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Tomorrow, I leave for my RL vacation. My family lives in the mountains of California, and while I'll have my laptop with me, I'm not sure how reliable their internet is up there. So, the one priority I had this week, was to spend some time with my SL family. Just in case I won't get good internet during my three weeks there.

I bought us a wonderful movie a few days ago, and I'm so happy that we were able to watch it and spend time as a family together before I leave! Our movie for last night was Inside Out, one of the best movies out right now (in my opinion)!

[SRB] Movies with the Family

I've sent a notecard to the wonderful designers I blog for, informing them of my three week long absence. While I don't think I'll have any problems with the internet there, and people probably won't even realize things are different, there's still that off chance that the internet is going to be weird there. Gotta cover my butt! I have a couple of blog photos for my fashiony blog that I took in advance, but those will only go so far over the three week period.

Of course, if the internet is workable up there, I'll still be around! My RL family that I'll be visiting has a full time job, so I will have to entertain myself during the days, but - I'm not sure they will be very happy with me if I'm on my computer while they are home. And, they have tons of plans to shop, travel and everything during the weekends. I'm not sure what my schedule will be like at all!

Gah! And I still have to pack. I leave in the morning tomorrow, and I have done... nothing to get ready!

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During the house-to-house trick or treating, we visited a few houses that were part of actual family communities. I did not even realize that these sort of things existed! I absolutely loved the community feel of them! I say often that my family isn't big on the "role-play" aspect, like, we don't really do mealtimes, or tuck-ins... but we do things like PaleoQuest, pumpkin carving, and movie nights. But for some reason, the family sims really appealed to me. I think for a couple of hidden reasons.

First, we have decided to move halfway across the country in RL, early next year. Because of this, we need to cut un-needed expenses out of our life. The sim is the first thing that is not absolutely necessary. Second, our sim is just WAY too big. We are a small family of three, and we don't utilize it all. We had one party for Yuna's adoption, we sometimes watch a movie at our outdoor cinema, and we stand in the house to AFK. That's about it. All of these things, we can do on a smaller piece of land. Third, our house was way too big. I loved the house when I bought it, it's gorgeous, and the type of house I'd love to live in RL. However, for us, it was just too much space. But really, the cost of the sim was the main reason for the decision. 

As much as I say I'm not a "RP" type of person, I think I'm craving just a little bit more of it! I LOVE that you have to have a driver's license to drive on the family sims, you have to stop at stop lights and all that. These communities seem to have a police force, firefighters, playgrounds, and city hall. It's so much fun! I spent a good 2-3 days hopping from one sim to another, reading covenants, trying to find the perfect house.

Eventually, I found it. Well, it was mainly the plot I fell in love with! The back of the house is right on the lake, the front of the house is facing the road, so I can see people driving by and all. It has it's own fence, came with some landscaping already put down. The price is much more do-able than what we were paying for the sim (we can almost pay a whole month here with what we were paying a week for the sim), and the prim limit is SO generous. I was done putting down all the things that I wanted from the old house, and I was not even halfway though our given prim allowance. I was completely amazed!

[SRB] New Home

However, I did opt to purchase my own home, and because it was an "approved house," I got to use it. It's smaller two bedroom, one bath home from Roost. I love Roost Homes, they are very beautiful, and completely customizable. I find you can tint... everything! Doors, ceilings, walls, exteriors... I love it! The Rules notecard I was given from the community manager says that if you use your own home, you are given a prim allowance that won't count against your prims, but when I check on the prim counter, my home counts against me. I'll see what happens later, when/if we ever need more prims.

Of course, it's still a work in progress, I haven't committed to an exterior paint color, and I still have some landscaping and all to do... but, I just got it yesterday! I'm still playing with things outside, but I am very happy that I was able to secure this plot, and this house! It's so perfect for us!

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Happy November! I hope everyone is having a great one so far! Last night, my family and I went trick or treating! We had a ton of fun looking at everyone's decorations, and grabbing the treats that everyone set out! At first I was kind of nervous about how I had decorated. This is our first year being part of the family community, I wasn't sure what kind of "treat" we were supposed to put out, I didn't know if we weren't decorated enough, or decorated too much. I had no idea what to expect!

However, it all turned out well, and when we went to the other houses, I felt our decorations were right on track. For us, who haven't been in SL for the past few years, had no mesh things, and our first year as a family - I think it looked like we've been doing it for years. I was worrying and stressing for weeks for nothing. LOL!

We went, and I was having so many issues last night. I was having issues with my Catwa head not blinking and animating properly, things were not rezzing for me, and I was lagging so bad! I've been having internet issues, which appears to be our router. So, until we can get a new one, I really tried to handle it like a trooper! I was also extremely tired, only getting about three hours of sleep the previous night. I was exhausted!

[SRB] H-to-H Trick or Treating - 01

We went as "Cops & Robber" type of theme. I was really struggling with finding a costume, because Halloween isn't one of my favorite holidays, so I didn't want to spend a fortune on something I was only going to wear for a couple hours. Also, I was having trouble finding a "themed" costume which was family appropriate. So... well, I tried.

[SRB] H-to-H Trick or Treating - 02

We even got to trick or treat at some of the family community sims. I really, really love the family communities! I tried to bring it up to Jeffry, seeing if maybe we can move to one or look into it, but he prefers our sim. He says the only way he'd move to a family community, is if he owned it. Hmmm, my wheels are turning!

[SRB] H-to-H Trick or Treating - 03

Our last house of the night - our home.We had SO much fun, and I'm already looking forward to Christmas! As our first year as a family, I can't wait to see what kind of family-things we can do this year! House to house looking at lights, maybe? One can hope, right?!

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Last night, we took Yuna to the pumpkin patch and then we decorated our pumpkins! This was probably one of my first "real RP" experiences with our family, and we all had so much fun. When we were first adopting, one of our things was that we weren't really into RP that much. It still holds true today, we are not that big on mealtimes, tuck ins, but the RP that we do, it's so much fun, and we are always laughing like crazy! Our trip to the pumpkin patch was really our first attempt to plan an actual family event, and I was sure it was going to be a huge, epic fail somehow.

But it really wasn't! I planned this for many weeks, kept on the lookout for a fabulous pumpkin patch, made a holding pose, bought all the gacha pumpkin carving stuff we needed, and set it all out. I didn't know how the RP bits of it worked, and my wonderful friends on Plurk even really helped me better understand a lot of it!

In the end, for us and our family, it kind of came naturally! It was so much fun, and for a minimal-RP family like us, we really enjoyed it so much! The planning, the locations, the decorating, and the pumpkins, it really made for an awesome time.

[SRB] Pumpkin Carving - Pumpkin Patch

I had been looking for weeks for a pumpkin patch, and really enjoyed this one that I had found. It was pretty, had pumpkins that you could pick out, and even more. You can do much more than explore the pumpkin patch, but that's all we did there.

[SRB] Pumpkin Carving - Carving

Then we went home to carve and decorate our pumpkins. It was so worth all the anxiety I had to make it perfect! I think I made it more complicated than what it probably should have been, but I really didn't know what to expect, or anything. Next year, I'll definitely be more prepared, know what to expect, and know what will work for our family.

[SRB] Pumpkin Carving - Decorated Pumpkins

I saw Alicia's wonderful family on plurk actually "decorating" their pumpkin patch pumpkins. I loooooved that idea, it looked like so much fun. It also gave an actual purpose to the pumpkins we picked out! So, we copied them, and did the same! I think this really completed the event for us, and what really made it so it wasn't SO much RP. This made it perfect. It became more of a "OMG I need to add hair and shoes!" and "What is happening to daddy's eyes?!" thing. We were laughing so much last night, it was great. It probably would have been a very stiff, I-don't-know-how-to-RP thing without the silliness.

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At the start of the Halloween season, people on plurk were starting to wonder if this place called Havenhollow was going to happen again this year. Me, being away from SL for so long, had not heard of this place before! When it was explained to me, it sounded like SO much fun, and I was excited to check it out!

So, we took the family exploring there! Yuna had already been to Havenhollow last year, so she was like our guide for the whole thing. We had a lot of fun! Jeffry tried to look like the Phantom of the Opera, Yuna went as Link from the Legend of Zelda, and I went as... well, I'm not really sure. SL's female costumes are so unoriginal when it comes to being family-friendly. Everything is either sexy nurse, sexy maid, or something bloody. I was not interested in any of that. So, I put on a Halloween skin applier. I don't know what I was, but I tried.

[SRB] Havenhollow

Havenhollow was fun! We had a blast roaming around, and it was actually quite creepy! I know in previous years, I've really tried to visit all the haunted places I can go. But, with Yuna as a part of our family, I feel so excited for all the RP aspects of the holidays! I know I've said it before, but well, it's fun to share the SL holidays with other people you care about. For the longest time, it's just been Jeffry and I.

Speaking of Jeffry, we went gachaing the other day. We went a little crazy! I got quite a bit of the stuff I wanted, but there was some things that he wouldn't give up on. I logged on to this.

[SRB] Gacha Gifts

Sculpted gift boxes in the shape of a heart. 12 prims each, no baked maps. LOL! He tried, right? Filled with all the gacha items that I gave up on! Even through the ugliness, I was excited! Yuna got gifts too, set out in her bedroom, from a couple of machines that we thought she'd like! However, she didn't want to take them from us! I was threatening to ground her and drop them on her instead when she finally accepted them!

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It's getting closer and closer to Halloween! I've been working quite a bit on my store things, as I have a couple of events to participate in. A hunt, and I'm donating a prize to the Carver's End thing! So, I've been really working on those, and a release as well. I've been working on a couple of other things, as well!

I entered our home into the House to House Trick or Treating, and we've been decorating like crazy! It's a constant work in progress, as more and more things come out the closer we get to Halloween. I keep adding stuff! I'm wondering what is too much and where the line is between awesome and tacky. Haha!

[SRB] House to House Trick or Treating

This is about where our trick or treater families will land! I love it, it's so adorable! Gives a good view of the house, I think! And it reminds me just how much I love having a driveway! I am not a fan of Halloween, really, so I never really bought anything for decorating before. I tend to buy pumpkins that are uncarved, or hay bales, things that can also be used for Thanksgiving decor as well. I'm much more into Thanksgiving than I am into Halloween! But anyway, I hope I'm doing this holiday right!

[SRB] House to House Trick or Treating

And the entrance, all fancy decorated! I've been way from SL for a long time, mesh was really just beginning to come out when I left. So, coming back, I had *nothing* mesh to decorate with! I had to buy everything new to decorate this year with, and quite frankly, I have so many decorations now that I know what to do with! I'd be happy if I never see another pumpkin again at this point. LOL!

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I've been really trying to learn how to learn mesh! I started with clothing and Blender, and I decided that I'm terrible at it. However, I still really want to learn. I've tried clothing, and while I love it - I'm really terrible at weight painting. I get frustrated and can never get a product I am happy with. I've given up on clothing, but I still want to learn other things, as well.

I've been really working in ZBrush as of late, trying to learn it, and get comfortable with the Wacom tablet I got for my RL birthday last month. I'm even looking into taking more 'professional' classes on this program at this point, in addition to the wonderful YouTube tutorials I've been following. I spent several days literally JUST working on some form of a plush toy that I can be happy with. The original thought was that I wanted to make a cat plushie. However, it didn't turn out like that. I got this... creature.

[SRB] Herman Plushie

I saved the file as "demonic bear thing" originally, then someone on plurk said it looked like a cow. He kind of does, but I'm not really going to put a label on him. He is what he is, a little creation of my own. I'm calling him Herman. I have uploaded him, and different color versions of him. I had Jeffry script a hold animation that also switches between a child and adult hold animation, and a resize script as well! He will be put into a gacha for my store, .ennaline. in the next week or so!

As I was making the different colors for him, Jeffry says to me: "You're not really going to name him Herman, are you?" Of course I am! I like his name!

[SRB] Pumpkin

After Herman, I decided that I wanted to try my hand at making a pumpkin! I am SO happy with this pumpkin, it's gorgeous! I absolutely adore how the texture of this pumpkin came out, it's so pimple-y. And, only 1 land impact for it! I made a couple poses with this pumpkin, which will be a hunt gift for the store! Pumpkin will be included, of course!

I am really enjoying learning Zbrush, and already the things I've made from it are gorgeous, and fun! I hope that I can get better and better with things as I get more comfortable with it, and experiment around with it!

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Today, I'm talking about mesh heads! I've bought two of them within the past week, and I'm becoming a bit of a head hoarder! I bought a head from TMP (I hate them so much that I'm not even going to put a link to their SLURL) a while ago, which I have blogged about previously. Long story short, I hated it. The Pink Fuel skin I wore was beautiful on it, but that was really the only thing it had going for it. TMP is brutally expensive for the features you get, mainly the lack of expressions. I think I purchased it, thinking (hoping) that something that expensive would have regular updates, maybe they would add expressions. WRONG. Their customer service is the absolute worst I've encountered (except maybe for 7 Deadly Skins, of which we won't go into). But, anyway, my main reason for looking for a new head was for one reason: I want to be able to look happy.

As I mentioned in my previous post, I have a really wonderful family in SL, and I am incredibly happy, but sadly, my face in SL never shows it! I constantly have a really grumpy look, and seems like I always have somewhere better to be. But, I don't, really! I set out to look for another mesh head that was still "me", and had the ability to have expressions!

I demo'ed a Catwa head, and liked a skin from TheSkinnery with it. I bought the head, skin and appliers, was wearing it around to really see if it "grew" on me. As I was still in the 'I don't really know how I feel about this stage', Mochi, from Pink Fuel was plurking gorgeous skin photos of something she was working on for the Logo mesh head. My immediate thought: "But, I literally JUST bought a Catwa head!" Seriously! Why do these things always happen when I make a large purchase like this?!

[SRB] Catwa Head

The Pink Fuel skin was Omega compatible, and guess what! So was my Catwa! Just for kicks, I decided to see if it would apply to the head. And it did! I was so happy, and it even looked SO gorgeous, even on the Catwa. I decided to try a demo of the Logo head, just to look at it, but unfortunately, the Logo demo... is not Omega compatible. However! I absolutely fell in love with the expressions. The Logo head had such fun, beautiful expressions. And I loved them so much that... I bought the head. Without being able to demo the skin on it. Yep.

[SRB] Logo Head

However, I have absolutely NO regrets. As soon as I was able to put the Pink Fuel skin on the Logo head, it was worth it, I had absolutely no buyer's remorse for this purchase, not being able to demo it first! It really feels like "me", as most Pink Fuel skins do. The smile is big, happy, and as silly as it sounds, I feel these expressions really even show it up to the eyes. They like, change the whole feel of a photo! I loved the expressions so much that I bought all the add-on packs of them!

[SRB] Catwa vs. Logo

My husband likes the Catwa head, and I much prefer the Logo one. I can't wait to see what other skins come out for the Catwa and Logo heads, and all the other Omega compatible stuff! I know that the Catwa head is still new, too - I really hope that the creator can make it so you don't have to use the included shape! I used my shape and had a neck gap, and couldn't quite get rid of it.

Notes on Catwa:

  • Alpha mask eyelashes! YES!
  • Able to alpha hair bases! Great for hair that can't fit, otherwise!
  • Omega compatible!
  • Able to save appliers into the HUD.
  • Expressions! Expressions play like on a loop, but you're able to pause them for photos.
  • Need to wear the included shape, otherwise you have a neck gap.
  • Required to wear mesh eyes. And even then, I had a complete nightmare of a time fitting them *just* right. And I'm not a noob. 

Notes on Logo:

  • Expressions, expressions, and more expressions! LOVE!
  • Omega compatible! 
  • Fits mesh bodies well!
  • Unable to demo Omega skins before buying.
  • Gives you like 15 folders when you unpack the box. 
  • As for the other features, I'm not sure, as the HUD is too small for my laptop screen to even see! (And it's no modify, so I can't even stretch it to make it bigger)

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Yesterday, I found some really low land impact photo frames for my house! I was really looking for a "family" orientated type of frame, or shelf, or something that I could use for displaying Yuna's Adoption Certificate, and the photo I took of when she first saw the question of us asking her to join the family. I didn't find one that looked how I wanted, so I made one! But anyway! I'm a huge fan of photos, in both RL and SL. Some memories, you just can't repeat, or get back, and I'm very forgetful! I take a lot of photos! I'm trying to fill my large amounts of frames with some photos of us as a family now, instead of just Jeffry and I.

I know that I referenced to our fall photo several times in the previous post, and it appeared a couple of times on our adoption day. I never really posted it here, as I wanted it to be a complete surprise! Now that the surprise is done and over with, I can post it! It turned out sooooo great, I'm in love with it!

[SRB] The Heartsdale's Fall Family Photo

Yuna and I were watching a movie, and I snapped this photo of us! It turned out super cute, and I love this pose/animation that I made for us. Yuna has officially been calling us mommy and daddy, and we've been calling her our daughter! Because it's official now, and I'm super-excited about it still!

[SRB] Movies With Yuna

I've been experimenting with different mesh heads! I now have several of them, from Genesis, TMP, Logo, and Catwa. I think I'm going to do a blog post REALLY soon about them! However, for now, I am in LOVE with the Logo mesh head, the expressions are soooo much fun! I think I'm going to stick with the Logo head for a while, and made it a little more official by updating my in-world profile with a new photo!

[SRB] New Profile Photo

For real, don't I look SO happy? Well, I should be! My life in SL has never been better than it is right now! I have been so blessed in SL, and I have the best family, ever! I feel like I just want to keep this smile on my face all the time!

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As my Plurk friends know, Jeffry and I had been planning something for about a week now! I've been posting updates and preview photos on my Plurk, pretty much ever since we decided on it. We decided to ask Yuna to join our family! I went from not having a single clue how we were going to ask her, to a brilliant plan all of a sudden! We had a couple ideas, but nothing seemed good enough. The original idea was to go on a hot air balloon ride, and rez a huge prim on the ground with the question. We'd point it out, and she'd look down to see it. But, then we started brainstorming, and came up with something incredible.

We told her that we were having a laser tag party with some friends, and asked her to come on a little earlier so that we can "test" some things out. We got in the hot air balloon to "test" it. Once we were all in the balloon, it took off in a path. We had several stops along the way, which I had framed photos rezzed (held in the air by balloon clusters), with photos I took from the 2 week trial we did. They were invisible, and when we approached each photo, they appeared. Each stop had said a little blurb about how we felt about her.

[SRB] Yuna's Adoption - Arrival at "The Question"

The last stop, we got out of the hot air balloon, and walked up to more photo frames, this one held a photo I took of us a few days before. At first, this photo was a crucial part of how we would ask her, and us asking her to be part of the family was kind of the "unveiling" of the photo, as she hadn't seen the finished photo yet. These frames also held "the question."

[SRB] Yuna's Adoption - The Question

I was kind of nervous! I mean, what if she didn't like us as much as we liked her? But, she did say yes! I bombarded her with all kinds of things... like the photo texture, and the Heartsdale Family group invite, so she could "officially" move in.

[SRB] Yuna's Adoption - Party

Then afterward, we had a small party! I DJ'ed the music (my first time playing music for someone other than myself!), I wasn't really expecting anyone to come, but the Zanzibar's and the Oleander's came! Both of these families have shown us so much support through this whole adoption process, it really brought tears to my eyes that they came to the adoption party for us, as well!

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As I get more comfortable with our trial daughter, Yuna, I've been trying to use her Yuus/Nuuu HUD a little more. I love being able to pick her up and carry her around, it also makes for better photos, too.

Well, last night, we planned to all watch a movie, and I wanted to hold her a during the movie. We tried by using the HUD, but it was a huge fail. I tried holding her before and after sitting, but well.... it didn't work well. Eventually, we just used the HUD to sit, and although we were hovering probably 2-3 meters in the air off of the ottoman, I rezzed some books and we sat on them just so that we could watch a movie together. Even then, it looked absolutely ridiculous. LOL! However, the experience made me want to make my own pose for watching movies, and just general parent/child cuddles.

As I was thinking about doing a pose last night, I also decided to try my hand at an actual animation. Sure, I didn't want or need it to be fancy, just a tiny bit of leg movement so that it's not completely static.


It turned out really well, I really like it! It's subtle, not static, and does exactly what I envisioned in my mind. I've got my alt, Ennaline, with me in the gif, but I'm hoping it will be just as perfect with Yuna, as well! I've raved about Anypose several times on my blog, but this animation, is yet another reason why I LOVE (!) it!

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So, lately, we've been spending a lot of time doing a variety of things. A little over a week ago, we messaged a girl who's panel we liked at Heritage Adoptions. We met up, did a couple of things together, before deciding to go on a trial. We have been on a trial for almost a week now, actually, and it's still going great! I blogged a little bit about her when we took her to the sim-warming party, but I didn't mention too much about her, really. Well, this morning, we all agreed to extend the trial a little longer! This was a big thing to me, because, it actually said to me that she's interested in continuing with us, and likes us enough to want to spend more time together! More milestones!

[SRB] Movie Nights

So, we've been doing lot of things together, as Jeffry says: "as a family," but I still worry we are boring people! We took a few days to do PaleoQuest, we've watched a couple of movies, and even visited The Cornfield. It's been fun, doing these things all together! I really hope it continues, and I hope that we can have a very happy outcome at the end of this "extended trial!"

This is where we are now venturing into territory that we are completely unfamiliar with! Other trials we have had did not get this far. Actually, they really didn't even get past a couple of days. So, I'm not sure where to proceed from here, and when we know that we're "ready" to adopt. I'm just thinking that, When we know, we "know" right? Like finding the perfect wedding dress? LOL! I don't know what I would have done without Alicia and her adorable family answering all the questions I have about families/RP, and all their guidance and tips they have given us through the whole adoption process!

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So, the Zanzibar's and the Oleander's had their official Sim-Warming party on Wednesday night! Lolita has been working making their sim beautiful for a little while now. It was finally finished, they finished moving in their homes - so of course they held a party for everyone to come, have fun and tour their newly-designed sim!

[SRB] OZ Sim-Warming Party - 01

It really did not disappoint. Their sim is gorgeous, photogenic, and it's really well done. I keep saying that Lolita needs to change her career into sim design! Every sim she's done is absolutely stunning! Anyway, the party was so much fun, we had a great time! Bluebonnet has always held a special place in my heart, as some people who read my blog might know, I used to live there! And, it's also where Jeffry and I shared our first land together. I have always loved Bluebonnet.

[SRB] OZ Sim-Warming Party - 02

We actually invited our current Heritage trial, Yuna, to come with us. I know she's shy, but she really handled the event like a champ. She was lagging a lot, and didn't talk much, but that's okay! I was still really, really happy that she came with us, and met all of our friends as it was the first time anyone else had met her. Milestones!

Eventually, Yuna logged off for the night, and the party continued. Of course, like many of their parties... it turned crazy. Somehow, it turned into a tour of the sim while riding in cars. Me, hearing that Lolita was one of the best drivers of their families, I opted to ride with her. LOL! Jeffry, flat out refused to go driving with us, saying "this doesn't look like a good idea." I probably should have listened to him.


I got a gif a little too late, all the craziness had already happened, but still! I wanted one to remember the night. The cars never rezzed fully for me, but, it was an incredible night of speeding through Bluebonnet, picking up kids who somehow fell out of someone's car, and watching Takeo park his car like a pro. That night, I literally laughed until I cried.

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Remember me saying, "Oh, I'll never blog fashion again"? Me either. LOL! No, but seriously... the more I shop and play in SL, the more I miss it. I miss playing around with clothing, seeing how many fun attachments I can wear and all of them looking okay. I also miss wearing weird, random things on my head, and calling it fashion. I really think that fashion blogging is in the blood, and there's certain things I miss about it. I decided to take it up again. I'm going to blog the way I want to blog, and that's it. Because, I do it for myself, and no one else. That's how it should be, right? Interested? Check it out at Sai the Fabulous!

That being said, I've been working on several pose sets at a time. Currently, I have about three family poses, and three pose sets that's ready. I just need to dress up, make vendor photos for them, and bag them up to be released. It's a lot of work, and I hate this part of having a store. So, I procrastinate. And, how do I procrastinate? By making more poses, of course! It's a never ending cycle.

I saw a photo of a horse on Lolita's blog the other day, and instantly wanted them. She gave me a marketplace link, where to buy the horses, and I had to get them. Cheap, full permission horses (of course, I also found that a pack of deer and a golden retriever also hopped into my cart from them as well, I suddenly needed ALL THE THINGS). A light bulb went off in my head. Poses!

[SRB] Poses With Horses

So, I've also finished a couple poses to use with this horse. Once all the minor tweaks are taken care of, and I mirror all the poses, I'll put the poses I made for sale, with the horse included! I think it will be awesome. AnyPose has really taken a lot of the guesswork out of working with complicated props like this, and made props fun. Of course, the poses that come out of AnyPose still need to have minor issues tweaked in an external program, but it still makes it so much easier. It really keeps the fun in making poses (for me, anyway).

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In my previous blog post, I mentioned that I had decided to re-design our sim. It was a long, miserable process, but I'm finally done with it! I am so pleased with how it looks now, it is so much better for us! We now have designated areas, with much more room to grow!

Of course, I had to buy some more things, like the driveway and garage that matches my Roost house, some cliffs for the mountain areas and pathways for the "valley," as I'm calling it. It all came together really well! I am very pleased with myself.

[SRB] Sim Redesign

I'm also working on decorating for fall. Fall is my favorite season of all, as I love sweaters, the crisp clean air, the smells of cinnamon, and I love pumpkin-everything! So, I've been changing my shrubs to autumn colors, and putting out my pumpkins, leaf buntings, and hay bales (well, actually, I made the hay bales). The Arcade event this month is fantastic for stocking up on all the incredible fall decorations, I'm loving everything!

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I've been getting increasingly more and more dissatisfied with the design of our sim. When I picked out the terrain file, I was trying to replicate the sim we used to have years ago. It worked well for us back then, it was only us two, and we didn't need many things. However now, we are still trying to adopt a child, and we need more things for a child to do, as well. We have games now, a outdoor cinema and a playground, that we did not have before. I've been trying to move things around.... but it just looks like a huge, hot mess on our sim, with no flow at all.

I went to The Arcade, and came back with a beautiful car. As silly as it sounds, this was the final nail in the coffin for our sim terrain. I wanted to rez my car in front of my house, but all I have is grass. I didn't want to look.... "trashy" by putting a car on the lawn... so obviously, I wanted a driveway. I went out and purchased the driveway and path add-on that matches our house... it was a fail. It didn't look right, I had to resize it smaller, and it was just totally out of place. I made the decision that I wanted to change the sim.

I contacted Lorena Chung, the person we rent the sim from. I hate dealing with them, because it will literally take hours for them to just do one simple thing. It drives me crazy, I have other things that I need to do, too, you know! Luckily, I don't need to deal with them that often.

Sim Redesign

Eventually, she got around to changing our terrain, and I think this will be perfect for us, as a family (one day?). I really wanted my house up higher, overlooking the sim, and I wanted plenty of room for a driveway. Also, I needed to have several different areas. We now have an area for a playground, dancing, games, the house, our cinema, and our pool AND I can have our house up high. Soon, I plan on getting these things, to really complete the sim. It's going to look fabulous!

Already, I definitely feel happier with the sim, and I feel like we have enough space to expand outwards in the future, as well.

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You ever have a whole bunch of stuff to do, but prefer to not do them? That's me, lately. I've been terribly sick for the past month, and it's getting progressively worse. Because of it, I've been really slacking on a lot of things that need to be done. Our sim will host it's first wedding in a couple weeks, and I still have a lot to do. They'll be using our barn for their wedding, and they may want to have a dance party afterwards. So, I've needed to get our dance area done. I've been really not looking forward to it, mainly because I have some uhh..... naughty animations in my Intan Couple Dance Ball, and I didn't want to search through all the animations to find the naughty ones. I don't want to have them out for the wedding, and I also want to keep our sim child friendly, because we are trying to adopt a child.

Anything with that dance ball is a nightmare. I hate updating it, adding dances, configuring it, modifying it to look better, everything. I don't like it. I hate dealing with it. But, well. It needed to be done! I finished the couple's ball, and realized I don't have a solo ball. GAH! I tried many scripts from the this awesome library of scripts, and didn't find one that worked the way I wanted it to. You'd think after majoring in computer programming in college, I'd know a little more about SL scripting. But nope! Never even wanted to learn it. Once, I found myself at the College of Scripting, looked around... and went "NOPE." Too overwhelming for me. Anyway, I ended up buying a full perm ball for L$1 on the marketplace, and modified it quite a bit. It looks presentable, and works just how I want it to. Of course, I needed to test it out.



I spent waaaaayyyy too much time, just dancing. I need to look into setting up another DJ table - this one belongs to Jeffry, and isn't all that attractive looking for the sim. It doesn't quite fit in well. But, he liked the animations in it. So, I gotta do that, put animations in the new DJ table.... Ugh.  feel like I'm going to get all this done, just in time to turn the sim into the fall season. LOL! Speaking of - I think I need to start looking into pumpkins and fall things, because it's getting closer to that time!

I've also been trying to teach myself how to DJ! I want to eventually DJ in a club, so I purchased my own stream to practice on my land. I play a lot of country, which is the music I really enjoy. My husband hates it, so I do it while he's at work! I'll just need to gather my courage up to apply to be a DJ at some country club!

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It's been a little while, hasn't it? I haven't been online much at all the past two weeks, as Jeffry and I had some RL to take care of. Well, it's all good, and we are back again! I have been working quite a bit on my alt's little store, now that I've decided to start making poses again. I have made a bunch of them, and am in the process of testing them out now! When I had [ImpEle], I did all my poses in Qavimator. It's a very ugly program (and sadly, it has not changed at all these past several years), but it gets the job done. I have made it my personal mission to really learn more "professional" programs. So I've been playing quite a bit in DAZ Studio, and Poser Pro.

.ennaline. Nails

As if I needed something else to do, I've been playing with nail appliers! I feel like I want to try everything at least once. I've tried mesh clothing, clothing appliers, furniture and mesh prefabs by now, and hated all of it. I think everything I make lately is terrible. I really struggle with finding my "niche", I guess. I found myself the other day, halfway through making a nail applier. I don't know what spurred the thought on that I wanted to do it, I just did it. And oddly, I was quite pleased with the result! Nails are my "thing" in RL, as I am very proud of my RL nails, it took me many years to get my nails healthy after biting them for as long as I can remember. I think I'll do these as well as poses. Not to mention - they make great group gifts!

Alicia Chenaux's Laser Tag Party

A extremely fun little outing Jeffry and I took last night - Alicia's birthday party! It has been SO LONG since we actually spent time with SL friends. There was once a whole band of us Ch'know friends who would just get together randomly and hang out... just because. I really enjoyed those days, and I wish to make them happen again! A whole bunch of awesome people gathered together for her birthday party in SL, We all danced and played laser tag. It was a really fun couple of hours! However, I now really, really want my own laser tag area... and I can't find one for myself!

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So, with my alt's store, I have been dabbling a bit in mesh. It's been a process of learning several different programs, and I've come to to conclusion: I suck at it. I have decided I spend too may hours a week cursing and fighting with Blender, and the stupid weighting of mesh. Not to mention, everyone is making for different mesh bodies, and I am completely left in the dust, because I am not capable enough in Blender to know how to do these things. So, unfortunately, I think I'm giving up mesh.

I had gotten a Wacom tablet as an early birthday gift from my husband. I decided to use it and try my hand at creating appliers. Well, that went downhill quick as well. I am coming to the conclusion that... well, I suck at anything SL related. Then, suddenly... I found myself about to upload a pose.


I had a HUGE moment of "WTH am I doing right now?" I had told myself - no poses when I came back. However, there were a few things that got me somewhat excited for poses again. The mesh bodies now, make poses beautiful, and not as ugly with the standard SL avatar. I battled a lot with the lumpiness of the SL avatar for years when I made poses for [ImpEle].

There's also a variety of poses that I want to make. As my readers (and friends on plurk) know, Jeffry and I have been looking for a child avatar to adopt - I now want to make poses for our future family. I hate buying couple's/family poses, because of the differences in everyone's shapes, I can never edit them to look like they are supposed to. So, I like to make my own - that way, I have full control over how the pose fits.

Family Pose

I logged in my alt to make poses with me, who, ironically, started out her existence as a child avatar. I had all the Toddledoo stuff from ages ago, it was just a matter of dressing her in it again.So, yes - preview of a pose that will soon make it's way into .ennaline.!

AnyPose HUD

Another reason why I'm so excited to make poses: AnyPose! While AnyPose isn't that great for single poses, I much prefer to do them manually in another program - this is FANTASTIC for couple's poses! And also family poses! I really wish I had known about this waaay back when I had [ImpEle] open. It would have cut down soooo much irritation and stress while working with two avatars. No longer will I have to have Jeffry and I log on the beta grid and me telling him to sit on the poseball, nope, stand back up, tweak an arm, and on and on and on. I can edit up to 9 avatars IN WORLD. The concept is incredible.

I'm also finding it really nice to use for more difficult-to-pose-for things. Like, making perfect poses for gowns, poses for toddledoo's, and mesh clothing. Things that aren't as standard as the normal SL shape is. Because, with AnyPose, really - what you see is what you get. I like making a pose for a toddledoo with this HUD, then taking it into my posing program and just perfecting a few things that you can't do with AnyPose (stuff like making the feet parallel to the ground and minor things like that)

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Yay, my graphics drivers have been fixed on the upgrade to Windows 10! It was terrible, instant blue screen of the computer crashing as soon as it booted up. I only had about 15 seconds to end all AMD processes before it crashed, then I had to disable the graphics card. Luckily, updated graphics drivers fixed the issue and I was only complaining about it for about half a day before they were fixed. Woo! Apparently it was affecting my particular brand of laptop. Who cares, I'm not broken anymore!

Anyway, ages ago, I found myself in need of a prefab, and was wandering around looking at these huge, mansion homes. It was incredible. I kept thinking: Who really needs more than one bedroom? Who would pay over $4,000L for a house? Who really needs that much SPACE? I was boggled. I hunted down a post where I briefly touched on it. (Dang, I was really depressed back there in 2008, wasn't I?)

The funny thing is: I seem to have become exactly *that* person. With us wanting to adopt a child, I find that our current house is not as big as I wish it to be. Plus, the longer I have the house, I keep noticing a gap here, a bigger gap there. I like room to grow with, a room where my alt can do her thing, and large, spacious rooms. I have been actively looking for a house like this, and ironically - Could not find a house that I really liked that was big enough. With us wanting a family, obviously we wanted a dedicated kitchen, dining room, living space, bathroom and at least two bedrooms. I had other specifications that needed to be met as well. I wanted the mouldings to be mesh, and not just be a texture, tintable walls, an optional snow add-on, and baked shadows.

I hunted and looked until I came across a particular one from Roost. It was love at first sight for me, and met every prerequisite I had for a home. The downfall: the price, at $5,100L. I TP'ed Jeffry over who gave me the linden to buy it, and told me to just "get it if you like it".

Of course, I hunted around a little bit more, looked through over 75 pages of listings on the marketplace... I'm going to try to break my habit of changing homes so often, so I really needed to LOVE this house, and know that it's the one that I am going to stick with. I did not really want to spend so much $L on it just to find a home I like better in the next couple days.

Roost Home

I couldn't find another that I liked as much as this East Ives house. I bought it, and eventually plan on getting the matching guest house. I put it down on the land, and it was so much bigger than my house I had before, I had to terraform. I eventually just leveled the hill behind the house, so now the back porch has a great view as well.

I love it now even more than I did before I bought it. Right now, it's completely perfect for us, and hopefully, our family. I'm not going to complain about the price either, as it's a very beautifully done house. I have yet to come across any issues with it, unaligned textures, gaps, anything. It's got several different options with it (two attic rooms, vs. one giant attic room) - and... well, it's just freaking gorgeous.

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I upgraded to Windows 10 this afternoon, and now my AMD graphics card doesn't work. Ugh. I am waiting for a working driver, or some kind of fix for it. What a pain. However, I am SO glad that I snapped today's photo yesterday, before I upgraded, because I don't know exactly when my card will work again. I heard the latest AMD drivers doesn't help the issue I'm experiencing, so I will continue to wait.

Anyway, my husband bought me an early birthday gift a couple days ago - a Wacom tablet! I've been wanting one for ages, and am over the moon that he got me one. Lolita's Sun is Shining in SL project was the absolute perfect opportunity for me to try it out! I spent a good portion of yesterday finding the perfect location on our sim and sky setting to snap this photo. The photo itself turned out great! However, I spent a good portion of last night playing with my Wacom tablet, editing it. I love how it came out, it's really fabulous. It really shows off the fashion in today's SL, and the beauty of our sim.

And We're Gonna Be Alright

I am still trying to get the hang of the Wacom tablet, it's completely different than anything I have ever played with before, but I hope it will make editing photos better for me! We'll see, I still have lots of practice to do with this thing - of course it doesn't help that I have NO artistic ability whatsoever. Haha!

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So, we've been working quite a bit on the sim recently. Jeffry is really into making our sim child-friendly, and providing many things for our child to do, when we find a girl that meshes well with us. He's purchased us a couple of games, like Simopolis, LifeStyle, and Greedy Greedy. He also got a playground, a outdoor cinema complete with popcorn machine, and lemonade.

For appearances, we also changed the sim from the palm tree, sand and grass mix I had going on. Jeffry saw this beautiful photo from Alicia, and he asked me - "How does she get photos so realistic?" I explained the process of taking photos to him, and the only thing he got out of our conversation, was the mountain sim surround thing in the background. He wanted one. I found where they sold them, and he fell in love with one particular set, only because it had a huge waterfall. So, we bought it, and sadly, it was complete with fir trees and all - I had to get rid of my half beach and palm trees.

I hunted down some fir's to replace my palms, and found some beautiful ones from LAQ. They are animated, and also came with winter versions, that look snowy! We love to change things for the seasons, and we completely plan to switch things to snow in the winter, so it's fabulous that a lot of the things we got on the sim, have snow versions! The house came with roof snow and Christmas lights, the pool I bought from The Loft has a covered snow version as well. It's really great, that designers are doing this - it used to be really difficult to find snow things in SL! Everyone loves beaches and stuff, it was kind of hard to find anything else.

Our Sim

Mesh is incredible. It's amazing that we have most of our sim filled up, all this grass, trees, incredible prefabs, a house filled with furniture, yet, we have still over 1,500 prims left on our Homestead sim. It's amazing what you can do with only 1 land impact now!

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I love to build buildings and stuff using regular prims. The disappointing part of that, is that prims are becoming obsolete now that mesh is taking over everything. I know a bit about clothing and Blender, but when it comes to making furniture and builds, I have no idea what's going on. I decided to make the purchase, and get myself The Mesh Studio. A long time ago, I purchased the Sculpt Studio, and had no idea what to do with it. I went to a couple of classes, and still never utilized it.

So, I took the chance and purchased the Mesh Studio, and before I even opened the box, I decided to find a class on it. This way, I'm not overwhelmed before I even begin. I found a class at the Builder's Brewery, and I've really forgotten how much I enjoy going to classes in SL! I love learning how to create all kinds of things, so I think I might make it my own personal mission to go to more classes, and build up my skills. I hear they have Blender/Mesh classes, I'm going to try to get in on some of them.

The Mesh Studio Class at The Builder's Brewery

From the class, it seems the Mesh Studio is so much easier to pick up and learn than the Sculpt Studio was! It seems to be just build what you want, drop a script in it, download from the link it spits out at you, then upload to SL. Of course there's other, minor things to do in all of that as well, but it's not at all complicated like the Sculpt Studio is/was.

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Some things in SL just amuse me. I saw a photo on a particular video, and the photo had a butler in it. I instantly wanted one for my house. I showed the same video to Jeffry, and he picked up on the butler too. So, it became our mission to find this particular object. Turned out, it was a gacha item. This was bad news, as I knew how crazy Jeffry gets with gachas. He's worse with them than I am!

But still, we went to the gacha and as expected, he went insane with it. We got a whole bunch of them, until he stopped when he got the one he finally wanted. We kept a couple, and I listed all the others on the marketplace.

Ribald, the Butler

I love this guy. He's one of the most comical things I have encountered in a long time. I don't even know why, nor can I figure out what the appeal of him is to me.We totally have all different versions of him around our sim. We have this guy inside the front door, one roasting marshmallows over a fire pit outside, and another one with a boombox over by Jeffry's little DJ table he has set up. Ribald the butler, is fun!

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I'm just going to come out and say it: Jeffry and I had decided to adopt a SL child! I suppose I'll do a little background. We moved in together in RL several years ago, and we decided a couple years ago to start trying to have a child in real life. That was over two and a half years ago now. It's been difficult, the hole that still occupies my heart. We made the decision to get a dog last year, and I've chronicled Amelia's life with us so far through my RL blog.  From videos, to our breeder visits, updates on how big she is.... she's been the love of my RL. I complain a lot about her, but she really is a beautiful, smart, incredible dog. Anyway! Even with her, there's still... something missing.

The more I looked into SL adoptions, the more it appealed to me. If I can't have children in my RL, I need to pour my love into a child in SL. So, after talking with Jeffry about it, he agreed, and wanted to go pick out a panel... right then. I, however still had questions. I bombarded the lovely Alicia with questions about their family, the role play involved, and all that. I am still a little nervous about the role play aspect - I would love to do it, but I am not entirely sure what that entails. So, I'm hoping get matched with a lenient child, who is willing to teach us the role play part. Or give us hints on what we need to do. Parenting is not a exact science, right? All parents learn as they go, even adoptive parents.

SL Adoption

We took this photo together, before we listed our panel at Heritage Adoptions. This was part of our little "photo shoot" to get a photo of the both of us for our Parent panel. I liked it, and kept this one. We're hoping to find a good match for us, so we can shower our SL child with all the love we can't give in our RL.

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I've mentioned my alt's little store on my blog already. I have also mentioned that Sai will not be creating anything anymore, all my work will be done on my alt. Sai retired from creating, and her job now is to simply enjoy SL. It's been a fun little outlet for me, without any pressure, and I can be as creative as I want, without worrying about deadlines. I like it, it's fun to play with mesh, and everyday I learn new things in Blender! I have picked up a few things here and there while working with mesh, and since my alt first set up her store, I've gotten better with it!

Now that we have our own homestead sim, the huge majority of it is our home, but I set up a little corner off of our sim to set up my alt's store. I've been quickly running out of prims on the land it is housed at now, so it's great that I can put it on my homestead and expand it as I need to. I definitely to not expect it to grow popular enough to worry about lag on my sim - I just really want to be able to have extra prims when needed. Because, I do this for fun, it's not really a "business" like [ImpEle] turned out to be. However, isn't this the exact same thing I said about [ImpEle] when I first started? Haha!

Anyway, I have been working on setting it all up. I purchased a new store build, one that has just a little bit less wall space, so the store doesn't look too empty. And, I've been really re-vamping everything. I've changed all the mesh text I had around the store, added a whole new "informational bar" as I'm calling it - has a join group script, has all the links to the blog, marketplace, flickr.... all that kind of stuff. Another big thing I did was I switched all the vendors over to the CasperVend system, which seems to be ever popular with stores lately. I set all that up, got the redelivery options working... It's been an adventure, frustrating at times, and extremely expensive in upload fees to do all that - but in the end, I feel like it is worth it. The store reflects more of my mesh skills now, and doesn't look so bad anymore. It actually looks like a store I, myself, might shop at. Whew!

.ennaline. New Store

I snapped this photo last night before officially calling it a night. Since then, I added the soon-to-be new group gift, updated the remaining vendor display photos, finished listing everything on CasperVend, set up the new release (also got the demo ready), and foldered all the stuffs to be sent to bloggers. All I have left is to update my alt's picks, classified, write the notecards about the newest releases for my dear bloggers, and drop them off to who needs them! I'm excited to be at the home stretch with this, and even more excited that I won't have to deal with any more upload fees for right now! Now, I can get back to Blender and work on the shorts I have started.

If you're interested in blogging .ennaline. Please send Ennaline Resident a notecard with the URL to your blog! I LOVE bloggers!

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We are talking boats today! I have always loved having a boat on my land, even if it's really a waste of prims. I don't care about driving it, I really just love the look of having a boat. Purely for display, and they make fabulous props to take photos on, or around. Boats in SL are really beautiful, and SecondLife is all about what makes you happy, right?

maxmarine

A long, long time ago, I first decided that I wanted a boat. I searched, and came across this beauty. At the time, it was top of the line, and one of the best. It has made several appearances on this blog, one even dating back to July, 2008.  I paid a lot of $L for it at the time, though I can not remember how much exactly anymore. I still think it's gorgeous... even now. I'd be happy to keep it out, and continue to enjoy it... however, this boat is 205 prims. It's made mostly of actual primitives, and it looks like the only sculpty parts in this boat are the seats. You really have to appreciate the beauty of a creation like this, how creative people can get with just the tools they have available to them at the time. This boat, I feel is a fantastic example of that.

Because of the high prim count, I decided to look into getting a new boat, and doing a little "updating." The first place that I wanted to look at, was obviously where I originally purchased this boat, MaxMarine. I looked up the creator in-world, hoping that he was still around and making boats. Unfortunately, I don't think he is. A little disappointed, but that's okay, there are many more boats in SL!

aeworks-boat

I started just flying around some of the popular boating sims, with the intention of looking at the variety of different boats out there. However, the first sim I visited, I came across a boat, docked on someone's land. Intsa-love. I felt like this was a really close version to the MaxMarine boat I came to adore. So, I inspected it, found who created it, and off I teleported to their store. Bonus was that it's only 50 land impact!

I found myself at A.E. Worx.  I ran around, searching for this boat, got hit by 2 automated forklifts in the process, but I found it. And it looked even more gorgeous than it did on the boating sim. The price was $2,250L. There was a point in SL, when I wouldn't have cared, I had a very reasonable linden income from running ImpEle, but now - the RL Jeffry buys $L's for us, and I have to make my little "allowance" that he gives me last for a couple of weeks. But even still, I decided to purchase it. Imagine my glee, when I go to pay the boat vendor, and it comes up saying $899L! Sold! I couldn't pay it fast enough.

I rezzed it once back on my sim, and realized just how spectacular it is. It's tintable to literally any color, it's got a really fabulous control panel, and drives beautifully. It's even got particle waves that splash out when you start driving it. I don't really intend on driving it, but it's still cool that I can if I want to.

onaboat

While I was tinting it, and getting it ready to drive... Jeffry started playing the "I'm on a boat!" song. So, I had to find the most ridiculous dance I had, to go with that music. Needless to say, we both ended up changing into our swimwear, and dancing on the boat to that song. I totally took a video on it. Was definitely one of the silliest things I have done in SL for a while. It was totally worth it though, I was practically rolling on the floor laughing.

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Okay... today, I'm talking about mesh heads.
And be warned: It might get ugly, because I have a lot of feels about them, and they are mostly not pleasant anymore.

I wanted a mesh head. Yep. I set out to find some. I am okay with changing my look, so long as I still think I'm beautiful. I've had my shape since the first week I joined SL, it was literally the first thing I bought once I purchased linden dollars. After 8 years, yes, I have grown attached to it, but in the changing world of SecondLife, I really started to long for a change. I hunted down every mesh head I could find, from the Snow Rabbit one, TheMeshProject (TMP), Lelutka's many heads, Logo, Slink... I've probably tried them all! I grabbed every demo I could find as appliers for these heads. Each one had it's pros, and every one had cons to it. I like the teeth on TMP head, I liked the expressions of Slink, I like the lips on Letluka. But, I don't like the cost of TMP (for what you receive), I didn't like the eye shape of Slink, and I could not, for the life of me, find a skin that looked at all good with Letlutka. Keep in mind, all this is my opinion.

I quickly trashed all but TMP head. I had huge issues with this head, but I still kept it, because it was the most appealing one to me, out of all that I tried. Combined with a Pink Fuel demo applier that I tried, it really felt more like "Sai". A more squint-eyed, grumpy looking Sai, but still had a feel that I could live with.

meshhead

This is a picture I snapped while trying TMP mesh head demo. It is a HORRIBLE demo!! The huge spinning text takes away any focus I had in trying to look at the skin. And what the heck, no back of the head? No neck? No eyelashes? No ears? I can't see how it looks with my Maitreya body? I had actually messaged the help avatar they suggested in their notecard - because not being able to see the most important parts of the head, how am I supposed to make a decision? I thought I was doing something wrong! (The picture I am posting here is the exact one I sent to them, too) Well, I'm STILL waiting to hear back from their shoddy support! Is it so hard to message me back with a simple - "Working as intended"? This alone should have forced me to run away. Their terrible "shopping experience", the terrible matching support... But nope, I allowed it to sit in my inventory and I continued to think about it.

mesh-head-01

In the end, I decided to to take the gamble and purchase it. Yep. L$5,000 for the head, and then L$2,000 for the skin from Pink Fuel. At this point, better to go all out, right? The skin from Pink Fuel, however, came with the actual system skin, Maitreya appliers, Slink appliers - and every other applier I can possibly think of. It has several makeup options, lip glosses... and so much more. The skin pack, was actually a rather good deal, all things aside! The Maitreya appliers were actually a nice surprise in the pack as well, because the vendors didn't list them! I was actually walking over to buy the Maitreya appliers when I noticed they were included.

So, I'm going to list out my feelings on this mesh head.

  • Very expensive for what you get! L$5000 for the animated head, which isn't really very animated. It blinks, you can close the eyes, and the mouth can be opened or closed. Worth the extra L$2,000? You decide.
  • The demo! Why can't I view the ENTIRE head? 
  • My existing hair doesn't fit! All my favorite Truth, Letlutka, or little bones hair does not fit! Which, unfortunately, I did not know until after I purchased - because the demo does not have the back of the head! Another reason the demo sucks. I had to go out and find new hair that fits it. I've had really good luck with hairs from Tableau Vivant, and Exile fitting it well. I'm going to have to change favorite hair stores now.
  • A took a lot of figuring out how to make it look good with my Maitreya body. Have to wear the Retrofit head, with no neck blending... have to fiddle with the "fit" to get no seam gaps. It's a disaster.
  • Absolutely no expressions. For the less linden, I could have gotten a head that has expressions, and does A LOT more.
  • The shopping HUD. I hate it. I've done a lot of shopping in my day, and this was - without a doubt, the worst I have encountered.
  • You also do not get to demo the eyelashes. It's hard for me to look at a skin, and enjoy it without eyelashes. I feel like eyelashes really complete the skin and make it easier to envision myself in it. That being said, once purchased, the perfectionist in me took over, and made it just as difficult to fit these as it is to fit prim ones. Which is rather unbelievable on a static, mesh head. Why are they not connected to the head in the first place?
  • Perhaps it's from my previous experiences with running a store in SL, that I feel like customer service inquires need to be handled with a little more importance. 
  • I feel like there should be some kind of alpha system for the head. The FAQ on TMP website says to contact the hair creators to make hair for the head. Probably not possible, but would it hurt to even put a different version in the folder with no scalp? Maybe a way to hide it? *Sigh*
  • There are many heads to choose from, however. There's several different face styles to decide on with this series of heads. Which is really a good thing, I hear a lot of people saying that mesh heads take away your individuality, that everyone looks the same. But there's different heads, and different skins make them all different! 
  • It appears more and more skin designers are making for these heads, which will make it better with time. I was filled with glee when I saw the logo on a vendor in Pink Fuel's store. It made me so happy, my favorite skin creator, embracing mesh heads!

mesh-head-02

Do I regret my purchase? I did at first, yes. I purchased it, and went into a complete panic mode when I couldn't match it up with my body as easily as I thought. Once I got that situated, a huge, much larger panic set in when I put my hair on and found my scalp coming through the top and back of my hair. I went through all the hair in my inventory, trying it all on, while muttering obscenities in my RL. All of this, could have been avoided with a proper demo, instead of some freaky, floating mask.

However, I am much happier now that I found a couple great hair shops that fit this head, and my head and body match well! I will definitely not be purchasing another one, however!

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