An Appreciation for the Classics

Today, I fell quite in love with Sand Shack Surf Co's new skins. While I hadn't been too sure if I liked how they looked on some others I'd seen wearing them, the moment the demo rezzed on me, I was sold. In my middle-years of Second Life, I almost exclusively wore Antonia Marat's handdrawn Lily skins from Artilleri. No other skin would tempt me, those were MY skins, I adored them. Until of course, some other skin did tempt me, and I fell into the deep pit of being a skin whore, and when I finally went back to my Lily skins, they seemed so blank and cartoonish to me, and they were guiltily forgotten. When I tried on Emma Gilmour's new skinline, it felt like coming home, and I instantly snapped up every makeup. I just looked so pretty, and innocent, and so *Niv*, the Niv I remembered from a time when buying skins and hair and clothes and shoes and everything was a major event, and I'd scrimp and save and laugh and play and all those other happy cliches from my salad days. After all, I can't do sexy. I'm cute. Cute cute cute! Completely reawakened my love for handdrawn skins. And handily happened to tie in with my thoughts of yesterday.

Those thoughts were: "Quality never goes out of style". I was going throgh one of my larger inventory folders earlier, in the naive hope of organizing it some, and I kept coming across all these designers who you never hear anything of anymore. Like, for years. And a quick check confirmed that most of them were still around, or at least still had stores open in SL, even if not active anymore, and their stuff is still SO GOOD, however old it might be. So my looks today are composed of (with maybe one? exception, aside from my lovely new skins) things that have been lying around in my inventory for years, and still rock. And I'm pretty sure are still available (I've tried to steer clear of some of my obvious favourites that are very much no longer around, such as Last Call and Savvy?).

My first look (above) is comprised of capris from Celestial Studios, which is one of my biggest cases of "Appreciation for the Classics", I still wear their skins alllllthetime, even though they were the skin of choice when I started SL, and seldom heard of now. My top is from a dress from Versteck, a store which I own pretty much all of, but didn't even realize was still around until I saw a post on Ana Lutetia's blog about some of their new releases. The cardigan is from Icing's Robot Love dress, which isn't that old and I believe was a hunt item, but gosh I adore it so, and the sandals are Fashionably Dead, long a beautiful handdrawn mainstay of my inventory, which I don't feel gets quite as much press as it should. And the hair is by Maitreya, from back in the days when they weren't so ubiquitous as hairmakers.

Secondly, a dress from a store long long inactive, but I was delighted to discover still has a location open. Argyle is a store I discovered in late 2007, about a week before the designer seemingly vanished from the face of the grid. Initially I loved Argyle for it's myriad vintagey gloves, scarves, and a neat-o suitcase with versions you could carry or sit on, what reminded me of them though was finding this dress, simple, unexpectedly elegant and a bit quirky, with exquisite texturing, like the whole store. The shoes are Jeepers Creepers' Lace Up Betties, a version of the first *good* shoes I ever bought in SL, and despite predating scupties, they continue to be a testement to how much things that were great back when they first came out can still be wonderful and current and stand up to all of today's shiny new awesomeness. And the hair, oh, the hair. I remember a time when this was one of perhaps three hairstyles I owned in Second Life, and Gurl 6 was the only hair store for me. Although today her textures may seem a little dated, my Gurl 6 folder still contains some of the most original, vibrant and versatile styles I own.

Finally, an outfit from a store that's very much still around, still active, but doesn't recieve nearly as much press as it used to. Nyte N Day used to be one of those stores all my friends used to obsess over, and now is all-but forgotten. And that's a pity, because their textures are beautiful, their prices good, and especially for basics, and components for mixing up your own outfits, they really are flawless. My shoes are Aphrodite Creations' Vintish, AC having been a massive staple of my shoe folder in times past, and are yummy. Gurl 6 for the hair again, another old favourite of mine, pleasantly informal and hippy-ish, with delighful curlybits at the ends.

A dive into your inventory can produce some great forgotten treasures, for those days when you're feeling a bit nostalgic, or just for awesomeness with the classics. Like the kind I have.

Credits:

Pic 1-

Skin: Surf Couture - Sun Care - Zinc Oxide - Gone Surfin'
Hair: Maitreya - Rae - Red
Shirt: Versteck - from Pipette dress
Cardigan: Icing - from Robot Love
Pants: Celestial Studios - Lulu Faded Cuffed Capris
Sandals: Fashionably Dead - Strappy Sandals - Black
Manicure: Celestial Studios - Deviant Nation - Black and Red Duo
Pedicure: Frick - Dark Red
Eyes: Miriel - Marine (standard) [in all pics]
Lashes: Sin Skins - Tipped Fluff Lashes [in all pics]

Pic 2-

Skin: Surf Couture - Sun Care - Zinc Oxide - Italian Ice
Hair: Gurl 6 - Softly - Strawberry
Dress and gloves: Argyle - Pete Plaid Party Dress - Grey
Shoes: Jeepers Creepers - Laced-Up Betty
Choker: Caroline's Jewelry - Kitten Cameo

Pic 3-

Skin: Surf Couture - Sun Care - Zinc Oxide - Flip Flops
Hair: Gurl 6 - Hard Candy - Strawberry
Outfit: Nyte n Day - Seraph Black
Shoes: Aphrodite Creations - Vintish - Black

Pose Credits:
Pic 1 - [LAP] (from the Simmer Down set but I forgot to make a note :(]
Pic 2 - [LAP] Cat's Meow - Starlet; Got the Time
Pic 3 - [LAP] Chubby set - C-Barbie1a; C-Barbie10

Low ARC FTW!

It's that time of year again folks! Now we're running out of holidays to overcelebrate in Second Life, the Fair cycle is beginning! What this means for us, in the very shortest terms, is lag, and lots of it. There are a lot of things you can do clientside to make life a little easier, the simplest of which being to turn your graphics settings down to looooow. The next thing you can do, for yourself, is, for the love of all the little pixels, prim down. There are always disputes on this matter, there are the people who say "It's not what you're wearing, it's the scripts running on the sim", or "There are so many people here, taking my skirt off isn't going to help with the lag", personally, I'm of the school of thought of "every little helps". Exchanging your long flowing alpha curls for a sleek prim bob may not magically unlag a sim, but it does fractionally reduce the strain on the area, and that is a fact, one where if everyone worked together, instead of standing around complaining about the lag, could really make an tangible difference.

So really, it's the time of year where bloggers and strangers lecture you about being considerate to your fellow avatars, and stripping off some prims. I will be no exception.

I will admit right now, that there are laggy occasions where, yes, you DO care what you look like. No-one (no-one stylish, at least) likes being bald and barefoot in public. Call it paranoia, but I, for one, like to feel like I don't look as if I've just waddled off of Help Island when I go to a fashion show, for example. So, it helps to know what things in your inventory carry a low Avatar Rendering Cost. ARC is not the be-all-and-end-all of lag-reduction, it's a flawed system, but using a combination of it, and common sense, can really help you put together something suitable for a laggy occasion. Prims are not the Enemy, but there are certain properties of prims that are. Flex is the obvious one, and tinyprims (like you'll find in most jewelry), scupties are less than ideal but sometimes a nessessary evil (as we'll see), alpha textures and invisiprims are NOT your friend here, and illuminated prims, glow, and bling/particles are very definitely no-go for this sort of thing (and in general, shame on you, bling wearer). It also seems to help psychologically if your clothes are good quality, with care put into their textures and lines, just to abate the whole 'I FEEL NAKED WITHOUT MY PRIM CUFFS' noobish feeling.

Nivaya's 55 ARC outfit - For me, the trick is to convince myself wearing a lot. Sure, I could venture forth in some jeans and a t-shirt, but if I did that, I may as well just don a nice low-lag solid black skin like some sort of awesome ninja and not bother at all. As it stands, for this outfit, I've tried to make as much use of layers as I possibly can. My corset and capris are on the underwear layers, the belt in two parts on the shirt and pants layer (funny story, I didn't notice until I was doing the credits for this that I was wearing parts of two different belts, but hey, it looks okay, I won't tell if you don't), and the coat on jacket and skirt layers. The ornamentation on the belt helps me feel a bit dressed-up and negates my need for jewelry a bit, the open stitches on the shoulders of the coat, and the tail, makes the outfit feel a little more substancial while still being a bit quirky. The hair, I love. It's from the GNUbie store, and is one of Pudge's older styles. The version I'm wearing in the picture is a copy I've modified, I've removed the spiral curls from the sides, which left the ARC of the hair the same (16) but as people are always banging on about, twisted torii produce much more lag than...I dunno. A box maybe. Point is, I feel a bit more smug having taken this step. Also, glove manicures, to help the ensemble feel /finished/.

Persephone's 46 ARC outfit - Perse outdid me! She ACTUALLY outdid me! I was properly scandalized. It comes down to the shoes, in this case. The Baby Monkey Ballet Flats I chose are a dainty 3 prims, whereas Perse's Shiny Things Ballet Flats are a hefty 16, but the difference comes in the types of prims they are. You see, mine are scupties, Perse's are regular prims. And the fact that my shoes are sculpted makes them a whole 9 ARC points higher than Perse's. That said, they're still pretty hard to beat as far as shoes go. For her outfit, Perse has gone a less complicated route than I, favouring comfortable casual simplicity, with a yummy use of colour, and as ever, great quality. I believe she even forsook her beloved prim pant cuffs. The real surprise for me came with her hair, Diversity's Brat, which clocked in at the same ARC as mine, 16, despite being rather more elaborate. So in this case, I am forced to bow to Perse's superiour low ARC-ing, due to my forgetting to take sculpts into account. Well done and fair play to you, lovely.

Of course, there are occasions where you don't care quite so desperately what you look like. Things like fairs and expos and extremely crowded hunts, where you're just another 'body', and everyone's mostly concentrating on trying to get textures to rez, or as was the case at the recent 7Seas Fishaversary, catching fish in a sim crammed to the gills (ba-dum-tchhhh) with people running fishing scripts. And that's when it pays to have a less lovely, but rather more streamlined outfit. Still staying clear of ninja skins...

Niv's 1 ARC outfit - The basis of this outfit is the skin. It's an Eloh mod I made around the time of Hair Fair last year. My original plan had been to edit it so that it would have a shaved head effect, I'm not scared of pulling a Britney, I just don't want to look so pedestrian as to have just plain taken my hair off and left it at that. Unfortunately, it turns out the reason there are so few skins with hair or stubble on the head is that it's extremely, incredibly difficult to do. Not that I'm any expert in these matters, but the seams, the boundries, and getting it all to look even...wow. Gave me a whole new type of respect for skinners who can pull it off. So instead, I modified my plan, and decided to tie it in with the system mohawk I had made some while ago during a craze for making Allegory Malaprop style 'hawks to make system hair a little more paletable, and added some colourful tattoos on the head, to match the overlong rainbow eyelashes and painted-on bindi I'd put on it for an effect of 'something'. The other thing here that most fashionistas wouldn't dream of wearing, and probably couldn't find in this day and age, is system boots. These were one of very first things I picked up when I started Second Life, almost two years ago, and have been trusty emergencywear since, they don't look too bad...as long as you don't look too hard, or from the side, or...POINT IS, I'm not barefoot here. With this, some clothes with buttloads of detail in the texture, like the jacket, and the jeans, and I've managed to throw together a look that actually almost is wearable in public, sort of. Also, I have once more outdone Perse!

So, yeah. Go low prim. It's not hard, it does help reduce at least your own lag and you get to feel a bit self-righteous about it while not actually looking too horrible. Mm.

Credits:

Persephone:

Skin- Curio Sundust- Breeze - Mauve Mist 2
Hair - Diversity Hair - Brat - Hershey Dipped
Shirt- Mayuki nozaki- Liru-Flower Dress- Camisole
Shrug- Silent Sparrow - Shurggie top - Sea
Jeans- Sn@tch - Moroccan Jeans(Blue)
Flats- Shiny Things - Ballet Flat - Black
Eye- Miriel - Violet Plant (Standard)

Nivaya 1:

Skin - Ashia Designs - Timeless 2009 Bushfire Appeal
Hair - Pudge - Bee-utiful Bee-Hive - Crayon Red (edited)
Corset - silentsparrow (special) luxe corset (alternate)
Jacket - Schadenfreude - Ghost Revenant Jacket - Open, Open Sleeves
Pants - Savvy? - Roslin Capris (underpant)
Belt - Pixeldolls - Black (Empress bottom, Dauphine top)
Shoes - Baby Monkey Classic Ballet Flats - Conker Brown
Eyes - Miriel - Marine (standard)
Manicure - CandyNail - Basic Nail - Silver

Nivaya 2:

Skin - selfmade - Bindi and rainbowlashes and tattoos skin (eloh mod)
Hair - selfmade - Niv System Mohawk
Shirt - ETD Striped Top (silver)
Jacket - Bare Rose - Chronicle Gray Jacket
Jeans - Fashionably Dead - Graffiti Jeans
Boots - Tall Boots black motif hip high (creator unknown, ancient freebie)
Nails and fingertape - SiniStyle Taped Fingers and Black Nails (index, middle, pinky)
Tattoo - TCinSHELTER ChainhartTattoo

Pose credits:

Pic 1: [LAP] Maxim Girls
Pic 2: [LAP] Cuteness (from Kewt as a Button set)
Pic 3: Hiccup - My Brain!
Pic 4, L to R: Schadenfreude - Eh, Piss Off; [LAP] She's Lethal (from Spice set)