Dancing in the Shadows

          Hanging, hanging, hanging
          Hanging out at party games
          Dancing in the shadows
          Up and down on the see-saw
          Balancing the scales
                    —Siouxsie and the Banshees - Playground Twist

The World Goth Fair is one of the few Second Life events that I greatly look forward to, as a customer and especially as a designer, and it's only in its second year. I was thrilled to be accepted into the first one last year, and eagerly awaited the chance to do it again. Now, after a few hiccups (no SL event is complete without them), the event is in full swing and everything is simply outstanding. Every designer pulled out all the stops and brought out some amazing items. Clothes, accessories, furniture and more, there's something for all the Goth girls and boys.

Like last year, I decided to put out a whole outfit for both the ladies and the gents. But unlike last year, this time almost all of it is 100% mesh and the stuff that isn't is pretty darned close. When Bronxelf announced that the theme this year was 'Playground Twist', the verse above was the first thing that came to mind. And so I got to work on what would become the Shadowdancing set.

Each set comes as a complete and in three parts, and is available in three colors. There's also two other corset styles. 100% of the proceeds of the complete outfits go directly to the Sophie Lancaster Foundation, and 50% from the individual pieces.

The World Goth Fair is on until May 30th, and covers two sims: Cursed and Port Seraphine. Come get your Goth on and help out a great cause.

Worn by Yours Truly (Stacey Farspire):
@->~ISD Shadowdancing Collar - Crimson (World Goth Fair)
@->~ISD Shadowdancing Corset v3 - Crimson (World Goth Fair)
@->~ISD Shadowdancing Skirt - Crimson (World Goth Fair)
@->~ISD Shadowdancing Fans - Crimson/Burgundy (World Goth Fair gacha prize)

Skin: .la petite morte. ophelia T2 M3 (World Goth Fair)
Hair: *C:K* Nyanotech Hair Type B - Sarilulvierd v3 (Marketplace freebie), colored with Gothic Rainbow HUD (World Goth Fair)
Eyes: Beautiful Freak BF Eyes . Chloral ~ blood red (World Goth Fair)
Makeup: *FCD* Colourbox Lips - Red Lined 5 (World Goth Fair); ~SongBird~ Pencil Thin Brows (World Goth Fair); [mock] Gothica Makeup Effects [4] (World Goth Fair)
Bustier and Gloves: ~Black Arts~ Pearl Gown (World Goth Fair)
Shoes: Bliensen + MaiTai - Diavola - Black (World Goth Fair)

Worn by my good friend and occasional model Doctor Zen (DocZen Wizenheim):

@->~ISD Shadowdancing Top Hat - Midnight (World Goth Fair)

@->~ISD Shadowdancing Vintage Tux - Midnight (World Goth Fair)
@->~ISD Shadowdancing Formal Shoes - Midnight (World Goth Fair)

@->~ISD Shadowdancing Cane - Black/Sapphire (World Goth Fair)

Skin: #Before Sleep# Nightmare Skin (old hunt prize)  

Eyes: -{The Attic}- Mesh Eyes (old hunt prize)

Hair: Bryce ~ Saul ~ Blacks - Tuxedo

Backdrop: !~! TechStylez  !~! Crypt Hangout MCH
Furniture: .:SF:. "Evendim" Seating Set in Crimson (World Goth Fair)
Poses:  Pose Monster (PM) Dance of the Dead & Don't Look Behind You sets (World Goth Fair)
Chair pose included in chair

Shaking Off the Dust

10 months since my last update? Yeesh. Where the hell did that time go?

Well anyway, I'm here again. Yay. RL did its best to eat me alive again. I haven't done a whole heck of a lot with the store. I've cranked out a few items for Horror Haute, as well as a few hunts, but nothing new for the virtual shelves.

But I've got it in my mind now to do something about that. I've had these crazy ideas running through my head about giving my little shop some reconstructive surgery. I'll be honest, right now most of them are still in the "Ehhhhh... when I get around to it" phase. RL still has its stagnant grip on me, just not as tightly now. BUT! I have taken one big step in that direction. And that direction is...

MESH!!

Yep, that's right. I've finally started to catch up with the SL times and begun investing in mesh materials. Not making them, just buying them (I don't really have time to learn Blender, and my DAZ3D suite will forever taunt me from my Downloads folder). I don't have a whole lot at the moment, but the plan is to steadily get a hold of more. I'll still be working with sculpts and making "partial mesh" stuff for some time to come.

I even indulged in some mesh clothing, too. It started with corsets, for which I've had a passion for many years now, but I also picked up a few other pieces. Boots, skirts and shirts are also in the works now (don't worry, guys. I haven't forgotten about you. You've got some stuff coming to).

The Sinister Goth's Sinner's Hunt was the first to get a taste of what I've been working on. It's a group hunt, but the group is free to join and there's a bunch of great stuff.

The next big thing coming in just a couple of days is the 2013 World Goth Fair. The inaugural fair last year was a huge success for everyone and I couldn't wait to get involved this year. I really wanted to step up my game, and I'm very proud of my results.

I'll have another post in a couple of days for that. In the mean time, here's a peek at something I have in progress for a June hunt:


















Peace,
     ☥Stacey

"Horror Show"? Oh, I though she was Russian!

Say what you will about Goth, but one thing it doesn't lack is variety. Sure, most aspects of it revolve around death and pain—physical and emotional—and for some, gore. But only the stauch cross-up-their-asses Gother Than Thou types will deny that there are so many styles that encompass what Goth "is". Personally, I never felt the appeal of the latter two—pain and gore—but I am open-minded enough to understand the appeal.

My point to all of this is that Horror Haute has been a challenge for me. The good kind of challenge. The kind that expands the limits of my creativity as I strive to balance that which I find aesthetically pleasing with the Horror theme of the event. I'll freely admit that I don't always hit the mark, but I'm always satisfied with the results. It's a challenge that I look forward to in the coming months.

This month I blended a little old with a little new. One of my first creations was the Bloody Tears brow piercings, and it remains one of my favorites. I've been wanting to use the animated blood pendants again in something, and after a bit of brainstorming and prim slinging, came up with the idea for wings. To give them an extra horror twist, I made them into piercings and added an optional blood layer for the hooks.

I'm really happy about how the blood layer came out this time. I've done blood layers and tattoos in the past, but I was never 100% satisfied with them. Working with prims is one thing, for me that's easy. Making clothing layers is the huge challenge. And it's made me admire the people that can really pull of beautiful clothing that much more.

Shape: Mine
Skin: *Rag Dollz* Deadly Rose
Hair: [Nikita] Rocked Hair - Coke Cherry (2012 Hair Fair)
Eyes: Faerycat Designs *FCS* Mesh Eyes - Wine (2012 World Goth Fair)
Tattoos: [White~Widow] Hiver (face)
              {VR} Holistic Haven (body)
Piercings: @->~ InSpired Designs Chained Ear Piercings ~ Ruby
                 @->~ InSpired Designs 'Captive Flight' Wings (July Horror Haute)
Pants: ~.:.Hysteria.:.~ The darkness (July Horror Haute)
Feet: E&A mesh feet


Backdrop: !~! TechStylez  !~! Crypt Hangout MCH
Poses: Leafy 'Of Motion' (#1 and #3)
           IOS 'Claudia 1' (#2)

Forward into the Past!

Actually did get back to work today, and it feels good to get back in the groove. Of course, it helps that I've got a couple of commitments that are due in the nearish future.  Keeps me more-or-less focused.

Anyway, one of the upcoming commitments is the Past and Future Hunt coming in August. I've participated in their past hints, as both a hunter and a merchant, and they are very well organized. This one's gonna be huge, 150 stores.

Since I haven't done any hunts in the last two months (5 hunts in April, including Twisted, and two fairs kinda burned me out), I'll have three gifts for this one: two in the 'Past' theme—one for the ladies and one for the gents—and one in the 'Future' theme.

I knew right away what I wanted to make for the Future theme: I wanted to make a tribute to +DV8+. I've just put the finishing touches on it, and decided to give my readers a sneak peek at the prize.

 I call it 'Deviant Future', a unisex posture collar full of shiny, glowy cybergothy goodness. Copy/Mod as always, so you can tint it to match whatever you want to wear it with.

I'll be working on the other two prizes tomorrow, as well as something for July's Horror Haute. Yay for new shinies.

☥ Stacey

I'm still not speaking to you, Marketplace

It's done.  I finally stopped procrastinating and the last of my SL Marketplace listings have been reworked after the great FUBAR a couple weeks ago.  Everything is back up as it was, with small improvements along the way much like with the script update.


Maybe now I can get back to actually, y'know, making things.  Crazy idea, I know.

@->~

One thing all of this made me realize is that the Marketplace makes up a good 95% (probably higher) of my actual sales. Not that I'm concerned with sales, just thought it was interesting to note. Personally, I love shopping in world. It's worth putting up with all the pains of getting around in SL because to me the store itself is just as much part of the shopping experience as the shinies I get from them.

But believe me, I understand the notion of wanting to get your stuff, put it on at home then slip off to the night's hot spot and park your virtual butt there so you don't have to put up with the pains I mentioned above. Same with furniture and decor, without the going out part.

So yeah, all this Marketplace crap is worth the hassle. I just wish there wasn't so much surprise buttsecks involved. All this bending over is murder on my back.

     ☥ Stacey

One Step Forward, Two Steps Back and a Boot Up the Ass

The good news is, I have all of my merchandise repackaged with the new petite-friendly resize script, fixed up a few minor errors I never caught, added some additional options to a couple of my items, got everything swapped out in the in-world store (except the gachas, I'll get to those next) and successfully uploaded all of them to Direct Delivery.

The bad news... SLM completely fucked up my Marketplace store. First it refused to deactivate my Magic Box. When I finally convinced it to, about half of my items were delisted or 'unassigned'. On top of that, a nasty browser crash obliterated all the item listings for the unassigned items (I had them open in separate tabbed windows, because I knew I had to copy-paste the descriptions). So this means I have to make brand-new listings for almost half my crap, plus update the listings for the other half.

All for a direct delivery system that's still broken as shit.

Suffice it to say, it's made me more than a little stabby. To alleviate the stress, I've simply delisted everything from my Marketplace store until I can get everything back to the way it was. I'll post again when it's up and ready to go.
    ☥ Stacey

You Spin Me Right Round

Recollections of a +DV8+ Model 

Come November, I will have been in Second Life for three years. The end of May was my second year as a +DV8+ model. So it's accurate to say that +DV8+ has been a major part of my Second life. A part that is soon to be a memory.

I can still clearly recall the first time I stumbled into the store, but not exactly why I had. Searching for Goth items, probably. But I do remember the building itself: cramped hallways of metal walls, pipes and fluorescent lights criss-crossing the ceiling, all brightly punctuated by the glowing neon colors I would come to know and love as Cybergoth.

They were very active in hunts in those days, I can remember three or four running that month I discovered the store, and three or four more the following month. Those little hunt prims were hidden very well in the dark nooks and crannies of the store, and that helped sharpen my hunting skills from the get-go. It also got me addicted to hunts.

+DV8+ is also where I learned about lucky chairs. They had two of them back then. I would hop back there regularly while doing hunts to see if my letter had come up. I even still have my very first prize: the Elektra Cyberfalls hair in Fallout (which I painstakingly, prim-by-prim recolored, no easy task for me the noob). Even though I have the full pack now, that one set has a permanent place in my inventory. It marked the beginning of what was to come.

There were two model stands at the time, and almost always there was at least one in use. It was only later I would find out that live models were a rarity in SL, and rarer still, they actively engaged the customers in conversation and answering questions. I knew I had to try. I confess that I didn't know much about cybergoth at the time, but I knew of several places in my huntings and mania board slappings and so threw together an outfit that expressed to me what Cybergoth was and applied. And waited.

The head model back then was the lovely Terry Tolland, a woman who makes bald sexy. S'true. But unfortunately she had fallen ill and was getting backed up on school work, so wasn't on for several months. I would come in regularly and ask after Terry, always to be told that she hadn't been around. After three months or so, I sent her a polite note card saying that I hoped she was getting better, and that I was still interested in a position if they'd have me.

The next thing I know, I'm talking to her face-to-face, got the group invite, rules and guidelines, and the starter packages. The store had just remodeled at that point, so I was given a quick tour and wrote down where everything was.

And that was it. I was a +DV8+ model. The one thing I wanted to do in SL had become a reality. It wasn't ever about the money. I can count on one hand the number of full 20-hour weeks I put in. It was enough to be there. And in those two years, I hold a perfect record for attendance. Even the weeks when I was feeling my absolute worst I was there. Not because I felt obligated to, but because I wanted to.

Two years later, this chapter of my Second Life is drawing to a close. Being a model at +DV8+ has shown me so much of what Second Life is. There was no one type of person to walk through the doorway. Everyone from the casual chic to the prim boob and double-penis latex ultradomme (no, I'm not making that up) and everyone in between. There was something for all of them. And all of them were welcomed equally.

In those two years, I've met some of the best people I could ever hope to meet, some of whom I've forged friendships with that went beyond the store walls. I've met people I normally wouldn't 'hang out' with and appreciated the person behind the avatar better than I could have any other way (there's still a cute foxboi out there somewhere, whose name I forget entirely, that I flirted with and owe some snuggle time). And I've met the absolute worst kind of people, the kind you want banned from the Internet entirely if you had your way.

It's the latter where the Deviants really showed their true colors. At the first sign of douchecanoeing or twatwaffling, these people from all walks of life would band together and smack them down. We watch out for each other, help each other out, we have each others' backs. +DV8+ is our common denominator. And from all signs, that will continue long after the store has been dismantled and the sims devoured from the Linden Lab database.

The good, the bad, the beautiful and the ugly. All of these things are forever part of my life as a former +DV8+ model, and my Second Life as well.

Godspeed, Vasha and Dys. You will never be forgotten.

     ☥Stacey