when mixing elements from different creators can be deliciously excruciating.

It needn't be all pain though.  Here are two tips for making this garment a bit easier.  The wrist cuffs are copy/mod so make an extra copy and rename them ankle cuffs.  Attach the second set to your ankles rather than wrists and edit them into place though you might need to stretch them a bit.  Done this way, it makes skin tone matching with Slinks bare feet utterly painless.  See the top photo for what your new ankle cuffs look like.

And for a second tip, attach the collar to your avie's neck rather than spine.  SL collars default to attaching on the spine and if it isn't narrow, avie's chin or collarbones tend to clip through when your AO starts to move you.  It takes a bit of skill with moving and rotating prims to get the collar in the right place but for the perfectionist, it's well worth the discipline.

Out of season on the North Shore

Out of season on the North Shore

July is pretty meh for surfing on Oaha's North Shore and won't get really good again until November.  Still, a bad day on the North Shore beats the best day pretty much anywhere else.  Better still if you can sneak a bottle of wine into your picnic basket and go with someone special to share it with...

Beach shower (Adult or PG) from Botanical, available now at The Home Show (new)

Canopy from World's End Garden

Bikini bottom, St. Tropez Micro in black from Liv-Glam

Bandhni Hanky Top in crimson from Zaara

Summering in the Hamptons with NyuNyu Kimono and Gatsby

Summering in the Hamptons with NyuNyu Kimono and Gatsby

Floral shirt in pink rose from NyuNyu Kimono (new)

Gatsby Hat (and hair) from Miamai (new)

Kimono Tie skirt from Nyu

N-Core Delicous heels

Cameo brooch from CentoPallini