Mythic Masquerade

The air is getting cooler, and the nights are getting longer. It's getting to be the time where people would gather near fires and tell stories of incredible creatures, magical beasts and gods of old.

Sometimes it feels as if these creatures come alive, and perhaps one night they might join together in a fantastic dance...


You're invited to a Mythical Masquerade, where the creatures of fairy tale and folklore can arise and gather. What visions from myths and legends have always captivated your mind? What old gods, spirits and stories capture your imagination? Show us, by coming as your favorite fantastic beings.


When you're assembling your costume, please keep in mind a few guidelines which will dramatically help everyone's ability to rez and dance smoothly.

Please keep your prim equivalency in total to less than 250

This limit helps to keep everyone rezzing quickly. Check how many prims you have by going into Edit and holding down shift to click each item you're wearing. The 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.

Check your script totals
Viewer 2 now has an "Avatar Scripts" total you can view, by going to About Land->Script Info->My Avatar. Try to make new, clean copies of items that have resize scripts and aim for less than 600kb

In past years, the collaborative effort of all of us has greatly improved lag. 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. Hopefully, this year as well!

As with past years, I will crown a male and female winner the King and Queen of the masquerade. Two previously unreleased, themed masks will be awarded as the prizes, along with 1500L Angel Cards to each! I will also be passing out gift cards to honorable mentions and other people whom I find simply fabulous. So make sure to dress your best!

Make sure you join the group, because for the first two hours (4pm-6pm SLT) the sim will be open only for the members of the Illusions Mythic Masquerade 2011 group. You also need to join to be eligible for the costume contest! Masks are required, but the mask shown in the invite will be available for free. Can't wait to see you there!

Illusions Mythic Masquerade
Saturday, October 29th, 4PM SLT
Illusions Event Hall, Carnivale
(Join the "Illusions Mythic Masquerade 2011" Group)
Formal Dress and Mask Required

I think it's funny that in 2007, when I first did my Egyptian God masks, it was right before sculpted prims hit the main grid. Now, with mesh having finally been implemented, I've completed my Egyptian God masks all over again. At that time I felt they were the best I could possibly do with regular prims, and now the same again with sculpts. I feel like the Gods are some sort of term project, like the test to take at the end of a semester to show what I've learned.

For the past month I've been working on developing a work flow for mesh, as it's not as simple as just making something that's not a sculpt. Since mesh was in beta, I've been learning how to make a clean base mesh, how to texture it, work with new programs and generally get out of my comfort zone. But, I admit, I let it slide for a while. Now that it's on the main grid, I had do to some crunch time to get everything perfect.

I got a bit excited at first, and tried to jump into the deep end (weighted cloth! multiple texture faces!) and got overwhelmed. I didn't make anything worthwhile. So, going back to basics I set simple goals for myself: neat geometry, nice UV's, low polygon count.

I'm starting off simple.


This mask is just one prim. At the level of detail shown, it's only 446 polygons which makes it less than half of the number of a single sculpt! This is just be beginning, too. I'm very excited to start playing with weight painting (items that will move when the avatar does) and with different shapes and forms of masks. I think I'll be a lot more adventurous now that I no longer have to treat a mask like a puzzle where the pieces must fit together perfectly. And, with more available detail in the textures, I might even do more interesting and detailed things with surfaces.

But for now, the Farafallina Puro is available to all with mesh enabled viewers. This includes the main viewer 3 and the latest Firestorm.


Oh! I'd also like to specify that this mask is not weighted to the avatar skeleton. This means that the mask is able to be stretched, moved and deformed just like a sculpt. If you've had a bad experience with not being able to modify a mesh item to fit on your avatar, you won't have it with this one.

You'll need a mesh enabled viewer, such as the most recent official LL release or the most recent Firestorm. Try the demo if you're not sure!


Out now at the store: 125L

Horus

And finally, the last piece of my trio, Horus:


I'm proud to finally present the sun god who watches over us all, Horus. He is the last in my series of Egyptian gods, and is a special edition as well (though not limited).

Horus is also commonly known as Ra. The two gods were merged in the later dynasties when the upper and lower kingdoms were united. He was a god of the sky, a soaring falcon whose eyes were the sun and the moon. He was a symbol of protection and royal power. He wears a Pschent, the double crown of Egypt worn only by the pharaohs. It was a combination of the crowns of lower and upper Egypt and was a sign of unification.

Some details:

• His symbol, the "eye of ra", (also called the wedjat), was inspired by the markings on the cheek of a falcon.
• He wears a Wadjet serpent on his crown to symbolize the lower kingdom, of which Horus was a patron god.
• The hieroglyphs around his medallion read: Horus, He Who Watches Over Us All.
• The headdress is angled to mimic the markings of a falcon. In illustrations, Ra's pale cheeks are in contrast to a dark headdress or wig which represents the darker feathers around the bird's head

He is scripted to change texture, so that his headdress, the metal trim, and the gem all change. The Pschent is a separate attachment so if you don't feel like ruling Egypt 24/7, you can lay down the heavy crown.

Out now at the store: 950L
Buy it on the marketplace

Bast

Since the gods are returning, the next mask in my series is Bast:

I'm happy to present the Perfumed One, reincarnated as is only appropriate. Another special edition, this mask will not be limited and it is the same premium rate as Anubis.

The goddess known as Bast evolved over many years and went through different evolutions across the two kingdoms of Egypt. She evolved as a lion headed goddess, separate from Sekhmet, but as cats became increasingly popular in homes she evolved into a cat headed goddess. She was seen as the protector and defender of the pharoah, and guardian of Lower Egypt. With her strong association with the sun and her patronage over the Lower Kingdom, she became more and more tied with Wadjet, the winged serpent goddess.

All of these things I took into consideration when creating her. The sun disc is of course one of the most easily noticed symbols, but here are a few others:

• She bears a Uraeus (snake) on her headpiece, due to her ties to Wadjet. There are serpents framing her sun disc and center medallion as well with the stripes forming Wadjet's wings.
• The hieroglyphs around her medallion read: Bast, Lady of the Flame, the Perfumed One. Lady of the Flame was her title relating to her role as a solar goddess, while Perfumed One was a role she later took up when she became a goddess of ointments and salves.
• Her medallion is an ankh, a solar symbol and one she is often depicted holding
• The flares on her mask are meant to evoke a lion's mane. Sekhmet was often shown with a ruff of fur meant to define her as a lion rather than an ordinary feline.

Like Anubis, she is scripted to change texture. The metal, the stripe accents and the gem all change, even the metal tips on her wig. The sun disc changes as well, so you can coordinate.

Of course, she looks wonderful without it too...



Out now at the store: 950L
Buy it on the marketplace

The Gods Return

In 2007 I created my first limited edition mask. It was my pride and joy, my best creation. Only ten were sold, leaving many people IM'ing me for as much as a year after hoping to get just one more.

That mask was Anubis:


The god of the dead has returned. And this time, he's mad not limited edition. All of these Egyptian creations have been building up to this: the return of the gods.

It is, however, a special edition. There is a month's worth of work in this mask alone, and that time usually goes into multiple projects or things with many different pieces. It won't be going anywhere, but it has been priced at a more premium rate.

The jackal was a destructive scavenger of the dead, but through Anubis the Egyptians turned him into a more protective force. He would prepare the dead for their journey to the underworld to be judged by Osiris, and is often pictured either embalming or in the hall of judgement.

Some fun details I'd like to point out, since I put them in there:

• The medallion on the side of the head and under the gem reads "Anubis: He who is upon his mountain". This was one of his titles regarding his role as the caretaker of the dead, and his position protecting the tombs.
• The flares on the side of his mask contain excerpts from the Egyptian book of the dead, in which he's often shown in illustrations.
• The scarab wasn't just put in there because it's Egyptian-y, it was a symbol of rebirth and transformation and was often included in tombs as a grave gift.


The mask is scripted of course, and the all of the metal accents change, along with the gem. The headdress corresponds to the six metal colors included, with black or white stripes. The cloth hanging down does not change, as it matches the textures of the Semer and Semeret sets but of course since it's mod, that's easily tinted if you want.


I'm so very proud to finally be able to bring this back. Four years ago, I felt it was my best work, and now I'm upholding its tradition.



As with the first series, there were three. Coming soon, you can expect to see Bast, followed by Horus.

Buy it now from the store: 950L
Buy it on the marketplace

Illusions @ GIA Accessory Fair 2011

I'm a bit late, but that's what I get for wanting to do things right rather than quickly. Firstly, Accessory Fair is benefiting The American Cancer Society, and so here is my item devoting its profit to RFL

This beautiful Scarab medallion is a way to take a piece of Egypt with you. With detailed hieroglyphs and a beautifully rendered scarab in the center. That was certainly "fun" putting my new tablet to the test! I admit I cheated though, tracing a traditional scarab cabuchon with my own design. There's a male version as well for the gentlemen who are jealous.

The hieroglyphs around it are a font I found (Meroitic - Hieroglyphs) and they actually contain a little clue for something special I'm still working on.

Really what's been hanging me up so much though is finally giving the men a fair share of my attention. With Semeret and Khepra, they must have been feeling left out. So, sorry gentlemen, please consider this my making it up to you!

The Nemes Headdress was the headgear of the noblemen of Egypt. You can wear it without the shoulders for the look of the Khat headdress, a simpler version which was worn more commonly among the upper class. If you're wondering where the snake on the forehead you're so familiar with is, I'm sorry but you're being presumptuous! The Uraeus was the symbol of Wadjet, the patron goddess of Egypt, and if you weren't royalty you didn't have any business wearing it. My aim it not to make everyone a pharoah! Women aren't missing out on this one either, I made sure to include a female version with a special fit for the shoulders.

What's that peeking out beneath the nemes though?

A version for men! If you gentlemen tried to get the Semeret collar working for you, please let me know and I will send you a copy of this one as an upgrade. It's especially made for that quirky male mesh and should fit on your masculine shoulders like a dream. For your noble chin, a plaited beard like those that can be found on so many sarcophagi.

What are you going to wear with all of these manly authentic accessories?

Almost nothing of course! Just kidding... sort of. The Scots weren't the only ones who enjoyed a nice cool breeze up the leg. The Semer loin cloth is an excellent companion to the Semeret silks, featuring the same gathered cloth around the hips with a loose tie in the front. The belt is scripted to offer you those same fun options of changing metals, gems, and stripe colors and also comes with a separate option if you want to wear it with a more ordinary outfit. But why would you?


These amazing items can be found at my booth at the Accessory Fair until June 26th, where they will be moved to the main store. The Scarab Medallion in it's current incarnation is only available until then.

Double Points Weekend! June 18th-20th

It's my birthday this weekend!


To celebrate, I'm going to be making all of my vendors give back twenty percent of your purchase in points, so the more you buy the more free stuff you'll get! And of course you don't need to limit yourself, you can redeem the points you earn at any time, top them off with a points pack, or give them away as a gift card to a friend. It starts at midnight, SLT on June 18th and goes until the end of the weekend, midnight on June 20th (early Monday morning).

If you don't have an Angel Card and you feel like this doesn't apply to you, you're being a silly billy. They're free and all you have to do is wear it and then buy stuff in order to get points. Then, once they add up pay using your points instead of Lindens. Yeah, it's that easy, don't you feel foolish for not having gotten one earlier?

Oh, one more note, the items in the basement aren't compatible with the cards due to their not being worth the effort to sneeze at them and I'm only permitting you to gaze upon them and god forbid purchase them due to the beggings and pleadings of kind and merciful people who did not want me to dispose of the primordial slime that my older creations represent. MISPLACED MERCY I SAY.

La Volpe

I have a treat for the roguish at heart. Something inspired by such stylish scoundrels as Zorro and the Dread Pirate Roberts.

Become La Volpe, the cunning fox, and evade the law in daring escapades. Made of sumptuous leather, this mask is sure to protect your real identity when you're up to no good or flirting with noblemen's daughters.

Both the sash and mask change independently, to give you more options to create a color scheme for your heroic rapscallion. Or, you can get rid of the sash entirely, which works well to wear under hair. I've also included an optional alpha for people with sticky-outy ears. It clips the tip of the ears so that they don't poke through, though admittedly since everyone's ears are a different size it might not fit everyone.

I'm very pleased with this mask, it's one of my first where I tried to get the texture seamless across all three of the mask prims. If you've noticed that you can see the nose and eye divisions on my other masks, I'm going to try and move in the direction of not having it be as obvious.

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 :)

Illusions @ Fantasy Faire 2011

The Fantasy Faire has just kicked off, and after a week of my entire friend's list pulling out their hair with stress (myself included!) we finally get to enjoy the reveal.

Before I got wrapped up in working on my marketplace, I had wanted to continue working on my Egyptian set and make a few more items in that theme. In my original Egyptian Isis set (now almost four years old!) it had a strong scarab theme, and I wanted to revive that in a new jewelry set.

Khepra, (or Khepri, Kheper) was an Egyptian god of transformation and the sun. He was represented by a scarab, and so I've brought the motif of the scarab and the sun into this collar and matching bracelets. The set goes beautifully with the other Semeret pieces that are available, and have the same color and metal options as them.

Another expansion of Semeret I wanted to do was a full gown. Where the silks set is a sexy and eye catching option, the full dress is just as alluring but without showing quite so much skin.

It features a classic Egyptian sheath line, with skirt prims for the legs to avoid "breaking". You can see in this image too that the wings of the scarab nicely mirror the wings of the Semeret belt.


On another note, I've noticed that I sometimes get an IM or two from people who are disappointed that my Silk Blindfold can't be worn with some hair styles or mohawks. At the time, this was because making it go all the way around the head would cause more trouble for hair styles that were close to the head, as well as a shortage of good short styles and hair bases. Now that hair bases are readily available on the new tattoo layer, I've addressed this short coming with a new, full blindfold.
It's not as silky and luxurious, but it's perfect for the bald and mohawked amongst us who would like to sport the prophet Tiresius look.

That's not all that's new though, as part of our effort to help the Friends Fighting Cancer team, who are organizing the whole Fantasy Faire, every merchant participating is donating two items to Relay for Life. My contributions are some fun and colorful new versions of one of my favorite items, my Corvus wings.


After seeing so many people having so much fun with my Macaw Wings, I wanted to show off a few more colors of those beautiful tropical birds. 100% of the proceeds of these items goes to the American Cancer society, so look fabulous for a good cause :)


You can find all of these lovely items at my Fantasy Fair booth. I'm on the Forest of Light sim, right on the north border to the Forest of Shadow. They'll be available only there until the end of the fair :)