In 2007, I was just starting out making content full time and learning how to sculpt in programs outside of Second Life. I was figuring out a work flow and doing my best, teaching myself as I went and making plenty of silly mistakes. Back in those ancient days of sculpties and bling jewelry, I made a bunch of elf ears and one of them was the Drow shape. I had in mind a long angled ear inspired by the Blood Elves in WoW, or famous dark elves such as Drizzt Do'Urden. Of course, since I was new to sculpting and sculpties themselves were not exactly the most refined method of artistic expression, my first attempt was pretty primitive. I also didn't know any better and scripted them with dozens of different skin tones corresponding to various skin designers that were popular at the time in a laughable attempt at comprehensive skin matching.
In 2012, when I was starting to get my feel for sculpting in mesh, I did another run of ears that used a color change HUD and customizable shading that I'm still pretty proud of. I still sell them, but they are made for the SL default head and use multiple layers of geometry to create the shading and highlight layers. In the era of mesh heads being the norm and complexity scores being a thing of concern, they're showing their age. So we come to now, where I've really reached my stride working with mesh, and Bakes on Mesh has allowed me to make those shading and highlight layers a part of the texture and not the geometry. My ears can be a mere 1500 to 2000 complexity score and be more detailed than ever, and offer the feature I'm most proud of, automatic skin tone matching.
This is the fun part of coming back to the same ideas over the years, and seeing how my skills have evolved along with Second Life's features. I can see how I was doing my best at each stage of both my and SL's evolution, and now I can offer up a new form for you all to enjoy.
To me, the Drow ears have always been the tall and high angled shape of the most aloof and insular elf. Since they're rigged, you also can use your shape's ear size slider to shrink them to modestly poke above your hair, or stretch them to go full blood elf and nearly rival the Sylph ears in size I've been having a lot of fun wearing these around. The picture in the vendor is unmodified, but some adjustments to your environment settings or lighting will probably be needed to get that truly seamless look. These come with the same seven sets of shading and highlight layers meant to be worn with your Evo X HD ear skin layers, but also include three tintable bases if you don't have an Evo X skin.
They can be found at my store on the Twilight and on the marketplace
Drow Ears for Lelutka Evo X Heads: 300L
If you're one of the OG's who remember my old pair of sculptie ears, feel free to IM me, send me a picture, and pat yourself on the back for sticking with something (anything) this long. And for sticking with me ♥ Much love
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