Mezzadorno Mask

I'm doing a good job with my new year's resolution so far, keeping my projects short and sweet is incredibly refreshing and its wonderful for my morale. I have another beautiful mask done, these are just pouring out of me and I've been able to work on them straight through the day without getting to the point where I want to run off and eat a pint of ice cream! Bliss!


The Mezzadorno is in the same vein as the Perorno, but it has a different character and shape than its sibling. I also simply can't get enough of all of this filigree, I think the next mask I do might have even more. I found it hard to stop myself with this one, but any more and it started to get a bit "busy".

I've also noticed that there seems to be a rise in the incidence of spambots in the comments. Normally when I see the little notice that lets me know I have a comment, my heart jumps, I can barely wait for the page to load, what did that person say about my things!!.... oh, I can save a lot of money on blah blah blah. I can't bear the heartbreak. I might put comments to moderation, and its most certainly not your fault. If you're a real person you are more than welcome to post, unless you're not, in which case bugger off you spambot!

Perorno Mask

With Mardi Gras on its way, I'm working on a few new masks to help people get in the mood!

Perorno is simple and elegant, in the same vein as the Civetta and Columbina Venetzia masks. I've been working more with torus masks and I just love the crispness of the eyes and how easy it is to fit. It's unisex, though men with larger noses might need to reposition it, so just be sure to try a demo before you buy!

The mask has my usual selection of twelve colors, though I played with the shades a bit to mix it up. You can expect a few more masks similar to this one as I play with shapes!

Mardi Gras Masquerade 2010

Purple, green and gold aren't just the colors of a Concord grape at sunset, they're also the colors of Mardi Gras. When everyone else is thinking about Valentine's Day, I've got carnivale on the brain!



You're cordially invited to the fourth annual Illusions Mardi Gras Masquerade, held in Carnivale's elegant event hall. Even though Mardi Gras is obviously on a Tuesday, I know there are people who would like to withhold their revelry to a time they don't have to get up early to go to work/classes the next day.

As always, purple, green and gold are apropos but if you have something specific in mind, go for it! But please, keep the showgirl outfits in your closet (you too, men!) and keep in mind this is a formal affair.

When assembling your costume, please keep these rules in mind. These rules have worked exceedingly well for former events, even with the sim at capacity! So please, do respect them. For the sake of all of us, if each party-goer abides by them we should all be able to dance and camera around without molasses.

Please keep your prim attachments in total to 200 or less.

You can double check how close you are to the limit by using build, and holding down shift to click each item you're wearing. The build window will display the collected total of those prims.

Streamline your AO, or leave it at home

Nobody likes looking like a noob while being a wallflower. However, if you don't plan to dance, fill a veritably lag free, low prim ZHAOII with your two or three favorite stands. Otherwise, just go without.

No particles, and no listening scripts
Turn that bling off, and make sure you don't have any items on you that respond to chat commands. Make copies of items that have resize scripts in them and use the remove feature that many have included.

As always, there will be a costume contest, determined by vote, to vie for the titles of Mardi Gras King and Queen. Two previously unreleased, themed masks will be awarded as the prizes, along with 1500L each.

Make sure you join the group early, do not put it off because you don't have a group slot. Spots will go surprisingly fast, and I will refuse to add a single soul more than 50. I will, however, have a waiting list just in case anyone leaves the group, which has happened before. There will still be hope to get in even if you hear about it too late.

Masks are required, but a freebie mask will be included, which is the mask shown in the invite. I know the costume rules are tough to follow, especially when it's so tempting to go for the excess, but I have the utmost faith in your creativity to be able to work around the limitations, and flourish. I can't wait to see you there.

Illusions Mardi Gras Masque
Saturday, February 20th, 4PM SLT
Illusions Event Hall, Carnivale
(Join the "Illusions Mardi Gras Masque 2010" Group)
Formal Dress and Mask Required

Shoes & Accessories Hunt

I've decided to try out participating in one of those new fangled hunt thingers you young people are always yammering on about. And I'm jumping in with both feet, since the SAH is HYOOOGE! Or at least it is to me, apparently some jaded and delusional folks are saying it's a "modest" hunt with a mere 164 stores participating.

I'm not sure what I can expect from this considering I'm store #150, and I personally can't imagine anyone actually going to every single store and wanting to spend time at them. So I guess I have to set out a particularly appetizing gift to get people in here!

I made some cute little ram's horns, and I've been wearing them around for a week or so now. They didn't fit in with my ridged horn release so I've decided to let you guys have them. Even if you don't feel like doing the hunt, this one is on me guys :)

Now you just have to find them! They'll be hidden inside an alpha picture of a yellow boot. The clue I gave the hunt coordinators was this: "Someone was climbing on the columns". I tried so hard to think of something more clever and romantic (oo a haiku! or maybe a sonnet!) but my hiding spot is so unremarkable the wellspring of my poetic mind ran dry from boredom. So I guess if you're reading this you get an extra clue!

Nature's Headgear

When I see a nature show and they feature gazelle, impala or ibex, I always appreciate the artistry in the sculpting hands of evolution/god/spaghetti monsters. It's unavoidable though that my thoughts should always wander to "damn, that's some frickin' awesome headgear". Some of them are just equipped with the most exquisite racks of lovely curving horns, the likes of which demons only dream of.

So since making my Christmas antlers got me in the mood to make horns, my days of fruitless envy are done and gone, for I made myself some frickin' awesome headgear :D

The ibex is a type of wild mountain goat, who, as you might have guessed, has awesome horns. The ridges and character and roughness of them is simply inspiring. For these, I did a whole new set of textures (but with the same familiar options as the others) to reflect the unique character of them. I also used oblong sculpts to try to cram as much of the actual shape of the ridges as I could. Thankfully, they were quite versatile and allowed me to honor a few other gloriously ridgey horned animals.

The Capra Sibirica (Siberian Ibex) is another goat with amazing horns, so huge you really have to wonder how they don't fall over when they stand up. These are actually smaller than their horns, you can certainly make them larger if you like but I didn't want to give my avatar a headache.

Aepyceros Melampus is the scientific name of the impala (not the car). These are my favorite, they have a beautiful lyrate curve that's flattering and exotic, and are possibly more aerodynamic for superior highway fuel performance.

At first glance you might not be able to tell the difference between these and the Aepyceros, but if you try the demos you'll see they both have a distinctive character. The Gazella are a bit more aggressive and streamlined, which might reflect well on their namesake. Not sure if gazelles are aggressive, no one ever comes back from safari saying they got attacked by one. Though admittedly that might be because no one wants to come back from a safari and say that out of all of the dangerous animals they saw, they got attacked by a gazelle.

Anyway, these are all out at the main store :) You can nab them for 125L each, and you can grab the demos out of the notices for Masqueraderie or at the store.

A New Year

I have a pretty simple resolution this year, and that's to release more small projects. I feel like this year I did a tremendous amount of work on complex projects like the roses and the Hedera silks, that took months and months just get added to the wall. I have the potential to produce an enormous amount of awesomeness, butI do feel limited by knowing what a total pain in the ass huge projects are. I have inspiration and visions of gorgeousness that I rein in because I start worrying about how long and how demoralizing the work would be. I don't like that feeling.

Doing things like the elf slippers, holly jewelry and antlers was incredibly refreshing. It was a great reminder of how rewarding and motivating it is to release things regularly. I'm tired of agonizing over myriad pieces of a greater whole, and I'm ready to do more one-offs. I know this doesn't really effect you, but you can be on the look out for more masks, horns and possibly whimsical shoes. I won't be doing any more outfits any time soon, that's for certain. I just don't think I can handle that right now!

Also, I apologize for never getting around to blogging my holiday freebies. I've been sick for the past week and my will to do anything Second Life related went in the trash along with my spent tissues. I feel better now obviously, but that's why this post is conspicuously a few days late >.>