Pleiades

Unfortunately I have been very remiss with my blogging: The preparations for the store opening of alpha.tribe and my contributions to the endeavor have kept me from finding out about interesting and free or at least very reasonably priced items. I do have a few things though that I have managed to collect and I will start with something that comes from not only mine, but everyone’s favorite content creator in Second Life, the wonderfully wonderful, talented and generous Ms. Eloh Eliot.

Pleiades, tanned…

There are number of things which are wonderful about Pleiades: The first of these would have to be the mouth and the lips, which are highly expressive and realistic – as indeed is the rest of Pleiades. The templates for this skin show a peculiarly speckled light texture and I believe that it is this subtle effect which contributes to a an almost volumetric, touchably virtual skin. Second or rather third down the list of Pleiades wonders is the built in hair tone – no longer will I need to wear my close fitting Second Life texture hair, which never looks quite right no matter what I do to it. Ms. Eliot gives us the base color in 4 tones, thus alleviating a huge problem. at least for me… ;-) For those creating their own skins out of the templates the following is no major issue, however it would have been great if there had also been a baldy version available in the gnubie shop packages since I am assuming that there a quite a few women out there who (like myself) enjoy wearing Mohawks and who (unlike me) do not have the prerequisite photoshop skills to create their own skins.

And there is one tiny criticism when it comes to the templates: Unlike the “another skin” templates, Pleiades has only one set of eyebrows! Ingenious females can bypass this problem by downsizing the finished and merged Pleidaes skin to 512 pixels – sans eyebrows of course!!! – and then copy/paste this merged final layer into the another skin template file and then add the eyebrows there. That said, it would have been great to have a choice of eyebrows in the Pleiades files as well…

Most new skin will need some face shape adjustment, particularly if you have not made the skin but purchased it. In the triple image above, on the furthest left, I am wearing my Xiamara shape, which I have not really changed since I was rezzed. While my old (home-made) “another skin” looks really good on this strongly asymmetrical facial structure when I put on the Pleiades skin on that shape the result (center) was not too great: Not to put too fine a point on it, I look snide and snooty. The crooked mouth which gives my “another skin” face quite a bit of expression, with Pleiades turns me into someone you would much rather wish to avoid. Thus, I had to play around with the sliders in the appearance palette in order to attain a more or less pleasant face, one which is still mine but no longer so very snooty…

I especially liked the dark tone of the skin available at the Gnubie Store, although all 4 tones work very well for me. And incidentally, Alpha has been wearing Pleiades skin of late as well, and she too got her booty from the Gnubie Store. But, I understand that she will be hitting the templates in order to achieve that more sallow look that she has to live with as a look-alike avatar – poor thing…

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The photoshop templates for the Pleiades skin can be downloaded from Eloh Eliot’s website here, however for those of you that are happy to go with what Ms. Eliot herself has created out of her templates, 4 full sets of pale, fair, tan and dark Pleiades skins are available at the Gnubie Store as freebies.

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Ronja Pera

The rezing of a yet another new sister prompted us to make a tribal outing to the Freebie Dungeon recently. And whilst there I looked at the merchandise with a fresh new eye. Is it indeed possible to find things there that are perfectly acceptable not just by newbie standards but by common metaverse standards?

Granted, you do have to look very very carefully. Furthermore you will have to end up buying things that once you put on you will find to be absolutely hideous and immediately delete. But with patience and an unprejudiced eye you can uncover some really remarkable stuff. (Do not let the name mislead you by the way – the bulk of the things at the dungeon are not freebies or indeed dollarbies but set at either 5 or 10$L’s).
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The bulk of the remarkable that stuff that I seem to have found comes from a name that I am already quite familiar with – Ronja Pera, a designer specialized in extraordinarily well made footwear. My guess would be that the output that she has placed in the Freebie Dungeon is her very early design work in the metaverse. Although her current work is of course far more sophisticated, particularly in terms of her textures, (which these days are way more subtle, crisp and refined than the ones used on the apparel at the dungeon); what she has on display at the dungeon is still nonetheless no less better than many a so-called “mature” Second Life fashion designer’s current output. Indeed in my humble estimation with this obviously early work she still easily manages to surpass a good few such…

Shila, comes with a long skirt also. The matching boots you will have to buy as extras. Although the top does leave something to be desired in its cleavage trimmings, the attachments make up for the loss I think.

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Please continue to the special page on Ronja Pera at the Freebie Dungeon to view photos of the full collection which I assembled.

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