Ava Rage makes me the Queen of Shopping, and inspires my new profile shot.

While I haven't been blogging about SL, I have been doing my usual bit of shopping, socializing, talking about shopping while socializing, thinking about shopping, and perhaps doing some shopping.

One of the ways I do that in SL is groups, the Fashion Emergency, and the Maitreya Lara group in particular.  In these groups I talk with other fashionistas like LaDonna Upshaw, Vivienne Graves, and the maker of posestands, and other photoprops, Ava Rage.

These people have been among my fashion enablers over the past years.  Now recently we were talking skins and Ava mentioned she uses the Lumae Eirtae.  I told her that while I had the Eirtae it wasn't quite me and I mentioned it was the Melusine that I'd picked up at some fantasy event...and then she said something like "CC, that's a special edition version, theres a regular version!."  Then I have my Don Draper moment and say "What?"  Then, relatively quickly, meaning the next day, I go visit Lumae.

Now my readers and flickr followers have seen Lumae's fantasy skins here before, the Dark Elf-ish Hecate, the Devilish Naamah and the Wicked Green Orismer.  I liked them quite a bit and liked them after I picked up my Catwa Tumble head.

Now the important thing about skins and appliers for me is "Does it come in a pale enough shade?  Does it suit a redhead?  Is it fairly priced and of goodly quality?"  Yes, yes they do.  I eventually picked up the Eirtae and Ruby sets in T3/Shell and T4/Fawnshades. The T4's because I discovered the T3's weren't quite perfect for some modern looks.  When I mentioned picking up the T4's to Ava she said something like:  "You tanned Freak!"  Which made me laugh because the T4's are STILL pale.  They come with appliers for various bodies, and heads and also for Lumae's ears!  So yes, you can use these skins if you're an Elf like The Blogging Elf.  I would describe the main difference as the Eirtae's being more romantic and softer and the Ruby being more aristocratic and modern, with cheekbones sharp enough to slice bread!

Here we have the Eirtae in T4 with some Pink Fuel Glossy Pout lips and Smokey Boudoir eyeshadow.  Gives me a Gogo from Juicybomb meets Megan Fox sort of thing especially with the Catwa head's slightly parted lips option. Hair is Exile Bewitched.

Here's the Ruby in T4 with some lippie from the Catwa extras lippie hud.  This is about as low femme as I get.  Rather Mariska Hargitay (short hair version) here.  Rowr.  Truth Gaea hair.

Here I'm wearing some the Ruby in T4 with eyeshadow and metallic lipstick from Alaska Metropolitan, from the Anybody Event.

And here is the one I'm going to use for my profile, a very traditional pale "Celtic Rose CC-ish" look with red lips.  And I think I look Kate Winslet's "Rose" from Titanic!

Thanks to Ava, I'm the Shopping Queen.  This is her Chalkboard set.  There are several phrases (coffee, vodka, family, love, etc) , backgrounds, floors, poses you can use.  I find it fun and mentioned wanting MOAR phrases.  We'll see.  Get it at SecondSnaps.  And yes, with Shopping Queen I had to pull out a Tiara.  Don't look at me that way, I have a Tiara and I know how to use it!  Though in all honest I don't really shop all that much compared to most in SL.

SLURLS:

Lumae at Belita

Pink Fuel at Illusory

Exile at Covet

Catwa 

IKON 

TRUTH 

AnyBody 

Second Snaps

Alaskametro Basix lingerie

I've known Alaska Metropolitan for aaaages. She was probably my first designer friend. She recently dropped me some lingerie sets and lace dress sets. Now the dresses aren't really me...but the lingerie...is well...well lets just say I REALLY like the lingerie, even though it is as the name says:

Basix. Every femmy person out there has some basic "nice" lingerie. We're all searching for our perfect combination of fit and style.






Yes, I went a touch artistic with the pics, but Alaska always does good display ads (she pretty much wrote the book on designing a good display) so it's not a big deal.

Nice isn't it...only comes in basic muted nudey colors even the black is a sort of soft grey. You get sheer, opaque and sheer lace version with choice between straps or strapless in each set. Anyway when I first put them on I was like HOLY CRAP, that has got to be inspired by the old style Body by Victoria or the old iPex. (Though in RL I wear the Cacique stuff. made by the same company, same stuff, only sold at Lane Bryant rather than Victoria's Secret) The biofit 7-way is probably closest to it these days.

Anyway it's a very nice everyday bra that I want in a LOT more colors and patterns. If you look at the clasp in back which I don't show, you'll see that it's a 3 hook bra, which it would be in RL. It's also inexpensive.

As far as I know Alaska doesn't have a in-world store these days, only her alaskametro Store on the Marketplace

She also does makeups, nail tattoos, brows and whatnot, she's a makeupista in RL.

Secrets of the Catwalk (new shoots show)

So I can add another "skill" to my SL resume, runway model. As some readers might know I'm a member of the Metro Models Agency. I've been friends with Alaska for ages. Well not ages, but a long time SL wise. We talk all the time.

Anyway she asked me to join and I said yes. So I went through the training. What's that you say, there's training? Yep. The little things you need to know to make things easier, quicker, better. And I went through the rehearsals. Yes, rehearsals, there's timing and movement to get down pat.

I was assigned as backup model to the New Shoots Persona and AnnaH, Saturday show, which suited me fine. I wanted to watch the show and get a feel for how they worked before I did any future runway work, if any. Yes, having backups is important because one of the scheduled models couldn't make the show and I was there to fill in.

Here's a shot of the backstage drama....NOT!



Let me tell you the most important skill an SL model has, it's not the ability to make/mod a nice shape, or the ability to shop for a shape flattering skin, it's the ability to follow instructions. Because that's what we do, follow orders, follow cues, hit our marks, cue our poses, have the right outfits on when they need to be on. That sort of thing. When you're doing that, you're focusing on doing your job as best as you can through lag, or anything else the grid can throw at you. There's not time for drama, so simple professionalism and a few jokes rules the day. Weirdly enough, it's a lot like being a healer in the MMORPG Final Fantasy XI.

The show itself went as smooth as silk, models rezzed, we hit our marks well, timing was good, the raffle script (which I assisted with) worked as it was supposed to and as far as I know, none of the models crashed. Though we did lose one of the event hosts for a minute or two, but Alaska was prepared.

Not only that, but the ensembles were great too, I really liked the ones I wore. I only took the one picture because I was afraid of doing anything that might make me crash. That's the Carmen outfit from AnnaH which I thought of as the kind of outfit a "desperate housewife" might wear when she wants to dress up a little but not too much. A kind of Chico's flavor if you will, at least to me.

All in all, I enjoyed it, but I was nervous because I didn't want to mess up the show. But everything turned out okay, thanks to planning and competency of the Metro Models Agency, Models and Staff. Yay for us.