No one has guessed the other clue yet, but I hope this might help. My work today was on the same theme in the same vein, so if you can guess this one, it might give insight to the last one!

Here is the haiku for what I worked on today :D

A familiar face
Don't feel sheepish near it
It will get hungry

There are a few variations of the item in the works. Again, post your guesses as to what I'm working on in the comments and get a free item of your choosing!


On a completely unrelated note, when I was out to dinner with my mother and my fiance, we found the sweetest young black cat who had been abandoned in the parking lot. Well, we couldn't stand for that, and so we took him back to my mother's house, where we cleaned him up, made a vet appointment, and decided that this kitty with a motor boat purr was not going to go hungry or alone. We named him Sable, and depending on whether or not he gets along with our current kitty, he might have a new home with us :)

At the risk of slower, sluggish releases, I've decided to try out the concept of collections. I've had some really cool ideas that just keep building on themselves recently. I've thought of some really cool themes that, rather than release in small installments, I'd like to release all at once.

The current theme for what I just released was obviously "elf".

I'm not sure how long this collection idea might take, but I'll do my best to keep you updated so you don't think I'm just sitting on my butt playing Oblivion or watching reruns of That 70's Show. So I've decided to turn this into a game! How can I keep you guys excited, interested, and engaged in completely unknown items that I'd like to keep secretive? A guessing game!

I like haiku, so I'm going to give you guys a clue in a haiku. Post your guesses in the comments! The first person who guesses it right gets to pick an item from the store that they would like for free! So I'm going to try to make it hard, and I hope no one that sees me working on the item in question gives it away as a spoiler.

Raiments of a lord
A majesty's majesty
Which ladies wear not.

Make sure you include your SL name so that if you win, I can send you the goody!

Wingy Flingy Thingy

Wow, I just realized my last wing fling post was my 200th post on this blog! Nifty!

Well as promised, I released some new wingy thingies only available currently at my stall in Platinum. After the week is over they will be moved to the store, but until then you'll have to get there first. Lag has been really good though recently, so don't worry about having to swim!

If you're in a cuter mood and don't want to really express your angelic self through the big wings... how about cute little ones?

These attach to each shoulder, and each is individually texture changeable so that you can do alternating wings. My favorite is to do one in black and one in silver, it's always fun to show you're a little demon inside. Or maybe make it more obvious...
AAAAH CUTE LITTLE DEMON WINGS! You know you want some, for those wicked little days you feel like running around being mischievous but still fashionably adorable. People will get the idea that you're wicked, but without having to resort to enormous goth horns or huge torn wings. Personally, I love these and I have been flitting around all day with them. These can switch individually too, for folks who believe one color simply isn't enough.

"Chibi" is an Anime term, which very very briefly translated means cute, cartoony and small. And something else you'll find in anime culture or manga are... head wings!

These look awfully cute when matched with the wings, or maybe if you're feeling a bit of both you can wear the head wings with the shoulder wings! These, however, attach to only one point (rather than hogging those valuable head attachments) so the textures will change together. They look absolutely wonderful poking out from hats!

Another fun thing to do, is if you buy both the angel wings and the demon wings, attach one of each to your shoulders. They're both about the same size, and they look awfully cute together!

The shoulder wings are 115L, and the little head wings are just 95L, only at the stall in Platinum!

Wing Fling!

The diminutive and green haired glorious Jen Shikami has coordinated a week long wing festival, called Wing Fling!

Starting tomorrow, Wing Fling will be a convention of wing makers from all over SL, including Kala Bijou (Material Squirrel), Jen herself (Seven's Selections), Violaine Villota (Fancy Fairy), and many others... including myself! In honor of this convention, and because I like to do so, I will be releasing several new wingy items in honor of the occasion.

But you don't get to find out what they are until tomorrow :)~

Elven Additions

I wasn't done, I had the elves on the brain, they kept swirling around saying "elfy things, Celtic things, pretty things, graceful things!". Well, actually for the past two months the only words in my head were "EARS! EARS EARS EARS!" as anyone who spoke to me IRL or on SL experienced and patiently waited for the passing of. But now that the ear obsession has released me somewhat, I am free to share what anyone who has bought the Mystic piercings has already had a preview of...


I made sculpted pieces of Celtic knot work. Partly because it's beautiful, elegant, and unprecedented on SL (to my knowledge), and partly because I CAN! YEAH! So I found myself making little knot pieces that were graceful and flowy, and even stuck one on the boxes the ears came in. But of course having little pieces of knotwork is going to lead to... haha yes, I can see you longing for me to just say it! Just frickin' show the jewelry already!! Well, you could have just scrolled down if you were that impatient.

Ninya is Quenya (the old elvish language of JRR Tolkien) for "mine". I chose the name because I felt a connection to this design and its simple elegance, and I find I keep wearing it despite having other options. It's simple and beautiful and it strikes a cord with me.

Now I think you might be noticing a few things different about this set than my other sets like Winged and Rosalyn or Cherished... this one is scripted, like the ears and the hair, to change texture! Hurray! You get a fatpack for (almost) no extra! And what's that? There's something else... "additional pieces available"? What's that?
A rare beast, the hand ornament. Due to the difficulty of working with the mesh of the avatar's hand, different hand sizes, attachment issues, or just plain non-interest, it seems that hand ornaments are few and far between on SL, or maybe I'm just not shopping in the right places? Well, they happen to be one of my favorite pieces of jewelry in my first life, and what better addition to a mystical elven jewelry set than a hand ornament?

Maybe this?

I will give you a moment to grab a tissue to wipe the drool from your mouth.













Alrighty then! This has to be one of my most favorite creations... um... ever. I've made some beautiful things in my time, or so I'd like to think, but this is just a fantasy come true for me. Every single prim of it is sculpted, so rather than weighing in at a hefty 220 or even an impossible 300, (as a few of my pre-sculpted attempts ended up as) it comes in at a modestly luxuriant 130. I can thank Sculptomancy's sculpted prim chain links for that, 4 links in one prim!

I feel absolutely beautiful wearing it.

But it does come with conditions: it's made for longer hair, it might not work with all styles, and chances are very high that it will need repositioning, mild stretching, or some sort of rotation to look its best. My suggestion? Buy it in the copiable permission, and make a few copies for your favorite long hairs. That's what I did. Currently it fits best on Kin's Ayako style or Armidi's Angel, but it should be easily shifted or rotated to fit on a simple, long, straight style.

Yet even that wasn't enough to make me happy, I realized my waist was looking a little bare...

This is another one that might be a little tricky or be picky about what you wear. It works best with a long skirt, I built it onto Miriel Enfield's beautifully made Elaine dress (which is ridiculously perfect for elfing around in). And I ended up loving the entire set so much, that I just couldn't stop with one.



I made two other sets, each with the 3 additional pieces of the headpiece, hand ornament, and girdle. Irima, in Quenya, means loved and admired. The design reminded me of a royal elf, or the sort of thing you would give your little elven daughter.
Lataine is the last but not least, which reminded Kriket Pimpernel of branches and leaves. Thus I named it after the elvish word for "laurel", which has a leaf shape vaguely reminiscent of the shapes formed in the knotwork.


You can buy just the necklace and earrings as a set, or you can buy the hand ornament, girdle or headpiece seperately, but there is also an option to buy the complete set (and don't forget, with 6 different metals included!) for a modest 615L, which I think you'll agree is a steal for such elegant elfin accoutrements!

Well, I just found out that Nomine's "aether" collection of skin tones is incomplete, eep! Munchflower had told me that the two sets, the male and female, were very similar tones to each other, and it certainly looked like that in the pictures but apparently I was mistaken! My aether ears currently only match Nomine's female skins, so over the next few days I'll be reworking the aether set of skin tones and updating the vendors, so that the men will be able to have matching ears too. Once they're done, send me an IM if you want the updated version, no charge.

The ears have been met with a very flattering enthusiasm, that eases that horrible tightness in my chest over taxes, rent, bills, insurance, heat etc, and helps me breath easier for a while. I still have financial catching up to do with the nasty hit I'm taking with sim tier, and I'm currently constructing an apartment building so I can open to residential renters.

Back to the ears though, I came up with a cunning plan! I have a new method of matching skin tones for extra accuracy for custom tones, and I had a few people ask for matches for Gala Phoenix's new skins. I realized I could do a cross promotional thing with more people than just Selos and Munch, and offer ear sets in different skin maker's skin tones! So far, Roslin Petion of Fleur has accepted my offer, so I've matched her Vivant, Shoujo, Drow and Parfait skin tones and I'll be putting my ears up in her store in the upcoming week. So far I haven't decided just how many skin artists I'll be choosing, but I certainly do have to be picky or else I have a Herculean task on my hands and I'd never have any time for any more masks or anything for that matter!

Speaking of, I have a lot of random stuff I just haven't released. Hmm... I should fix that! Be prepared for a very "mixed" release. I had plans to make some sort of theme, a few items that had some sort of common trait... but forget it, if I do that I'll never release them.

Elf Ears? PWNED

It's an "omg" sort of day isn't it? Someone obviously was wishing for something today, and who am I to argue with a fairy godmother/the universe/a genie/fate? The long awaited ears have finally got all of their scripts, all of their skin tones, and are all boxed and packed, and it's all come together my lovelies, you have to wait no longer!






PIERCED EARS!! Yes, I heard your cries. They are all skin tone or metal change on touch, and the earrings are built right into the ears. There are three different kinds of piercings, as you can see, one of each "mood" that I could think of. Naturally, my personal favorites are the Mystic set, but Colemarie is insane about the punky ones, and Selos is a fan of mixing them up! These have been in the works for no less than four months. They were put on hold for the longest time, because I didn't know how to wrap my head around multiple skin tones, multiple jewelry metals, and multiple ear types with possibly even multiple permissions. I realized scripts were the answer (thanks again Ziggy :D), and also realized that as a body part... they don't really have to be transferable. I mean, second hand ears? Kinda weird...

But anyway. As part of my ear rejuvenation project, I realized I could sneak in a couple of extra fun things as well. How about cute little elfy fairy ears?

AAAAH SO CUTE AND PURPLE!! These are really my favorite shape and size for casual wear. Even with long hair, they poke so sweetly out and remind people you're not of this world. However, if you're not one for subtlety, there's always these:


Can't afford satellite or direct TV? Not a problem anymore with these. Seriously. They're named after the graphic novels called "Poison Elves" that Munchflower was kind enough to tell me about (and ask me to make back when she made her ltd ed character series), where the elves all have the most ridiculous, anatomically incorrect gravity defying head appendages. Now, you can join them. I tell ya, they look pretty awesome all done up in the earrings too, haha!

Instead of only two different sets of skin tones (18 total, drows and naturals), there are now over 60 different skin tones, in four different groups. Again, a set of naturals (12 now), a set of Drow tones (24 now!!), and a set especially made for Nomine's new Windlight Aether skins (insert shameless plug), and Selos Dae's elven skins (insert another shameless plug). After all, it was Selos who was kind enough to do the soft, silky skin texture for these ears. /end pimpage.

The drow tones especially I'm very proud of, as they cover Nomine, Fleur, Adam and Eve, Body Politik, Panjen (most of her tones), Sin Skins, E's, and Fallen Gods. Take THAT.

And again, with the other ears, you can send in an ear tone request and get a custom skin tone for just 50L :)

Elven ear market? PWNED

YAY OMG SALE!

I have a really bad track record with sniping down pieces that bother me, and yes, I'm really sorry about that! I also have a horrific history secretive, badly publicized sales. Well, time to turn that around!

I'm going to tempt fate here (*knocks on a Straylight tree*), and try a sale. I felt like spring cleaning, and this time, I'm gonna let people know about it.



There are some very beloved items being set for sale for the next few weeks, and I know you guys might be worried about them not coming back (as some of the items that have been requested still haven't shown up since the last retirement sale). However, I would like to assuage those anxieties and say that with most of these items not much is needed. For example, the Civetta and Columbina Venetzias have been set out on sale, but this is so that I can update the sculpted mask prim and the way they fit. They were the very first sculpted masks I ever made, so I was bound to learn a thing or two between now and then. (They're also almost a year old now! Can you believe it! :o! ). The same goes for the pirate items... since then, I've grown in my sculpting ability (and texturing ability), as well as acquiring new feathers and new tricks, and it's about time these items got a little touch up of my magic wand. Or feather duster, as the case may be.

I do plan on retiring the Isis silks, and a few other items for good. I might revisit the idea but I am not going to ever make "prim only" silks again. The boobies are just way too hard to fit, even with sculpts, and breast size varies so drastically across avatars it's just not practical. Some other items just need to be remade completely!

The ears are also suspiciously on sale... hmm... could this mean that more ears are coming very very soon?

If you guys run into any grid related problems and something doesn't get delivered, or stuff disappears or gets eaten, as it does, send me a notecard with the list of failed deliveries and as much transaction information as possible (the transaction number is very helpful!!). If things go wrong during one of LL's little "profile blackouts", drop a notecard in the "Failed Transaction" mailbox right nearby. I've been putting off this sale due to the SL hijinx lately, and I decided it's not worth waiting anymore!

Intermittent Mask Releases

As part of a plan to increase overall regularity of my mask releases during peak usage hours, my operations will make some changes at approximately 8:00pm Eastern which will reduce overall mask making time and create a more reliable experience for everyone. As a side effect of these temporary changes, some masks and ear releases will not be immediately made.

Specifically:

• I'm going to bugger off out of pure, sheer frustration at the state of the grid this past week
• I'm going to have a huge slice of chocolate cake
  
• I'm going to go watch TV until I get to a better place, mood-wise

Please note that all of these effects are temporary and I will return to my normal behavior when I feel better.

I will update this blog post to indicate when these releases are more likely.

Thanks for your patience as I work to improve my mask making experience..

I said that the ears would be released today if all went well, and I think if you've looked at the SL blog, you'll see that there have been some serious issues today. A lot of the work I hoped to do I couldn't log on to do, in fact, I could barely answer customer IM's due to a strange muting effect that happened and prevented me from being able to communicate in anything other than local chat! I had to use my offline email replies to respond, I've spent the entire day as Ruth, and I had to box the ears at the Newcomb Sandbox because my build area was completely and utterly toast. I'm extremely frustrated by all of this, as this was a self set deadline I could have easily met had there not been "complications".

It's been a very frustrating day for anyone at all who cared about getting on Second Life today, so my apologies as I move the release date back.. again :(

Update on the ears, I was planning on releasing them yesterday, and then today, and then of course I thought of something else I could do. Which is more work but what the hey. Here's the run down though, so you know what to expect:

There are two new ear shapes! So that makes five total. One of them is utterly sweet and I can't stop wearing them, the other is simply unforgettable.

I'm doing a skin tone set especially for Nomine's new Windlight Aether skins, a naturals set (of course), and a Drow set, which is what is the hold up right now. I ended up having too many tones (I could only have 12, and I had about 16-17 and I couldn't figure out which ones to lose). So I asked Ziggy once again, (thanks Ziggy), and I have a script that can handle more skin tones just especially for the Drow ones. I also plan on doing a set for TRAP's elven skins once I figure out how I want to handle her twenty two different skin tones (crazy woman).

While I'm working on skin tones, here is your chance to shout out ones you want to see! I've settled on the naturals already, and for the Drow tones I have Nomine, Fleur, Sin Skins, Body Politik, Adam and Eve, E's, Fallen Gods (just the "Dust" tone) and Panjen all covered. If I've missed anyone major, let me know!

The piercings come in three varieties, which are sort of moods almost; a punky funky body modifier set, a beautiful classic mystical set, and a spiky rar-ish goth set. I think that covers my bases as far as piercings go, and in any case I'm not doing any more. I've been obsessed with ears for weeks now and I'm gettin' sick of 'em!!

Have hopes for ears by Saturday, all should go well, unless things don't.

Negotiations: A success!

After extensive communication with the leader of the protest, I have discovered that they did indeed desire fish, in exchange for a decreased production of masks. We have come to an amicable agreement.


Happy Poisson D'avril, happy April Fool's, and happy me for having such marvelously humorous people in my group. May the penguin protest of 2008 live on forever in Illusions history.

Protesters on Carnivale

It seems some protesters have shown up on Carnivale, possibly in response to my blog entry. But it seems that they support my decision to stop making masks, just not the direction I intended to go after. They've been picketing my store since a little after midnight (around when I first posted), and they've remained calm and non-violent. I'm not sure quite what they're demanding, as they seem unintelligible and possibly foreign.


One thing can be said for certain...

They seem to be demanding fish.


As soon as I sent the notice to my update group alerting them to the boycott, their support and the sudden swarm of teleports was much appreciated, although there was a certain amount of dubiousness given the date. Although they found my words to be true, there are protesters on Carnivale, it was just the nature of them that had been omitted.


As Strength Carver said, there are "picketing penguins pestering piqued proprietors for pilfered pilchard". There were many giggles had by all upon teleporting and seeing the petite picketers, as well as profferings of poissons d'avril (fish of April, it's a french thing) were made to appease them. Yet they are stalwart and nonresponsive.

I will update this as I get more news.

A New Direction

Sometimes it happens that you just overdose on something that once brought you passion. Something you loved and labored at for endless hours becomes utterly loathsome to you all of a sudden, for no real reason that you can discover.

I've decided that I will no longer be making any more masks.

They're silly really, I mean, you can find no occasions to wear them, they hide your shape that you've worked so hard to make and enjoy, and they mess with your hair! I'm so sick of them I think I'll be changing the entire direction of my store.

I've decided that from now on, I'll be going back to my roots in normal prims, and giving up sculpted prims all together. I enjoy the challenge of simpler geometric shapes, and I think they will do well with my new content: gold and diamond jewelry inspired by Kay Jewelers. I just got some really nice bling scripts, and I'm tired of having to think up my own designs and put my creativity on display. My artistic talents would get me more money and attention if I copied real life designers!

I've also decided on a new sim build. I plan on bulldozing down the mountain, and the waterfalls, and putting in a very simple mega prim mall build and offering commercial rental space. I'm thinking an easily tileable cobblestone texture will look quite snappy across 512 meters.

I hope you guys respect my artistic decisions.



This entire blog post is a joke, and I'm sorry if I actually scared any of you guys, but no worries. APRIL FOOLS! :D