Merry Christmas from Siyu

I wish you a very merry Christmas, a happy holiday, and a day with loved ones and friends.  I asked Masqueraderie what they wanted from Santa (Siyu Claus?) and most loved the idea of snowy antlers.  So I'm happy to offer a gift to you that you can wear all winter long.

After having so much trouble getting myself to work, antlers were a delightfully simple and joyful thing to make.  These are mesh, but resizeable and moveable.  The snow on top is a separate object, so if you like, you can turn the snow transparent and wear them as normal antlers all year 'round.

You can pick these up in the notice history of Masqueraderie, which has no entry fee.  Merry Christmas, I hope these give you joy!

Happy St Patrick's Day!

I took a little diversion from working on my current projects to pop out a top hat for St. Patrick's Day! Whether or not you celebrate it, there's no reason to pass up a free hat. Plus, it's good practice for me!This is a brandy new top hat, not just a re-texture of an old one so it is mesh, and one object. If you haven't upgraded your viewer to be able to see it, why not? Get to it, you fabulous fashion conscious luddite!

You can find this festive verdant chapeau in the notice history of Masqueraderie, from now until the 31st.

If you're celebrating St. Patrick's Day, please do be safe and make the right decisions... or bring people with you who can do it for you ;) Have fun!

Happy Halloween 2011!

Hey everyone! I hope you had a fantastic Halloween, and got your haunting on. I don't know about you but today I had a splitting headache.

If you want to share in the misery, this lovely utensil of zombie-dom can be found in the Masqueraderie group notices! It is simply a bloody cleaver, so if you like, reattach it to your hand or hand-like appendage to be the one who's doing the cleaving.

Enjoy!

Happy Easter!

Happy zombie Jesus day everyone! Also, happy spring festival and happy thank-goodness-it's-finally-not-winter-anymore-day.

I have a new release just for this auspicious day, and speaking of auspicious, if you'd like to consider this a several months late Chinese New Year thing that's good too.

The rabbit mask has got to be the most adorable animal mask I've done yet, and I've shown it some love in that it has more colors than the other animal masks. Black, white and tuxedo are of course all necessary, but I also threw in chocolatey brown, silvery gray, ginger and mixtures of white and patterns. I even put in a beautiful tortoiseshell/calico pattern, since my intrepid googling turned up some beautiful tortie bunnies while I was looking for interesting patterns.

That's only the colors though, with the help of Sobriquet Kryakutnoy I finally am able to add a new function to this particular mask. You can select the style of ears that you'd like through the same menu as the texture change! Click it to change to lop-eared, alert ears, or relaxed/back.

I feel it's my best animal mask yet, with much better texturing and fit on the head. It's a full head mask unlike the cat, dragons and deer, which means you no longer have to stress about finding a hair that doesn't look horrible with clipping issues through it.


As it's Easter, I sent out a little gifty to the people in Masqueraderie. I'm thinking that I'll put it for sale, so in that case you guys all get it for free for catching it while it's in the notices :)

Happy Valentine's Day

I know everyone is probably sick of the hearts and the Hallmarky sweetness of it all, but I still wanted to send something to my update group as a token of appreciation for them. I think what grates on people the most about Valentine's Day is the forced romanticism, but if you consider it as a time to appreciate your loved ones it's hard to dislike it.

I really do appreciate my fans and customers, and I want to thank you sincerely for your support. For the IM's you send me saying that you love my work and for sticking in my group when I don't update for months, thank you. It's because of you guys that I get to do something that I love, and create beautiful things for so many people to enjoy. Even if we've never spoken, I still feel a deep appreciation for your contribution to my life.


I brainstormed about possible gifts and I realized if I gave you something with hearts or a strict love theme you'd only ever wear it once or twice. Plus I have to think of the poor neglected men!
So here is a Valentine's gift you can wear any day of the year.

You can fish them out of the Masqueraderie group notices. Enjoy them, and know that you guys are loved.

Happy Holidays from Siyu

Hey everyone! Merry Christmas, Happy Hannukah, happy holidays and all that good stuff :) May the Flying Spaghetti Monster bless you with his noodly appendage and all that good stuff.



I got into the holiday spirit, and put together a companion hat to the Elf slippers I released last year. I sent it out to Masqueraderie, so you can nab it out of the group notices for the next two weeks. I also put out a box of Christmas themed goodies I had out last year out at the store, it's not like they're perishable and I know not everyone might have gotten them last year. Enjoy :)

I hope whether you celebrate Christmas or not, that you're enjoying time with your family and friends. Of course no matter what you believe, companionship, compassion and love are things we can all agree on.

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween everyone! It might be obvious that this is one of my favorite times of the year. I hope all of you are having a marvelous time and enjoying the season, and I hope if you go out partying or out trick or treating that you stay safe and your costumes remain pristine.

I found a seasonally appropriate little "friend" as it dropped in a "friendly" manner onto my shoulder, and I thought I might like to relocate them to perhaps another person's head. Yours in fact.

They're quite cute actually... when they're not moving or trying to bite you. I'd like to get them out of the undercroft, so they're free to a good home. Just please... take them...

You can find your new pet Spidey in the orange box at the store! It's out near the new releases.

Happy St. Paddy's Day!

Even if you don't really care or wish to celebrate it, if you're favorite color is green St. Paddy's day rocks for freebies. I don't wish to be an exception, and so I passed out a St. Paddy's Day bowler to the folks who wish to be hatted!

While you're wearing it, you can be the one doing the pinching. *peench peench*

Don't get too wasted, otherwise you'll go to hell and burn for a thousand years, and then they'll take you out and flip you over for another thousand. You'll make the holy mother cry if you sleep with a protestant while you're intoxicated. There, that's some authentic Catholic guilt for you.

Year of the Tiger

Hearts? Pink? Red? Nah, you've had enough of that. How about some frickin' TIGER stuff huh? That's right, it's the year of the tiger, officially the most awesome year of Chinese astrology aside from the dragon, but you can't go and see a dragon at the zoo (oh how we can wish though). So, the year of the tiger is officially the most badass year of the existent animals. And they can eat you, which is bonus awesome.

I wasn't going to waste the opportunity to skip on the hearts, and so my update group gets to have what's no doubt a welcome change of pace from V-day. You can fish this out of the notices of Masqueraderie for the next 14 days, but make sure to get it today so you can wish everyone a happy new year!

I'm proud of myself with this mask, because I took a chance to explore painting directly onto the model rather than relying completely on materials and prims to do my detail work. It took me a long and frustating several hours just struggling with the markings on the forehead (grrrr!) but I'm happy with the results and I do feel I learned something. Unfortunately textures still get too distorted on the sculpt for high detail work, but for this its just fine.

Anyway, tigers are awesome. People born in the year of the tiger are adventurous, dynamic and impulsive. They're affectionate and passionate and love attention, and may have a tendency to get in your face if you haven't fed them and maybe shun you if you come home smelling like another tiger. They're also generous, charismatic, snuggly, and they love sunbeams and young children named Calvin.

Kung hei fa choy!

Keep a light with you

It's not often I can grant a wish, but sometimes I do come through.

Skin by Tuli, Dress by Evie's Closet

Keep a light with you this solstice, but stay far away from the smoke alarm.

Last year I released a pair of antlers so fabulous, they had to be limited so they could be coveted and worshiped as they deserved. Yet all through the year I've been asked about them, and I've been biding my time until the solstice to give them an heir.

These are by no means as epic or awe-inspiring as the Odocoleinae Lumina, I mean for starters you can actually see yourself in frame when you take a picture of them. But they are beautiful, regal, elegant and distinctive, as well as festive in their own right. Drips of wax hang down from the angular reaches of the antlers and get in your hair, and the delicate flickers of glowing flames illuminate your way so you don't need a flashlight. These are scripted to change the antler's texture as always, but they also change the texture of the candles to black, silver, or dark brown wax. You can easily turn the actual candle light off or on through the menu as well.

These are not limited, they're a permanent addition to my antlers collection, so you can breath a sigh of relief that you have time to nab them. If you missed the Odocoleinae Lumina, you can still have these :) And they're 375L, as opposed to the 1750L of the limited edition.

If you're a purist and the candles aren't your thing, or maybe you're a bit short on cash, the plain ones are also available for 250L :)

Men can totally wear girl's hair (hair by Maitreya)

These are available now at Carnivale

Christmas Bell Jewelry

I have another festive goodie! I'm not actually sure why, but bells are really associated with Christmas. Maybe it's a symbol of churches calling people together or they're the proverbial jingle bells, but here's a pretty bell you can wear on your neck that isn't attached to a neko collar.

Festive holly along with a delicately tied ribbon decorate this lovely golden bell. But the best part about this jewelry set? It's only 50L, so even if you only wear it a few times you can still get your money's worth out of it :)~

I also set out a box of holiday goodies for free, which include a remake of my holly jewelry and some ornaments and mini reindeer antlers. I'll blog the contents tomorrow, but you can still pick it up today!

Festive Florissinae

Since I released them last year, my antlers have been one of the items I see most often when I'm walking around or browsing fashion blogs. I love the whimsical quality they can add to avatars and they can make a perfectly realistic outfit have a taste of wild fantasy. Antlers are just visually delicious, and I really can't get enough of them.

So I've finally returned to well-trodden ground which I think a lot of people were hoping I would, and created a completely new set utilizing my freshly developed oblong sculpt skillz.


Inspired by Allegory Malaprop (Schadenfreude) and her own curly antlers, I got her blessing to create my own rendition. Taste wise, she and I cover a lot of the same ground. Florissinae isn't an actual genus of deer obviously, if it ever was they would have been hunted down long ago for their awesome headgear. Just like the previous antlers, these are texture change to twelve different lovely options.

The entire reason I made these, though, was that curly antlers are fabulous for decorating with baubles. I've been wanting to make properly decorated holiday antlers for a couple years now and the time was finally right!


These... are so much fun to play with. The antlers themselves are scripted to change, but so are the decorations! I owe a shout out to Sobriquet Kryakutnoy, for without him you would have no Multi option (shown). I would have had to make them a whole separate pair of antlers or something, so major kudos to him. Aside from the festive multi-color version, you can play with having white lights and blue ornaments, red lights and red ornaments, green, white, whatever! There are twelve options to play with to make these antlers incredibly versatile, which makes them awesome to wear through the whole month and not only on those days you feel like wearing the classic red and green.


The gorgeous and talented Evangeline Miles kindly demonstrated this in a few pictures on her plurk ♥

Edited to add: And Ann Launay struts her stuff with her favorite, the cyan ornaments with white tips: http://www.sluniverse.com/snapshots/425392.png

They're available now at the store, and as always you can grab a scripted demo to give them a test drive :)

Festive Elf Shoes!

I'm trying to hard to get into the spirit of the season, but my muse is like a hyperactive St Bernard and I'm just trying to keep her on a leash, much less going the right direction.

Yesterday I did have success in reeling her in and I worked on some adorable curly toed elf shoes.

These are the perfect things to wear with tights or silly pants. They're unisex so they can be worn by both men and women, and they change texture to five different colors, and twelve different options total. There's a nice minty green, an icey blue, white, black, and the red that's shown. Each of the colors comes with the option for a white cuff or a colored cuff, and it's really fun to alternate them especially if you have parti-colored tights!

I adore curly toed shoes in real life, and making these was so much fun I think I'll be making more in the future (and in more colors).


For more general updates, I've updated the prices on miscellaneous older items throughout the store. I've also added scripts to the old Phoenix and Seraphim masks so there's no more need for fatpacks.

Also, the thing my muse keeps wanting to run off on is the new event hall build. So far its coming along beautifully, and things might be changing around the sim suddenly. The store probably won't be touched but the old event hall might not be here very long >.>

Happy Thanksgiving :)

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone in the states! And happy autumn to those who aren't! I hope everyone enjoyed the colors of fall, and before you guys bundle up too much and start putting snowflakes on your sweaters you should pick up some deceased plant matter and wear it on your head.


A piece of autumn color from someone lucky enough to be where leaves turn :) The texture for these leaves was from a particularly stunning leaf I found while walking near where I live, and maples always have better color than those dowdy oaks! If you didn't get the group notice, you can grab it out of the notice history tab in the group info of Masqueraderie.

As thanksgiving is a time to appreciate what you have, but I also have potatoes to peel and a turkey in the oven, I will keep this short. I can't tell you how much you (yes you), contribute to my life just by reading these words, following my new releases and buying things with your hard earned $L. I've said before and I'll say it again that this is my passion, my RL job, and if I wasn't doing this I'd probably be waiting tables or sitting in the pale glow of fluorescent lights while doing something I found horribly boring. So thank you for letting me do something I love, and thank you for appreciating what I bring to SL. If it wasn't for you, I doubt I would be anywhere near as happy as I am. It may be mushier than canned yams, but garsh darn it it's true.

♥

See How High She Flies!

I've just completed some fabulous new witchy hats just in time for Halloween! I released them last night, but some technical issues with blogger had me hung up, posting-wise. They shouldn't have taken me so long, my RL has been so darned eventful (in a good way!) I haven't been able to focus on buckling down and just working on these. This week I forcefully made some time, and finally finished these troublesome chapeaus.


I like the name my witchy hats after famous witches, and in this case I've named them after the infamous trio in Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels.

Agnes is a rather plain girl, very sensible but she longs for a mystical life with candles and seances and love potions. This hat has an eldrytch sense of age to it, maybe a bit musty, and is certainly perfect for witches and wizards alike. If you're thinking of going for a costume from the Harry Potter-verse, this would be perfect.

Like pretty much everything I make these days, it's scripted to change texture on touch to twelve different colors. Included are black, gray, white, brown, red, orange, yellow, green, cyan, blue, purple and a soft pink.

If it's a little simple for you, this one is my favorite of the three:
Gytha is playful, wise, charming and drunkenly hilarious. The name might not fit so well, considering the Tim Burtonesque curl and the stylized shape, but when I thought about it Gytha would certainly be fabulous enough to wear this hat. She would also be able to fit a good sized kitten under it, as she often does.

Also, I just wanted to mention that I'm well aware that my friend Allegory just released a similar hat, and before anyone tries to call foul I think we'd both just like to say that great minds think alike :) We both worked independently on them and we're quite okay with our respective hats peacefully coexisting. Hers have some very playful colorations too, so if you're in the mood for orange and green stripes or something you're welcome to take a look.


The last hat was named after my favorite witch, Esme Weatherwax.

An utterly practical witch, Granny Weatherwax is a clever and no-nonsense force of nature. She won't give people what they want, she'll give them what they need. She has a commanding presence and seems taller than she actually is... could it be the hat?

I had to stretch the demo frame on this one higher than ever, you'll be tickling the rafters on this one! Like the other hats the band and hat have the same 12 colors, but on this one the buckle changes as well, to your choice of silver, gold, or tarnished black.

Now please excuse me, I must attune my Botanical crystals to the leylines of the sim. The sun is coming into trine with the Star of Neko and the constellation Freenis.

Disaster Relief

I was able to get in touch with SLEMA (Second Life Emergency Management Agency), and although it took all day, we managed to restore the original sea level and evict the sea born "shoppers" from the store. Now, I need to clean up the kelp and seaweed from the floors and wring out the drapes and sweep up the drift wood. But I have to say I was starting to get really attached to our piscean visitors. But being around them for so long... I feel changed some how. Like I'll never be the same, even though things have gone back to normal. I wonder why that is?....

Ah well, I guess we'll never know.



(the fins are texture change on touch, and available through the Masqueraderie group notices :)

Happy St Patty's Day!

Happy St. Patrick's Day! Or should I say, happy great green booze up day! I hope your neighbors come home quietly tonight, or at least that you're so soused they don't wake you up.



I always give a top hat on St. Patty's day, or at least I have for two years straight and I wanted to keep up the tradition. However, when I looked at what my options were for giving a freebie I realized that I could either do another version of a hat that is now almost two years old (ancient!) or I could make an entirely new top hat with which I can remake my other top hats and maybe even make new designs with (homg, actually making a new design rather than chasing my own tail 'round and 'round remakes? be still my beating heart). So rather than spending the usual hour or so on a freebie, I spent the whole day... 'cause I love you all just that much. Yes, that's the one and only reason.

I'm feeling very clever and full of myself, but in this picture I just look a bit drunk. Who am I to argue with a stereotype? But the reason for my feeling clever is that I solved some problems that had been like speed bumps (that were the reasons I had been happy with a normal prim hat selection for so long!) and happily bounced over them and didn't even drop a muffler.

But anyway, please enjoy, and make sure if you're not in Masqueraderie and you'd like a copy, to make sure you nab it out of the notices before the 14 days are up :)

Haaaaaappy Maaardi Graaas!

A slightly late blog post but at least I wasn't late with my freebie. I hope you guys are all dancing around and eating lots of pancakes and wearing masks (*innocent face*)

But anyway, here's a gifty that got sent out to Masqueraderie, and you can join and fish it out of the notices if you like. I won't tell.


The outfit is a beautiful and festive creation by Ghanima Uriza of Blue Blood, who is getting increasingly skilled at bringing her creative ideas to life in SL. I can't wait to see what she does next!

Happy Valentine's!

Yesterday I was busy with my RL Valentine's Day, but I still made sure I took the time to make up a goodie. I had a couple of projects with a heart theme from Shir Dryke's fundraiser, but they met their goal before I was able to work out the kinks and then I ended up dropping it. I thought of just sending those out but they were very much female oriented, and the guys in Masqueraderie would have just had to delete it. So I worked on a possibly familiar face to make sure everyone would have someone to snuggle. I remade my stuffed kitty plushy in a new and more cuddlable than ever incarnation. This one is decorated with an old experiment when I was first trying out oblong sculpts, and it didn't turn out well enough to sell as jewelry but is absolutely perfect for decorating a stuffed kitty.

You can fish him out of the notices of Masqueraderie for the next thirteen days :)

There will be a black one too of course, who will be one of my new freebies when my store reopens after the sim has been rebuilt! Still not sure when that is going to be, but it does look like the Mardi Gras Masquerade will be the last party I hold in the current event hall.

Merry Christmas to All

I hope you all had a happy holiday, and if you didn't, I hope you at least got some swag to ease the pain.


I sent out presents to my update group on Christmas Eve, and I set them out underneath the tree at the store in case anyone missed them. Inside, you'll find three gift boxes that you can reuse for your own presents, a pair of wreaths (low prim and high prim), a red choker and matching arm bands (shown in my picture, with the wreath) a candy cane, and a blast from the past: the Christmas Indigo plushie. He matches the Merry Jingly coat and he's very snugglable.

I'm going to leave the holiday stuff out until January 1st. If you're wondering what will be taken down, it's everything with a little santa hat on the vendor. So the Lussinat crown, reindeer antlers, snowflake and merry jingly coats and the holly jewelry are all going to be stashed in my inventory until next year.

The only thing never going back up is the Odocoleinae Lumina of course. So if you want to get your hands on my amazing, flaming hot rack (hehe), you only have five days left.

I also would like to say... in this case, I'd be fine with someone reselling these. One of the reasons I hate doing limited edition items is that people end up regretting missing their chance. I would rather people still have a chance to grab one through opportunistic fans. If you want to grab multiple transferable ones and wait for a while, my guess is that the price will appreciate. Something tells me there will be a few desperate voices in the months to come asking Masqueraderie if there's anyone willing to sell a pair.