More Than Meets the Eye

LOTD090930, originally uploaded by Grazia Horwitz.

I’ve been running around in the same outfit for days now, I guess that means it deserves to be blogged. I also realise it’s pretty much a Coco outfit,but the white t-shirt is one of my fave basics in my inventory, and their new roll up jeans has these cute pockets so I couldn’t resist buying it when it was released last weekend. The tied around the waist striped shirt is also one of the things that I keep digging up from my inventory. It is really well made, with a lot of attention for details.
With all these goodies, I’m wearing Shiny Things Jane Wedges (has anyone heard from Fally recently? It’s been ages that she has made new shoes!), Kari’s industrial watch and Illusions Cord necklace.

I’m a little in love with Belleza’s new Jesse skin. I’m wearing make up 9 in the sunkissed tone, and Evie, from Truth, is today’s hair,

Cake Bella, originally uploaded by Grazia Horwitz.

Not at the skin expo… but absolutely worth mentioning… Stumbelina Ophelia, over at Cake, has a whole wall full of new yummy Bella skins. I’m only showing 5 of the 8 skintones, and 5 of the … uhm.. 20 or so make ups.

Slurl to follow once I can get back in world.

Skin/shape expo: Various skins, originally uploaded by Grazia Horwitz.

A quickie blog post to share some more of the skin/shape expo. Imandra Wycliffe, creator of [42] produces line after line of affordable, gorgeous skins. Fugue is the latest of them They come in some bold make ups, making these good for costuming, but also the natural version I’m wearing here is very pretty.
Next to that is skin no. 63 from D-skin. I heard rumours a while ago that DynamiteTanaka Payne had left second life, but this and other new skins from his hand at the expo proof those rumours wrong. D-skin has always made some of the cutest faces around, and no. 63 is no exception.
Heather Beebe from Rockberry is becoming a solid name in the skin market. After the smashing succes that Uma was, now she introduces Farrah. It’s a beautiful sophisticated face, slightly more mature than Uma, but absolutely radiant.
Last but not least, there is Orchid from relatively new skinmaker Myrtle Spyker. Her brand SkinTight is still quite new, but in this short time Myrtle has shown creativity and has been growing a lot. Orchid has an overall pleasant body and some really pretty make ups which, unlike some skins, work well with default lights as well. Also, her molten metal skins are really worth trying!

LOTD090926, originally uploaded by Grazia Horwitz.

I’m wearing Sacha Frangili’s latest creation today, Pudding in Pisang. It’s a beautiful formal which comes with Sacha’s usual plethora of skirt options. There also is a matching bolero to go with it, but I love the collar on this gown that goes with then strapless top. I’m wearing it with Exodi’s latest release, the gorgeous Kamen set.

Today’s skin is Belleza’s Jesse, and I’m wearing Truth’s Evie

So… we have a skin/shape expo, and almost half, if not more, of the merchants are shapers… then that calls for a shape post on More Than Meets the Eye, even if I’m not really comfortable blogging shapes. After all, even if I closed my shop about a year ago… I still consider myself to be a shaper, and I have a personal vision about what I think a good shape is. That’s why I have decided this post is not going to be a shape review, but a shape comparison.

I have taken 9 shapes, plus my own for reference, since that’s what you guys see me in all the time, and 3 skins and put it all next to each other, so you can see the difference. I’m sticking to the same order of shapes in all 4 series of pics (1 set of body pics, and the 3 x10 face shots).

The shapes used:

1. my own
2. MAD Designs – Estrella
3. Shape it Up – Lucille
4. Djin & Tonic shapes – Machan
5. La Petite Morte – Ashaki
6. SavoirFaireShapes – Mia
7. Kittylicious – The Model
8. Sophistishapes – Tulisa
9. Leafy – Mona
10. Shapes by Liz – Linz

OK… sit back and relax… some shapes look a bit weird on some of the skins, but hey…. for comparison’s sake…?

First, the series of body shots… these were all taken in the same frame, with a fix camera position, so the tall shapes are really tall… and the short ones… yes… really short (My length is 62  BTW)

For the faces it was difficult to keep a fix camera position, because due to the length of some shapes, and the shortness of others, you’d either see the boobs or the top of the scalp instead of the face. So beware… if the face looks much bigger than others… it’s likely bigger for real… but maybe not this much!

click here for more make ups

Belleza’s Tricky Boucher did it again. Last year he won me over with Bella, and now he releases Jesse at the skin/shape expo.  She’s gorgeous. I bought one fatpack when I was at the expo earlier, but while taking piccies, … I got greedy.. but now the expo is full and I can’t get back in for more!!!!! . There are 2 skint tones available at the expo, this sunkissed, and a darker tan, I don’t even know right now how many make ups there are for Jesse, other than I bought make up 12-15, so there4 are at least 15 . It’s a must try, k?

direct TP to Belleza at the expo: http://slurl.com/secondlife/KMADD%20Events/152/152/22

[update: October 06, 2009] 10 days have passed since I blogged this, and the basic RL info about said “Corporation” , which Mr. McMillan agreed to give asap, has not been disclosed as of yet.  I repeat, I have not been asking for sensitive corporate  information but for data that should be publicly available anyway, like a chamber of commerce no. and their investor relations webpage. Hence I’m leaning towards the conclusion that Mr McMillan has gotten carried away with the SL business play, and that there is no multinational behind his SL shop after all.  Also, you might want to check the comments to read what some of my readers have to add to the topic. *sighs*

…..is that they might raise awkward questions… like:  What Corporation is it you claim has taken over your uhm, high end SL business? It for sure is a question popping up in my head when I found Vasgez McMillan’s press release about Victoria-V being taken over by Switzerland, Germany and UK based Exclusiva Corp. So I googled… and googled… and yeah, googled some more and boy did I find interesting things… but nothing about said multi national, other than mentions in Victoria-V’s blog, and above mentioned press release on the feeds.

Since the press release offered precious little traceable information, I decided to contact the listed Exclusiva Director of PR, Candy Starsider, to get some more information about this corporate take over that apparently is about to facilitate customers to buy SL designs in RL, but Candy could not disclose as much as a registration office number for Exclusiva, or direct me to their corporate site and/or investor relations site, which I find odd to say the least. She kept saying that she was not allowed to disclose that kind of information, that they would gradually give out more information and that in due time Vasgez would absolutely answer my questions. Well…. I didn’t ask for their long time strategy or the past 5 years profit… I only wanted a website, or a verifiable chamber of commerce number. After all, their financial statements should be deposited there by legal requirements, and last 5 years’s profit should be public information anyway.

Considering the reluctance to share basic and public information about Exclusiva Corp. , or the lack of knowledge about the corporation Ms. Starsider is supposedly to be the Director of PR  (and thus an employee, getting paid, and hopefully getting pay slips as well),  to me it’s another case of bragging, of SL CEO group tagging and masking a simple SL re-branding with a “corporate”  take over, especially since a simple question lead to silence and defensive behaviour…..

If anyone can find something substantial on Exclusiva… by all means, feel free to comment, inform me…

click here for a preview of all skin tones and make ups

I got the chance to visit the skin/shape expo today and while some merchants are still setting up, it looked very promising already. Thanks to the simple modern white build of the expo, everything rezzed pretty fast, and that is encouraging for when the expo actually opens.  I spent way too much on skin already, and if I have enough time over the weekend, I will share some of my thoughts on the skins and shapes on display, but right now I want to share Tuli’s newest addition to her skin range with you. She has teased us with it on the blog several times already, but now there is a fist release:  Bella Natural, in 5 skintones, 3 cleavages and 4 eyebrow colours and 3 additional make ups. Please click the picture to preview them all.

Skin/Shape expo opens tomorrow… don’t miss out!

click here for close-ups

Adam ‘n Eve, the brain child of Damen Gorilla and sachi Vixen was one of the major skin brands when I came to SL, now 3 years ago. Recently sachi  has been updating some of her skin lines, and also been making totally new ones. Her recent skins are easier to wear, they fit a way larger range of shapes than they used to do. At the skin/shape expo Sachi will release Amanda (set 2) and Desire, but if you can’t wait that long, you’ll find the first make up set of Amanda and Natasha in the shop already… and I just couldn’t resist putting Portia and Mei Li in here as well, because it shows so well how able sachi is to create various characters in her skins. All these skins are shown on my default shape which for the sake of comparison, I didn’t tweak at all.

Sometimes I think being a fashion blogger is one of the most gratifying things to do. NO!…It’s not about the free stuff. I buy most of the things I feature on my blog anyway. The cool part of blogging is when someone send you their new stuff and you recognise quality, but also still a lot of work to be done, and the content creator is actually appreciative of  your feed back, uses it, and contacts you after a while with new content that is like so much better that you get the blog itch and shove aside a few RL things to take pics and blog.

That is what happened between me and Kira Paderborn. A few months ago she dropped me a pack of her first Envy skin for blogging or feed back, which was really cute, but had still so many issues, that I didn’t feel comfortable about blogging them. When I see flaws and issues, I won’t hide that on my blog, because it would be a buyer beware of sorts, but I don’t like to write about flaws… so instead I wrote my feed back and shared it with Kira, who without any doubt will have swallowed a few times at my critiques, but then decided to actually use it and start on a second skin. The work in progess I have shared with you a couple of weeks ago, and now Eva is ready! And I love the final result… so feel free to click the pic here below to get a preview of all the make ups and skintones!

Click here for a preview of the make ups and skin tones

I’ll add the NSFW body pics after I get back from work later today. But let me finish with telling you that Eva will be released on Friday, September 25 in Kira’s shops Shapes by Kira and Corrupted Innocence, and then also at the skin/shape expo which will start on the 26th.