WaRpAiNt!!!

Are you part of the Blowpop Army? If not, you could have missed out on Annyka Bekker's first Flickr contest.  She sent a massive order to all of her "troops" (aka group) "looking for your most spectacular photos, in your favourite Blowpop skin." Being the Blowpop skin whore that I am, I loaded my inventory and went to town finding the perfect look.



I had Elysium Eilde of Second Look Studio take a few pictures for the contest and the results were spectacular. The above picture was taken on location at SLS, and I'm wearing Yip's Golden Bird, Zero Style Hair, and Blowpop Shir Angelic in Honey.

Each day I checked the stream to see what had been added.  The entries in the contest were stunning, and the lucky winners received Lindens and billboard displays in Annyka's store.  I wasn't one of the lucky winners, but Annyka was kind enough to send out these special edition skins to all of the contestants.  The eye make-up is a wonderful splash of color that begs for one to go out and have a little fun.  



Style Card:
Skin: Blowpop Warpaint in Honey (Special Gift for Contestants)
Hair: MMS Hera in Coffee
Hairpiece: Artilleri Orchids In Yellow
Earrings: Natalie Defiant Vinyl Records
Eyes: MMS Deep Blue (No Longer for Sale)
Lashes: KM Starry Lashes
Model: Vixie Rayna

Photo taken in-world by Vixie Rayna with minimal editing with Mac's Preview image color correction sliders. Like this picture, check out my Flickr stream.

Neo-Japanese

Another shoot, another day! Impacratrice Breiz of Breiz Creative Concepts and staff contributer of The Best of Second Life Magazine is one of the handful of fresh fashion photographers in SL. Her work is extremely collaborative, she expects the model to MODEL! She called five models in and asked us to show off our Neo-Japanese style. We got all dolled up in our street wear and TP'd to the SICK sim. Good thing I was wearing Chucks, because we were running to get that shot. Impa's shoots are pure energy as you shoot guerilla style. We had a great time, and the shot came out wonderfully! See this picture and article in the latest issue of The Best of Second Life magazine on stands now.

Tips for Impacratrice's shoots: Be sure to have a monster inventory of poses to choose from because there is no pose ball magic on her sets. Oh and she shoots on location see wear something comfortable to run in.

Models pictured (L to R): Imogen Miklos, Eleania Rosenberg, Chalice Carling, Kay Fairey, and Vixie Rayna. Photograph and Graphic Design by Impacratrice Breiz for The Best of Second Life Magazine.



Model/Photographer Vixie Rayna:
Skin: Less Than 3 - Glam Skins 2 - Vice Versa Deux in Tan
Hair: MMS - Hera in Light Brown
Eyes: MMS - Turquoise (No Longer For Sale)
Lashes: Cake Bedroom Lashes Above (Bianca Foulon Feather Lashes in the Shoot)
Earrings: Natalie Defiant - Vinyl Records (Cassette Earrings in the Shoot)
Bracelet: 69 - Sprinkles in Black
Clothes: DeLa - Jessica Tank Top in Orange with Nemo Blue Stripe Stole, Dora Jean Shorts in Blue 02 with Turned Up Leg Hems and Button Flap Back Pockets
Socks: MiaSofia - Striped Wool Socks in Mia
Shoes: Akeyo - Chucks (Modified Purple and Yellow)

A Stressful Business

Kali Meads is a mad photography genius and this photo is proof! Not sure where she got the title from, maybe because Keno and I were having trouble balancing on a rock (darn SL gravity). Or maybe, its stressful when you start to lose your skin. :P It was fun times anyway.

Music: Morningwood's Sugarbaby

Style Card:

Hair - Minnu

Shoes - Stiletto Moody

Jewelry - DeLa (Vixie) and Armidi (Keno)

Skin - Blowpop (Vixie) and Redgrave (Keno)

Contest Time

One of my favorite activities in SL, besides shopping is checking out the contest scene. Its great fun, you meet people, and gain exposure in the fashion industry. I'm not contest crazy as I may enter one per month, but I've had some luck with them (/me gratuituously plugs her May JCNY title win). Its exciting to put looks together for a contest - because you get another excuse to shop and take pictures. Give me a V-A-I-N! :P

Finding out about the contests is pretty tricky, sometimes I hear from friends or group notices. But, the best group is Contest Central. You get weekly updates, and you can pick and choose which contests work best for you.

One poor little contest note card sat idly in my inventory until yesterday when I got "give me a project bug." Bianca Foulon is a well-known designer in SL for her inventive creations and wannabe ad campaign seen in many in-world publications. Some contests require you submit pictures in-world via note card or folder, while others ask you to post pictures on Flickr or Koinup. The BiancaF contest is featured on Flickr. The rules for this contest stipulated that you all clothing, shoes, accessories and skin be from Bianca F.

After visiting the store and getting a feel for BiancaF's new campaign, I settled into buying a few items to complete my look. I TP'd to my roof studio faster than you could blink and turned up my iTunes. A classic Bjork song "Army of Me" really inspired me to capture a fierce look oozing with intensity. It couldn't have come out better for me - the styling evolved as the shoot progressed. I guess some days you get lucky! Even if I don't win this competition, I had oodles of fun working on it and the response was terrific.

The flagship BiancaF store is on the Velvet sim and one of my favorite shopping haunts (FTV, DPS, Vain, Bax Coen, Mimiriki all have stores here). Check out the store and give the August contest a go! You have nothing to lose!

On Vixie:
Model/Photographer - Vixie Rayna
Skin: BF fata2 ivory mask special edition -- vain
Eyes: QS golden
Lashes: BF featherblack
Earrings: BF twiggycopper
Clothes: BF mash-up of boleroneropelliccia, blogoblack, cappa leggings, and daikirizebra
Hair: Kin aaron black
Shape: Vixie Rayna
Pose: BB 23 stand by Antossperandeo Allen

Photo taken on my roof, minimal editing through color correction sliders via Mac's preview image program.

Fashion Fun

Reading the fashion planet feeds is part of my daily ritual, and after DAYS of no internet I needed my fashion fix. As soon as I saw the Dressmaker's hat by Stitch by Stitch on the feed, I knew I had to have it. I SLURL'd it immediately. It did prove difficult as the SLURL took me to the location that didn't have the hat in it. But, I passed the time wisely buy snatching up an adorable tartan skirt.

The skirt is made up of multiple fabric layers each with a different tartan pattern. I loved the mash-up of the prints, its different but it just worked. After snatching up the skirt and every hat in the boutique - I searched the owner, Sevenstar Amat and visited her other locations. At the Stitch by Stitch mainstore, I found the Dressmaker hat and I swear I heard angels singing. It was as if I'd found the Holy Grail of hats.

Unfortunately, the vendor wasn't working. My shopping orgasm was squelched on the spot. So, I pulled up the owner's profile and shot her a friendly IM informing her of my vendor cock-block. She had me funnel over the lindens and I had my hat in seconds. Yippie!!! All was well in the world again. The owner is a lovely lady and we chatted a bit about her designs and my love of hats. She was kind enough to send me a lovely beret and an invite to join her group (there are lovely group gifties too). You really need to stop by the location to see them in person. I'm afraid my piccie doesn't do her hat justice. Its now my favorite hat - and that's no small feat as I own over 100 different ones.



So, after one of the best shopping trips ever - I headed home to capture the look for my blog. I unpacked the hat and swear that it was even better than I imagined. It has wonderful ribbons of many patterns and colors and some pins and a thimble attached to the side of the hat. I just knew the tartan skirt would be perfect compliment to the hat. As I dove back into my inventory, and attached the skirt I started to jump up and down. The skirt prim comes with that wonderful belt and fits perfectly (no resizing needed).

After a few minutes of basking in the glory of the skirt and doing a few twirls, I realized I had a challenge ahead of me to complete the look. I spent a good 10 minutes in my closet finding the perfect shirt to match. Shopping on the Retrology sim, I picked up this cardigan with prim scarf from Thimbles ages ago, and never found anything that I could wear with it. It works with the complex patterns of the skirt beautiful, complimenting but not over-powering the look. Although, the cardigan was unbuttoned and showing way too much skin, so I went back to my closet to find an undershirt layer. I played with colors a lot, until I found some patterned undershirts from my formal wear collection. This polka dot pattern camisole is from the Leezu Baxter Noir collection. Its from the Miriam dress and it played up the idea of patterns beautifully as there is a polka dot ribbon in the hat.

On to the feet, I pulled out my favorite ruffle boots from Shiny Things. The detail on these shoes is fantastic the are classic victorian with a modern flair. I added my yellow tights from the Yuk Fu cupcake outfit. I threw on a my Kaya black onyx and silver bangle from Zaara. Completing the look, I'm in my favorite Blowpop Tuesday skins (Aden #1 in Honey), Cake's Bedroom lashes, and Sophia hair in Pitch from Maitreya. The pose is Geometry 02 from Torrid Wear.