JUST STOP IT

There has not been much that has been able to awake me from my much appreciated state of hybernation, but last weekend's stir up has even reached my lair and I just have to add my 2 cts.





The blatant skin theft that has been going on is not only damaging for our content creators that put hours and hours of work and a lot of love in their creations, only to see some jackasses riping it off and making a profit of it, it is damageing to all SL residents. As Ziggy Quirk mentions in her video message, it is litterally a matter of days before content creators will just stop creating and eventually leaving SL for environments where their talents are not being as abused as in out part of the metaverse.

To fight back however, I don't believe in people closing their sims, or stop creating. I applaude Sachi Vixen who has made some skin samples freely available and transferable, so that people can try them, learn about their qualities and eventually pass them onto others so that they can learn too. This creates awareness so that people learn to distinguish the real deal from the fake stuff.

Now this is not a solution, nor is crowding a place with stolen content until a next location surfaces. For a solution, Linden Labs need to swing into action and take measures on a level no resident is capable of doing. They need to let go of their laissez faire, laissez passer attitude, just as they did with the casinos and the banks and other things they hold threathening for the company and the residents alike. So yes, as unoriginal as it si these days, go to JIRA and vote and make sure that LL cannot ignore this problem anymore and assumes responsibility.

RaC... It's Your Turn

It's your turn because I am not going to review RaC skins. Honestly, without ranting about it, it is one of the skin brands I like less in SL. Like probably everyone else I was smitten with the cute faces when I first got to know this brand, but when I tried on the demos my love died pretty fast, if not instantaneously. Too many flaws and details that I didn't like caught my eye as soon as I took my clothes off.


But I knew I wanted to do something with these skins when a couple of months ago I accidentally (yeah... that is right.. never buy skin demos BEFORE your morning shot of caffeine or you risk ending up with the real deal) bought a set of skins and since I am never going to wear it (it's evennot the right skin tone for me) , I thought I'd dedicate at least a blog post to it so that my 4k is not totally thrown away (it hurts... 4k... could have done such nice shopping with it)

So no review, no going into details about what I don't like about this skin. Then what? Hey... like it or not, but RaC IS one of the market leaders in SL. That means there must be wagons of people that DO see the worth of spending a lot of money on these skins. So I decided to open up the comments and ask you: Please enlighten me... what is it that you find so wonderfully attractive in these skins? OTHER than the cute face, I can see that, so no need to elaborate on it. Or if it is just that... and you think it;s worth the L$... well by all means... let me know.

Whereas I appreciate your positive comments, I also appreciate people commenting who, like me, are no fan of these skins. Just one request for all of you: keep it civilised? When things get nasty, I will have to close comments and delete offensive ones that have been placed already.

When RL Eats You Alive.....

.... you have no time for blogging. Work is crazy, a project I am working on is in a critical phase and needs all my attention and energy. I hope to be back by the end of the month when things are getting back to normal. See you all soon!

Vogue on Sale II

Wicked Starley… not only her regular Vogue and Charmed skins are 50% off, to my big surprise I saw that her brand new Fall collection is priced at L$ 500 for a single and L$ 1500 for a fat pack too!!! . I just had to stop by her sim before heading off to RL work today but I had no time left to stack up some L$ and I will have to go back  later to buy them and try them on, but I just wanted to let you all know this. It's not just the current skins that are on sale… it's the new stuff too!!!! I'd say… SIM CRASH :-D

Vogue on Sale

Starley Thereian, over at Celestial Studios, has decided to put up her Vogue and Charmed skins (singles and 4 packs) with a 50% discount from Wednesday September 26 through the weekend to celebrate the upcoming release of her fall skins. So I thought it would be a nice occasion to report on the Vogue skins.


Now, unlike a lot of residents, I must admit I am not a huge Starley skin fan. I think she is a very, very talented designer, and her marketshare skinwise is huge, but there are some things in these skins that I just don’t like. I don’t wear Vogue skins often but I do have some in my collection.

As usual, let me start with the things I do like about this skin. Like the immense variety of make ups that this skin comes in. The lips with the different eye make-up options and vice versa. When Starley first released Vogue early this year, I thought it was a pretty cool feature, and I still like it a lot, just as the diplays. The mouth in general is one of the best features of this skin in my opinion. It has a strong, rather pouty form that looks good on most shapes. The lip colour can be adjusted in appearance, which is a lovely feature for further personalizing your skin. I also adore the shading on the nose and the highlight above the lip cleft.
On the down side, the eyes are one of the most recognizable characteristics. The make ups are great, but … whether you use Starley’s eyes, or other peepers, whatever form you give your eyes in your shape, all eyes in Vogue skins, to me, look a bit sad, full of melancholy. Some might call it languid, but to me it is sadness that I see in the eyes of avid Vogue fans. I would love to see a CS skin that has more happy eyes.

The body is done well for the biggest part, the muscular shading is a bit too much for my taste, but it is well done and you can see Ms Therian has absolutely all required photoshop skills. An overall nice shading on the front of the body, the back is pretty nice too. I don’t know how to put it, but there is this hint of skin moving around the spine that I am not sure whether I like or not, but it is quite realistic. Too bad that around the edges the skin seems a bit smudged to cover up the seams…(aaaargh… Yeah I know... I’m always nagging about them, but they really can be done well, and yes I am more critical when I am reviewing a market leader. Yes I do have different standards. I think market leadership should be a reward for the combination of an outstanding product, balanced pricing and good marketing as well as a number of other minor components. /rant off). So yes, the seams are an issue in this skin. I spotted a visible one around the neck, and although not really visible as a seam, the textures of the upper and lower body do not completely match. Also, the covering up of the seams is a bit of an issue. The smudging makes your complexion less radiant than it could be. Luckily this doesn’t show in the face which I’m pretty sure is the most important for most customers.

The legs and arms are decent, nice knees and even elbows that are quite allright, except for the feet. They look unfinished.. or finished in a hurry… almost like the designer couldn’t care less about them and that, for me, is hard to digest. We are looking here at a skin from a designer that does NOT lack skills, that is a market leader. A designer who’s skins cover a lot of the fashionistas’ bodies… don’t we like to wear sandals anymore? Ok, it’s fall in the northern hemisphere so I should probably just put my sandals away and don’t bother about the feet till next spring. But I couldn’t help but wondering why and besides... the antipods are heading towards the summer… they will want to wear sandals! I always do look at the feet of skins that I review and I know they are a pain in every creator’s behind but these really struck me.

So is Vogue still a skin that I care for? Over all… yeah I think I am going to expand the CS skin section in my inventory during this sale. After all there are a lot of lovely features in these skins, and honestly... I’m just too much of a shopping addict to let a sale slip through my fingers...

Oh.. once I saw the ad, I could not resist posting it here too. The new make ups look so lovely. I can only hope that there was some work done on the body done as well.

Special Skin Deals

Down Time Wednesday (DTW)... so what does a girl do to satisfy her SL fashion hunger? Scroll the blogs!

There are 2 good skin deals I picked up from Fashion World : Tuli Asturias is considering leaving the prices of her skins down at L$ 500 for series 1 and L$ 850 for series 2 and would like to hear what YOU think of that... as if you are going to protest against cheaper and gorgeous skins..... Read more about it here and leave your comments for Tuli. Being DTW I have not been in world to check if the prices are indeed still at this level, but from the blog I guess that, for at least the time being, they still are... so grab your chance. These are skins which, I must confess, are not yet in my collection (did you notice the "yet"?) But they do look so yummy from the photo that I feel the urge to go get some when SL is back up.

In a comment on a comment on her blog Sachi Vixen announces that during next weekend, when Adam 'n Eve will celebrate the opening of the re-build of the shop, she will put the Aphrodite and Cleopatra skins to L$ 100. No, I'm not kidding... read Sachi's comment here. After the weekend she will retire these lines and start to expand her Aphrodite 2 line with new make ups. I'd say that is an opportunity you cannot afford to miss. This opening is going to be very promising anyway, with lots of music, a scavenger hunt on Saturday and a old shop closing down sale on Sunday afternoon.

No SLURLs today, I might add them later though. Have a great Wednesday and smile... it makes the world so much nicer.

12 Avatars: Greed and Vanity.... Or???

Oh my, in a world where looking great is only a matter of stopping at the right shops and buying some decent skin (yay), hair, clothes and accessories and play around with the shape sliders for a while, it's incredible how eager everyone is to be in beauty pageants and model contests. Let alone the shameless self promotion on the various blogs and feeds.

Sorry, but the "vote for me" bogus is actually repulsing and i was about to ignore the whole thing... until I read Natalia Zelmanov's blog post that put it all back into perspective for me. 12 Avatars is a charity action to fight hunger, and maybe contributions are small, but every penny, every L$ helps. And what's maybe more important: it creates AWARENESS that a lot of people all over the world are starving which is totally unnecessary if only the available food is fairly distributed.

Natalia has vowed herself to donate the 20k prize money to the charity, as well as 10L$ for every vote that she receives. Natalia was elected Miss Second Life last year, also because of her philantropical mentality, and this proves once more that the jury has chosen a worthy person to carry that title.

So don't go looking for me... but follow me to the site and vote for charity at booth 37F, not for greed and vanity.