And here comes….CLEO! – Review

Hey guys!

I am sooo happy that finally Aida released this skin for Glam Affair. I think it has been a long, long time since I have been waiting this anxiously for a skin. Amberly was nice already, but I like Cleo better. I was so damned jealous of Magenta DeVinna and of certain other individuals who got this skin as a preview. Jealooous. I have been camping the damned store the whole time.

And Aida did not disappoint me!

Cleo comes in six tones: Arctic, Europa, America, Jamaica, India and Africa.  My personal favourite ones are Europa and America, so these are the ones displayed here:

I love, love, love these lips! I quite like the body, even though I haven’t been a big fan of her Lola-appliers, because they come with no layer to hide the sideshadows (also called sideboobs) whenever you do not want to wear giant boobies. But I think the shading is pretty nice and ever since her older releases such as Gio etc. she has improved a LOT imho. The face is very soft and youthful and I also like the hipbones. Personally, I like faces that look a little more ethereal and not that doll-like, but I am still pretty much in love with it.

Due to my lack of Lindens I obviously cannot display all twelve make ups for this skin, but those are really, really pretty. This one does the job as well. The skintones look very natural to me unlike those of certain other skincreators that always either seem too reddish or too yellowish. Also, a big improvement when you compare these to her old skins!

What’s in the package?

One skin costs 999 Lindens and comes with the following features:

6 (!!!) eyebrow options, displayed below

3 types of freckles on layers, displayed below

3 types of lips on layers, displayed below

3 types of nose son layers, displayed below

ALL 6 eyebrow options on a natural version of the skin

2 types of lashes on layers.

Here a picture of all eyebrow types:

I think these eyebrows are really well done, very neat, pretty and detailed.

And here a picture of all noses, freckles and lips that come with the package:

Those noses are adorable and I LOVE every skindesigner out there who puts theirs on layers. It is one hell of an opportunity to customize your skin. The freckles? Geeze, I am currently a redhead and these are really natural looking, especially the ones that go all over the face. I like that they aren’t symmetric, which always looks very odd to me. And do I have to mention that these lips look really yummy? I am mostly a fan of the matte lips I must say, not so much of the super shiny ones, but that is clearly a matter of taste.

Summary!

Okay, I am calling Aida crazy, because that is one GIANT package for that price. O.o I am truly amazed by this offer. I was standing earlier in the store and was talkign to some other chick and told her that I expected the price for one skin to be upped now due to all the features. Well, they haven’t gone up and this is a freakishly good deal!

So, here is your TAXI to GLAM AFFAIR and I hope you’ll leave some Lindens there for Mrs. Ewing.

BTW: The hair is by Magika (Sabina Gully) and until tomorrow itonly costs 150Lindens for a whole colourpack (including all naturals/all oddly coloured ones etc.). The eyes are from Dead Apples (Soleil Reid), the lashes a current gift from Maitreya (Onyx LeShelle).

<3 Arica

Essences – Clover Skin

Hello!

The latest release from Essences by Inka Mexicola is available at the current Skinfair 2013. It is a really pretty skin with a soft and unique look to it. So far most of her skins didn’t really seem to fit my shape well, but Clover seems indeed pretty cute.

So, here a couple of infos:

The price is 1500 Lindens per skintone/make up. That sounds like a LOT of money at first, especially since even The Body Co now lovered their prices, however, once you look into the package, you see that you get quite some stuff:

4 eyebrow options
Cleavage layers on tatto-, shirt- and undershirt-layers
6 types of blushes
no-lashes-alpha
eyebrow-shaper

I do believe that everything besides the blush-layers are pretty much standard options nowadays, but the six different blush/contour options are really nice. Lola-appliers have to be bought separately, but that is just normal as well.

Skintones

The skin comes in eight different tones: Pale Dust, Midday, Light Rose, Beach, Sunkissed, Sunset, Sunheat, Moonlight. Some of these only vary in their colourscheme, not so much in the actual darkness/lightness of the skin, so it can be a really tough pick because you can barely spot a difference at first sight (see the skins above!).

What I noticed was that with neutral lightsettings (Analu Studio 5) the darker skins have a tendency to look very reddish, while the lighter ones have a yellowish touch to them. However, I know that a LOT of skins have this ‘problem’, so I am not going to nitpick here. The skintones sort of remind me of The Body Co! If the yellowish undertone bothers you, you can always buy one of the many skindetoners available and should be very happy afterwards.

Textures

In my opinion, the textures on these skins are very well done. I especially like the whole stomach/belly area and the shading around the spine. I think those areas look very, very realistic.

Maybe on this particular skin the shading around the nose is a little too dark for my taste, but I believe that this has to do with the particular look Inka was going for (some sort of summery look with a tiny hint of a sunburn?). The cheeks look fresh but not too young. The lips are gorgeous! I really do adore these lips and wish they would come as tattoolayers as well, so these could be added to other skins as well. Yummy!!

I am not a HUGE friend of the eyebrows. I think the blonde and ginger ones are pretty, but both the brunette and brown ones seem very, very strong. But, I do know that a lot of people like the thick brows lately, so that is really just a matter of taste.  What I DO like about the brows is the general shape. They are easy to adjust, unlike the brows of my current skin.

I think Inka managed to give each of her skins the typical ‘essences’-feeling: You can spot one of her skins right away. Clover is no exception. It has a pretty, young face with those typical juicy lips and a cute button-nose.

Make Ups

The skin comes with four colourful make ups and one nude version of the skin. I personally prefer the nude version because that seems a lot more versatile. However, the make ups are really fresh and funky!  Make Up Number 5 (the dark green one) is my personal fav because I am not such a  big fan of the colour pink. I really do wish it would come with different lipsticks, too!

A tip: Inka participates pretty regularly in events such as Zodiac and The Dressing Room. If you don’t like these make ups, try to grab a copy of the versions of her skins there for a lot less Lindens, too!

So, thank you for reading this and bearing with my not so perfect Photoshop skills. I hope it was informative. If you want to try out Clover yourself, check it out at The Skin Fair 2013 – Essences.

<3 Arica

PS: I am SOOOO disappointed that I cannot use the other layout I had for my blog. This one is fine as well, but not AS pretty as the other. Unfortunately the pictures on that one were too big for the Fashionfeeds.

Ripped content….makes me angry.

This time no fancy picture, just this:

So, recently I have seen more and more and more people promoting and wearing armors and follower pets created by Manticore/Erebos. I admit, a bit ago I fell for the ruse myself and bought a cute little dog there, being rather unaware of the fact that the pets displayed are all ripped from games such as Final Fantasy as well…since I never played those.

And this is just ONE example out of all their stuff. I fear not a single item in that store is NOT stolen.

I myself became suspicious the moment the store began to release a ton of excellent mesharmors…that all seemed oddly familiar to me. I could bite my ass for wasting 450 Lindens on the small dog.

I made the experience that ever since mesh was introduced to SL, any random store that pops up with a TON of excellent stuff at once should be regarded with suspicion.

I for once am a huge supporters of original creators and I personally-hate- blowing money of peoples’ ass when they sell stolen stuff. I am really sad to see just how few people seem to care about this and don’t even feel a bit bad about buying stolen stuff. I guess a lot of people who aren’t regular gamers aren’t even aware of it, just like me when I bought the dog. FF is one of the few games I never touched.

I do not really think one can expect people to recognize every little piece of stolen stuff from other games, but I do think that a bit of common sense sometimes helps: Large amounts of excellent seeming stuff for low prices from a largely unknown store? = Likely ripped. Not always, but there’s a good chance for it.

I personally do not even -mind- if people get stuff for themselves, but as soon as you profit from it, imho you are not only ripping off the creator, but also those who buy from you, letting them believe you buy legal stuff until one day they look into their inventory to find out it’s been replaced with an ID from LindenLabs and an odd message in their IMs.

Food for thought.

Arica.

PS: I find some reactions, even from bigger bloggers, rather disappointing. Basically they go: It is LindenLabs responsibility to take them down.

Oh sure, it is. But do you really think that takes away -your- responsibility to not support thieves by throwing money at them or displaying their stuff knowling on blogs? I hardly will blame anyone who doesn’t know it, but I will blame anyone who is being made aware and still says “Oh, that is LL’s responsibility, not mine.” Especially since the TOS clearly state that you, as the user of content, have a share of responsibility as well.

Modern Elfy Times!!! :)

Hello peeps,

so, I guess I owe an explanation (or not?) as to why I am have been sooo slow with everything lately. I keep telling myself that I’ll have the time to blog more…but then I figure: NOpe, again no time. I am currently in a trainee programm for teachers and it basically eats up my time. I got my final exams in less than three weeks and well…I better not procrastinate. So until the 4th of March, I will probably not be blogging again after this post.

Today, I wanted to show you gyus an outfit I made for a casual OOC elf a s well as some of my favourite hairs that more or less recently have been released.

Here is my outfit. Forgive the not so cool picture, I tried to figure out how to get shadows to work properly. Oh well…skillfull me isn’t all that skilled yet.

Hair: Exile (Kavar Cleanslate Mesh!!)
Shape: selfmade
Eyes: Mayfly (Arkesh baral, Mesh!!)
Ears: Illusions (Siyu Suen, Mesh!!)
Blouse: Tee*fy (Azure Electricteeth, Mesh!! Collabor 88!!)
Skirt: Götzsche (Goetzsche Resident, Mesh!!
Pumps: Elikatira (Elikapeda Tiramisu, not for sale anymore. )
Clutch: Milk Motion (Marie Lauridsen)
Belt: Tokidoki (Maya Levane)
Necklace: League (Nena Janus)

Here come my six current favourite hairstyles, in no particular order:

Both Magika hairs are just flawless. I love, love their system where you can buy the whole scale of natural colours (brunette, red, black, blondes) for only 250 Lindens. The textures and meshwork is awesome, and each hair comes in three sizes. Magika has improved so, so much over the years. Imho, Sabiny Gully is currently one of the best hairmakers out there. These hairs fall in a natural manner and are really long as they reach down to the lower back. I am in love with these. Also I think her haircolours look very nice and natural, even if I picked a not so natural red right now.

The LeLutka hair is very nice as well, the soft waves giving it a very innocent look. I love the fact that you can turn the hair accessory on or off. I have to unfortunately turn it off because it clips into my elven ears. But even without it, this hair looks really nice. Her haircolours and textures are very, very good as well. I really can rarely complain, unless she is making one of her strange hairstyles again for which you’d need a bottle of hairspray to have them stay that way. But oh well, this one is awesome! It also fits me quite perfectly, even without the alpha layer.

And here comes Eaters Coma. Kumii Yoshikawa always already amazed us with her really pretty styles that she made for SIXTYNINE. The style ‘ME’ was one of the favs I’d say, and I saw so, so many chicks with it. Guess what? Now she has redone it in mesh, and while I like Burley’s remake of it as well, this one just made me SO happy. I am wearing it on the right. I do not think it is  a 100% exact replica of her old ME-style, and I wish teh bangs would be a bit lower on this one, but this is a thick, very wellmade and hot braid that goes over your boob. Truth has made a similar style, I believe it is called Froukje, but the way the braid just seems cut off at the bottom always bothered me. I love this. Eaters Coma in general makes very good mesh styles, even if not all of them are fitting my personal tastes. The style on the left is one of my current most worn styles as well. I think her textures are awesome, however I do wish she would add more colour-variety to her packages. Also, making hair, even meshhair, no mod is a bit sad. One should be abllowed to tint it a bit!

In the middle there is Exile, and I really, really do like it. Often enough, the shape of Exile’s hairs doesn’t go well with my headshape at all. In this case, I was SO hapy. Not only does it come with a bunch of cute, rigged meshflowers which you can obviously detach. The textures are nice and I really do like how it flows down over your boobs. I tinted the hair in this case. I bought the Naturals Package Exile offers and the tone ‘Sunset’ doesn’t exactly strike me as a red tone, so I tinted it a bit,  e voilà, now I am happy.

I think that is something  creators of hairs should really keep in mind: Please, please add packages with one example of each natural colour! I know Exile, Eliaktira, LeLutka and Magika do this, but I really wish others would follow as well. Make it a little more expensive than  the usual packs, that justs eems fair. But nothing is worse than having to buy tons and tons of hairs in a new colour, just because youc hanged your colour after years. I know what I am talking about.

 

So, that’s it for now and the next post will be more than liekly after the 4th of March. Unless I start procrastinating…

Arica

 

Finally, finally, finally…hurray for Laqroki!

Hello fashiongals!
Lately, I felt a little uninspired, likely due to the fact that some of my favourite stores and sims closed. Even outfits I actually liked suddenly did not interest me anymore, so the only thing that made me log in every day was the search for something awesome and…new. And here it is:

Laqroki finally released their new skinline: ESSENTIAL. I decided to buy the skin named Saga, and it the FIRST time that I truly felt comfortable with dropping my usual skin, Orchid by the Body Co. I dropped it before for League, but soo enough went back, but in this case I think I actually might stay with Laqroki.
Mallory Cowen, the creator of Laqroki, reworked the whole look of her skins. I am not sure if she will ever rework her older skins as well, but I cannot blame her if she doesn’t, given how MANY she released so far. I üersonally am REALLY in love with the look of the face, even though it is, typically for Laqroki, decidedly flawless. But hey, I play an elf, we are supposed to look oh so flawless, so I cannot complain.

A skin costs 1990 Lindens and comes with a GIANT package of addons: Lipgloss, different eyebrows, different eyelids, lips on layer, nose on layer (!!!), birthmarks on layer, hairbases in blonde, brown, black and red on layers, eyeliner and smokey eyes on layer, Saga prim eyes, cleavage layer both on tattoolayer and on the undershirt layer. Honestly I think that 1990L is a VERY fair price for this package. Also, there are tons of make ups available, 100L each.

Now you might wonder why nose, mouth and such come on layers? Well, you can combine them with her other skin, Elle, or that’s what I ahve been told. Basically, you can add the Elle-Nose to the Saga-Skin or teh other way round and so on. This way, you get to mix all kinds of very unique looks, and I think it is a badass idea!!!

But lets see how these skins look now:

On the left I wear the Laqroki skin in Tone 1.0 (the palest tone), on the right I wear the same skin, just added Arriah Fiertze’s Skin detoner. I personally am delighted to see that Mallory managed to significantly reduce that awful yellow/orange ting that most of her older skintones had. In my opinion, it is STILL a bit visible, but that might just be my graphic-settings as well. I personally like it even more with the skindetoner. The make up I wear is from Kosh, the skin tiself is completely bare. The look is very soft and beautiful, I really do love it on my shape. The lips have a nice colour (this is the base colour), a nice sturcture and the spines seem very natural and not as overdone as they often look on other skins. The brows are fantastic imho, not too thick yet visible enough. The nose is pretty much perfect, I really do not like the overly thin or bulbous looks that seem so popular lately.The slight rosy blush on the cheeks adds a touch of innocence which I really like for my particular character.

Maybe people who like flaws and possibly a more mature look will not be as happy with this skin as I am.

Note that ALL the following pics have not been reworked in any way besides cropping them and adding a border.

Lets have a look at the body:

I am amazed about how Mallory reworked the body. On her old skins, the belly always had sort of a chubby look and imho, look rather unrealistic. It was one of my biggest petpeeves about her skin. Now? I think the shading is magnificant and very detailed. I like the sporty look the stomach area has to it now, yet it doesn’t seem exaggerrated and still very feminine. I especially like the hint of hipbones and muscles. I do believe that the boobs look a bit too plastic for my tastes, maybe the highlighting on them is just too much. However, they are a great improvement compared to the older ones.

I am not sure about the legs and butt. I think the shading on both knees and butt could have been a bit more detailed, but it certainly is no major thing for me. I really do like the shoulderblades as well as the shading around the lower back area. (Please ignore the not so fitting meshfeet….*cough*).

Overall I must say I am personally superhappy with this skin. I think this new line is a GIANT improvement if you compare it to her older skins and they can keep up with pretty much ever yother designer out there once again, if not even outshine them.

New hairs, too!

I was never a huuuuge fan of Magika. I bought a hair from them here and there, btu a lot of their hairs just seemed to unnatural or absurd for me. But then, last week, I went there and I couldn’t believe my eyes: AWESOME hairs all over the place. :O So, I went in, bought all of them and am ever since a superhappy gal! Elikatira released a new hair, too, though I wish she would add different REDS to her Essential Colour Pack. You ahve the choice between either an orangey version or a very deepred version, both not really looking too natural. I am in love with the styles and the textures on the Magika hair, especially with the red tones as well.

Here they are!

Magika

Elikatira:

I really love these! And I hope you liked the review.

And now, as a last question, what do you think about this skin on my avatar and about the new haircolour? I am pondering to have my elf become a redhead.

Arica

PS: New outfit following soon! Had to redo them because I was not happy anymore.

Think about all the stories that we could’ve told

Hey fashiongals,

Kumi is out!! Mochi Milena of Pink Fuel finally (!) released her Kumi skin. You can choose from eight different skintones and each package (1100 Lindens) comes with four eyebrow versions, two make ups in each pack as well as four different eyebrows (red, blonde, brown and dark), two different eyelid-version (one for the asian, one for the caucasian look) and a TON of awesome lipsticks. I am a big fan of Mochi’s lipglosses and lipsticks, so thats a giant plus for me. Given the bunch of skins you get in only one package, the price of 1100 Lindens is very reasonable imho.

I personally am SO HAPPY that she reworked her skintones. Not too long ago, I pointed out the yellow tint on her old skins on Flickr, and she gave me a bunch of skins of hers to review them and write down suggestions what to change. If THAT’S not customer service…then I don’t know. I am amazed to see that she actually took the things that were said (not only by me of course) to heart and reworked them and in my opinion, the result is really nice. I especially like the darker tones, which are not as ashen as most skins without going into the orangey tone-scale.

I like the body though I personally prefer a bit more of a natural look to the boobies. However I think teh skins are of a high quality and at first sight I couldn’t spot any seams or oddities. The shadings seem fine, too.

Also, I think the face is VERY pretty…but also very innocent. It might not be the most fitting skin for my pretty but kind of badass elf…what do YOU think? I do think I’d have to redo the shape a little? I also was so greedy that I accidentally bought a wrong tone….but now I am happy with it anyway.

And here’s my outfit for the day:

Hair: Lelutka (Thora Charron, Mesh!! New!!)
Skin: Pink Fuel (Mochi Milena, New!!)
Shape: selfmade
Ears: Illusory (Ivy Graves)
Eyes: Mayfly (Arkesh Baral)
Lashes: LeLutka (Thora Charron)
Lipstick: Pink Fuel (comes with Kumi Skin)
Make Up: Kosh (Lynaja Bade)
Blouse: So Many Styles (Irie Campese, @ The Dressing Room)
Tunic: Maitreya (Onyx LeShelle, Mesh!!)
Thighs: Mijn (mijn Seoung)
Socks: Enchanty (Nuts Andel)
Boots: Maitreya (Onyx LeShelle, Mesh!! New!!)
Gloves: Caverna Obscura (Elvina Ewing, part of Ascalon Ranger)
Necklace: MG (Maxi Grossamer, Collarbor88!!)
Ring: Kunglers (AvaGardner Kungler)
Bangles: Beetlebones (Suetabulous Yootz, Mesh!!)
Diadem: LaGyo (Gyorgyna Larnia)
Slingbelt: Deco (Veluu Faulds)
Bow: Centipede Weapons (CentipedeWeapons Resident, Mesh!!)
Dagger: LR Weapons (Larion Rhode)

Location: Incantre (Medieval fantasy Role-Play), Incantre

Hair Fair 2012 – A summary

Hellooo!

As we all know, the Hair Fair 2012, organized by Sasy Scarborough and her team, has opened to the public today. And oh wonder oh wonder – I made it in! Surprisingly quickly even, only cost me like 20 attempts per sim. So, here is a summary of my first impression and my favourite styles that I got.

Participants

There are many, many stores participating. I was especially happy to see some new stores on the horizon, such as LaViere, which is a bran of Azure Electricteeth from Tee*fy, known for her good taste and high quality designs. Then there is Götzsche. I have no clue who they are, but I do know that their style reminds me a lot of LeLutka, with a bit of Elikatira in it. I like it and that name makes me laugh, german girl that I am! ISON by Harry Hyx also has some nice hair, whcih unfortunately didn’t really fit to my avi but is nice regardless. Illusory looked pretyt neat, too, though it simply doesn’t fit my style. Anya OHMAI also released some really cute hairs. Prolly gonna buy them when I get back into the sim.

Of course there are also a TON of old dogs participating, in no particular order: LeLutka, Exile, Clawtooth, Lamb., Wasabi Pills, Analog Dog, D!va, Damselfly, Kik, Waka & Yuki and so many more.

However, I found it a bit sad that a couple of the largest stores (or at least ver ypopular stores) such as Truth, Maitreya and Burley don’t seem to participate.  Whatever their reasons, I would have loved to see them there as well!

Layout, setting and lag

The setting is pragmatic and plain, yet not unpretty. I liked the one from 2011 better though, it was more…eyecandy so to say. But then again, I go there to waste my money on pixelhair, not to admire the pretty setting.

The whole layout is really easy to navigate and despite the sims being full at all times, I experienced only a bit of lag. Instructions how to avoid lag can be found on the Hair Fair Blog.I highly recommend to read those. In short: No script, reduced draw distance, layer clothing or mesh clothing, no unecessary prims, no particles, reduce the number of avatars shown to you…and you shall be relatively fine.

Vendors

Overall most vendors worked just fine. It would have just been so much better if truly every designer had sent out the Demos in the respective group. Either SL isn’t loading them, or there is a bunch missing. Because it is really anoying having to buy and try demos AT the fair. Please?

Also, if you really HAVE to pack your demos/hairs into a prim, make sure it delivers upon attaching it. Clicking it hardly ever worked for me, and people are impatient.

Quality of items

I must say, I am a tiny little bit disappointed. I have the feeling (MY opinion!!) that a lot of creators did not really release something new, but simply offered a hairstyle that was very similar to something they already have in their store. That’s not necessarily bad, but not overly creative either.

Speaking of creativity: There are only so many over-the-shoulder-styles that I want to buy. I sometimes wished creators would look out what others make and try to be different instead of offering the 1000th version of the same updo or long hair. BUT: Admittedly, there are also only so many styles you can do. I am not sure, maybe my expectations are just too high.

Overall I think there were a lot of good items to be had, but a lot of poorly made ones as well. Trying the demos is absolutely a must!! There is a LOT of mesh-hair out there right now, so trying the demos really is important.

Now for the hairs!!

Left: Lamb! /Middle: D!va / Right: Götzsche

Click on the pic first to view it in its larger version.

Lamb’s hair is really cute imho. It looks soft and realistic, which I love. One thing that always bothers me are hairs that I would love to remake in rl, but everyone knows not even with ten bottles of hairspray that would ever work. One thing that I noticed is a ‘break’ in the texture on the strand on the right, the semi transparent one. Not sure why it does that, but it doesn’t bother me enough to not like this hair a lot.

D!va has realsed some very, very cute styles for the Hair Fair. They are soft and sweet. However, and that is something that will forever bother me about D!Va: Making hair no mod is an absolute NO GO imho. Making your stuff no mod won’t protect you from copybotters, so …just let it be, please? I happen to know that D!va always fits to my head, but as you can see, their black isn’t really black and more like…gray? I’d love to be able to tint this hair. But given how cute it is, I fear I will have to deal.

As I said before, I think Götzsche is like a mixture of Elikatira and LeLutka. Their textures are good and the mesh seems to work just fine with my shape in most animations. However, what I noticed after buying, is this strange stray strand on the very left. I am not sure why it is partially invisible from the front. From the very side, it looks normal. Does anyone know why that is the case?! I love it regardless.

Left: Elikatira / Middle: Exile /Right: LeLutka

Click on the pic first to view it in its larger version.

Elikatira’s releases for the Hair Fair is found a bit disappointing…besides this one!! I am in love with it. It looks really soft and as always, the quality of both texture and primwork is awesome. Yes, primhair!! Not mesh. Usual sculpts. And it looks so cute! I also like that Elikatira offers a so called ‘Essentials’-Pack with all basic colours in it for just 30L more than the regular price.

Exiles hair comes with or without feathers. I personally really like them. Without the feathers I thought the style looked pretty bland. I really like the texture as usually and the hair works well with my AO as well. I however wasn’t too impressed with the other styles by Exile, but that is a matter of taste I guess.

LeLutka’s hair has awesome textures and it fits SO well. The hair can be worn with or without attachment, which is a mesh-item. I personally love the very classy style of this hair and prefer it without the attachment. It does remind me of an old, old style from Lamb and finally it fits to my head, too! The other styles offered by LeLutka were pretty awesome as well, though didn’t fit my personal style.

Left: Fasionably Dead /Middle: Fashionably Dead /Right: La Viere

Click on the pic first to view it in its larger version.

I never really liked FD’s hair..until Toast Bard, the creator, sent me a review copy today…in brunette!!! ARGH! That was evil, because I bet she knew I’d instantly love it and run to buy it in black. J/k. I really like this new hair. It is mesh and I think both styles look really cute. I prefer the left one I guess. The only think that bothers me a bit is the shinyness/glitter on the texture. You can see it on top of the head. It didn’t seem as bad on the brunette copies. I am not sure, but that does not seem to match the quality of the overall work on the hair. But..I still like it!

LaViere’s demos did not contain the dark grayscales, so I was a bit disappointed when I saw this. While on the blondes and especially on those with neon tips or strands the textures seemed really, really nice, the textures on the darker hair seems a bit…blurry? I am not sure. It seems a lot less detailed. Might be due to the colour, but other creators pull off a good black, too! However, these are her first hairs and given the quality of her item swith Tee*fy, I am sure she’ll improve. The style of the hair is REALLY cute tho!

So, that’s it so far. Hope it helped you a bit and good luck getting into the sims.

The SLURLS are as following:

Hair Fair 1

Hair Fair 2

Hair Fair 3

Hair Fair 4

Have fun there!!

Arica.

PS: A correction on my part: LeLutka’s vendors were set correctly, I was simply mislead to believe the scripts in it were to use the vendors as usual LeLutka vendors. My apologies! I got it all mixed up while shopping on two accounts.

REVIEW: INNOCUOUS

Today I am reviewing the released items of a new store: INNOCUOUS. It is my first real review-post so be patient. The pants have been released now, too!

Below you can see my avatar in their items, in several variations of colours. The creator of these items wants them to be versatile and combineable. First and foremost, they are geared towards role-players, but honestly I do not think that people who only wear casual clothes should shun these. The pants I would totally wear in rl as well, same with the bolero. They are super cute.

Colours and textures

These are only a few colours of those offered. Corset, cowl and bolero come in five different colours, the pants come in eight colours. I really like them, very classy and even fitting for role-play without looking boring. The textures are highly detailed and unique. I love the shading on both the pants and the bolero.

I am especially happy that the fabrics of these items are fitting for roleplay. Linen, leather, cloth… it is perfect. If you have a closer look, you will see that the buttons, lacings and pockets on the bolero, corset and pants are not drawn onto the texture, but rather little mesh-items themselves which gives them a real 3D look. I think the wrinkles on the pants look especially realistic. Overall, I am really happy with the attention to details the creator has shown.

Shape and fitting

All items (besides the daggers) come in the usual five standard sizes: XXS, XS, S, M and L. In my case, my avi almost always fits in either size S or M. On the pictures I wear the pants in size S and the corset and bolero in size M. If you want to layer meshitems, you obviously will have to choose bigger sizes for the items you wear OVER other items.

In this case, the pants, as you can see on the photo, stick a bit through the corset on my avi’s right hip. While moving, that happened a lot. However, this has more to do with me than with the creator: I refused to wear XXS pants to prevent the corset/pants from sticking trhough, or I could have worn the corset in one size larger, but I refused to make my boobs bigger to adjust to that. So, I went with a bit of clashing mesh which, in my case, will be hidden under a belt anyway. I just think outfits with no belt usually look boring.

Overall I must say the items fit really well. Only some minor things that I noticed:  For the cowl I needed to wear an alphalayer from one of my LeLutka hairs, otherwise it would have shown on top. But I told the creator about that little problem and she said she’ll add alphas to the cowl-vendors, too.

The corset will at times stick through your boobs or not work well with crazy animation, but that’s how it goes with pretty much every underbust-corset that I own. I think it is more of a general rigging-problem than a problem this specific item has.

There is also a little gap showing between my legs. Not invisible-ponyrider-worthy, but it is there. Honestly, I have that with pretty much every single meshpants out there and if I want to have it less, I just wear the pants in size M and it looks better already, but then I have to hide that part under the belt, because pants size M and corset size M don’t go well together on my shape. I do think that my shape is partially at fault as well, because my elf has a big bum, so well, I’ll deal with a small gap. And those pants look really hot from behind, too!

I am especially happy about the length of the pants: perfect for boots. Finally I have mesh-pants than I can wear with boots, woohoo.

So, what’s the result?

I think as a summary I can say that despite some minor things that more than liekly will eb ironed out soon, these items REALLY impress me and I hoped this review was helpful for you. If you have any suggestions, please do not hesitate to tell me. I am always open for helpful advices.

Arica.