Thursday, November 29, 2012

I survive by the memory...of you.

Hello peeps!

So, where was I? Mostly, in bed. The past weeks were odd for me and finally I got my bum up and went ot the doc, turns out I have a dysfunctional thyroid which caused me to be tired and feel sick all the time. I could sleep 18 hours in a  row at times and still felt as if it were possibly 2-3 hours at most. Well, with the new pills this should hopefully stop now and I'll be able to spend some more time blogging again. :) My apologies if blogging is going slow, but an extremely busy rl + this stupid stuff really kept me distracted.

Please forgive that in my following post I won't post every single (make up/skin-) layer I use. I have gotten a bit tired of meeting almost exact copies of my avatar ingame. While I can see how people might just want the same look, I never considered this blog being a guide about "How to copy every single bit of an avatar" but it is more meant to be inspirational. Especially now, that I finally got my absolutely perfect skin for my elf (I really do love the new Laqroki skin, but it just looked TOO innocent for my elf), I'd like that look to stay unique for a while, though I don't doubt some of you people will figure out what I did anyways. :P

By the way, not fan of this new wordpress layout. Hmph. Never change a running system, damnit!



Hair: Truth (Truth Hawks, Mesh!!)
Shape: selfmade (not for sale)
Lashes: LeLutka (THora Charron)
Eyes: Mayfly (Arkesh Baral)
Ears: Illusory (Crushed Clarity)
Hood: REMY (TheRegular Resident, Mesh!!)
Vest: Milk Motion (Marie Lauridsen)
Corset: LeLutka (Thora Charron)
Dress: League (Nena Janus)
Undershirt: Kyoot (Saeya Nyanda, Simple Cozy Sweater)
Corsetwrap: Ever After (PersiaSky Lorefield, not for Sale anymore :( )
Pants: Zenith (miffyhoi Rosca)
Socks: Enchanty (Nuts Andel)
Shoes: COCO (cocoro Lemon, Mesh!! FREE!!)
Gloves: Caverna Obscura (Elvina Ewing, part of Asclaon Ranger)
Armwarmers: BOOM (Aranel Ah, Mesh!!)
Belt: Tea Time (Eloindir Davi)
Scarf: Molichino (Aurelia Chauveau)
Ring: Handverk (Daphne Klossovsky, Mesh!!)
Necklace: League (Nena Janus)
Quiver: GSpot (Jalilah Jewell, part of Shark)
Dagger: LR Weapons (Larion Rhode)
Bow: Centipede Weapons (Kendra Zaurak)
Armor: The Forge (Kain Flores)

Location: Happy Mood Store (Non-Role-Play), HappyMood

Tuesday, November 6, 2012

Botters going Nuts - What can we do?

Hey there,

well, after the whole giant mess around Curio, we already know how damn hard it is for creators in SL to protect their own creations from less creative people who want to leech money...also known as copybotters, texture-rippers and so on. And now it looks as if things are picking up once again.

Since quite some time, there are viewers available which will allow anyone to copy any avatar, including their skin, clothes, textures, hair, eyes and probably everything else, within a few seconds. You say this cannot happen? Well, it happened RIGHT in front of my eyes. I was role-playing with a friend (well, actually we were about to) and I have a bad habit of camming around... a LOT. I was wondering why there was a noobie looking avatar not too far away, clearly they did not belong into that sim, but shrugged it off, turned around to talk to my bf, looked back at my screen, and suddenly my friend stood there, when I was pretty sure I had not moved my cam. ;) At first I was confused, but when I saw my buddy was still standing next to me, and still I had his avi on my camera, when it was about 80 yards away....well, go figure. That happened within maybe 10 seconds. Confronting the person they freely admitted that they thought it was completely okay using that viewer, not against TOS, avatars are for everyone, bla bla bla. I reported them to every simowner I knew and Mister Rulen resident is now on a lot of banlists.

Now, yesterday I looked at my Flickr and saw this:



Read the whole story here:

Sanya Bilavio's (Vive9) Flickr

It appears, that once again Marie2 Cisse and her gang of girls (likely her own alts or some other equally stupid people) managed to draw lots and lots of attention to herself and her...'store'. In this case, she copybotted Inna's complete shape, skin, custom make up and everything else, informed her about it and since then is bragging about how well it sells, of course after trying to 'bribe' her into giving her Lindens in order to prevent her from reselling a shape/make up etc. she never created herself.

A few comments from dear Marie2 Cisse  and 'friends' towards the creator of the items:

[2012/11/02 12:23] Second Life: Alexandriala has given you this body part:
Inna Bilavio shape
Do you want to keep it? "Mute" will block all future offers or messages from Alexandriala.
[2012/11/02 12:23] Alexandriala: Your shape has been copybotted.
[2012/11/02 12:23] Alexandriala: And will be sold.


----------------------

They try and bribe designers after they bot them as well ::

[2012/10/15 14:08] Gerusa Bastos (marie2.cisse): you lose your mind
[2012/10/15 14:08] Gerusa Bastos (marie2.cisse): creating skin
[2012/10/15 14:09] Gerusa Bastos (marie2.cisse): you think those skins will be on sale
[2012/10/15 14:09] Gerusa Bastos (marie2.cisse): for 1k or more
[2012/10/15 14:09] Gerusa Bastos (marie2.cisse): I can do it for 300L
[2012/10/15 14:09] Gerusa Bastos (marie2.cisse): Full fat pack
[2012/10/15 14:09] Gerusa Bastos (marie2.cisse): :)
[2012/10/15 14:09] Gerusa Bastos (marie2.cisse): Maliah skin will sell more with me than you
[14:10] Gerusa Bastos (marie2.cisse): 20k i am offering
[14:10] Gerusa Bastos (marie2.cisse): for don't distruing this skin

----------------------

[17:26] issela2: Poor gurl. Never more will be at Eila?
[17:26] issela2: HAHAHA
[17:26] issela2: Take care
[17:34] issela2: I've all your mesh stuff
[17:34] issela2: And I'm going to giving away this

Here she goes on bragging and already posting advertisements for 'her newest creations':

Marie2 Cisse's Flickr


and

Marie2 Cisse Flickr

Now, with Linden Labs forcing creators to go through lengthy and COSTLY legal processes, I wonder what we can do against such people? Not everyone can fork out the money to pay for such processes or even think about going to court, and not everyone will be able to fund money as Gala Phoenix and her team did with the ONE VOICE event. The process to actually get someone banned fro such things is absurd in Second Life, as sad as it is. Obviosu proof is not enough, you gotta file DMCAs, which can simply be countered...and so on. We all saw it happen with Gala.

So, what CAN we do? That is really the key-question. In my humble opinion, spreading the word about people like these, trying to convince people not to shop there, and that is why I am posting this.

However, quite frankly, the creators of Vive9 would likely do well with telling certain people, such as the dearest Lady Gericault, to shut the hell up, since people like her are NOT helping them by behaving like complete crazies in public. Argue with style, not like some raging rhino using capslock all over the place. O.o

Not too long ago, racist comments caused people to convince Linka Demina, founder of The Dressing Room, to not allow TIGirls to participate in the event due to obvious racist comments. View this here:
Linka Demina's Flickr

They somehow managed to worm they way out of that, though even if the comments were a joke, they were incredibly stupid. But people forgive. But personally, I am out of forgiveness. I am simply asking everyone I know, to ignore these people, to NOT buy their stolen stuff, to spread the word.

I would appreciate if people would actually do this.

The following people are involved with Marie2 Cisse or are her alts:

Marie2 Cisse, Alexandriala, Alemanha (sallygirlpaty aho), Miss Fedorova
and more than likely all the names in this picture, in which she accuses Götzsche Resident to be herself:

Other alts

Arica.

Saturday, November 3, 2012

Finally, finally, finally...hurray for Laqroki!

Hello fashiongals!
Lately, I felt a little uninspired, likely due to the fact that some of my favourite stores and sims closed. Even outfits I actually liked suddenly did not interest me anymore, so the only thing that made me log in every day was the search for something awesome and...new. And here it is:

Laqroki finally released their new skinline: ESSENTIAL. I decided to buy the skin named Saga, and it the FIRST time that I truly felt comfortable with dropping my usual skin, Orchid by the Body Co. I dropped it before for League, but soo enough went back, but in this case I think I actually might stay with Laqroki.
Mallory Cowen, the creator of Laqroki, reworked the whole look of her skins. I am not sure if she will ever rework her older skins as well, but I cannot blame her if she doesn't, given how MANY she released so far. I üersonally am REALLY in love with the look of the face, even though it is, typically for Laqroki, decidedly flawless. But hey, I play an elf, we are supposed to look oh so flawless, so I cannot complain. :)

A skin costs 1990 Lindens and comes with a GIANT package of addons: Lipgloss, different eyebrows, different eyelids, lips on layer, nose on layer (!!!), birthmarks on layer, hairbases in blonde, brown, black and red on layers, eyeliner and smokey eyes on layer, Saga prim eyes, cleavage layer both on tattoolayer and on the undershirt layer. Honestly I think that 1990L is a VERY fair price for this package. Also, there are tons of make ups available, 100L each.

Now you might wonder why nose, mouth and such come on layers? Well, you can combine them with her other skin, Elle, or that's what I ahve been told. Basically, you can add the Elle-Nose to the Saga-Skin or teh other way round and so on. This way, you get to mix all kinds of very unique looks, and I think it is a badass idea!!!

But lets see how these skins look now:



On the left I wear the Laqroki skin in Tone 1.0 (the palest tone), on the right I wear the same skin, just added Arriah Fiertze's Skin detoner. I personally am delighted to see that Mallory managed to significantly reduce that awful yellow/orange ting that most of her older skintones had. In my opinion, it is STILL a bit visible, but that might just be my graphic-settings as well. I personally like it even more with the skindetoner. The make up I wear is from Kosh, the skin tiself is completely bare. The look is very soft and beautiful, I really do love it on my shape. The lips have a nice colour (this is the base colour), a nice sturcture and the spines seem very natural and not as overdone as they often look on other skins. The brows are fantastic imho, not too thick yet visible enough. :) The nose is pretty much perfect, I really do not like the overly thin or bulbous looks that seem so popular lately.The slight rosy blush on the cheeks adds a touch of innocence which I really like for my particular character. ;)

Maybe people who like flaws and possibly a more mature look will not be as happy with this skin as I am.

Note that ALL the following pics have not been reworked in any way besides cropping them and adding a border.

Lets have a look at the body:



I am amazed about how Mallory reworked the body. On her old skins, the belly always had sort of a chubby look and imho, look rather unrealistic. It was one of my biggest petpeeves about her skin. Now? I think the shading is magnificant and very detailed. I like the sporty look the stomach area has to it now, yet it doesn't seem exaggerrated and still very feminine. I especially like the hint of hipbones and muscles. I do believe that the boobs look a bit too plastic for my tastes, maybe the highlighting on them is just too much. However, they are a great improvement compared to the older ones.



I am not sure about the legs and butt. I think the shading on both knees and butt could have been a bit more detailed, but it certainly is no major thing for me. I really do like the shoulderblades as well as the shading around the lower back area. (Please ignore the not so fitting meshfeet....*cough*).

Overall I must say I am personally superhappy with this skin. I think this new line is a GIANT improvement if you compare it to her older skins and they can keep up with pretty much ever yother designer out there once again, if not even outshine them. :)

New hairs, too!

I was never a huuuuge fan of Magika. I bought a hair from them here and there, btu a lot of their hairs just seemed to unnatural or absurd for me. But then, last week, I went there and I couldn't believe my eyes: AWESOME hairs all over the place. :O So, I went in, bought all of them and am ever since a superhappy gal! Elikatira released a new hair, too, though I wish she would add different REDS to her Essential Colour Pack. You ahve the choice between either an orangey version or a very deepred version, both not really looking too natural. I am in love with the styles and the textures on the Magika hair, especially with the red tones as well.

Here they are!

Magika



Elikatira:



I really love these! And I hope you liked the review. ;)

And now, as a last question, what do you think about this skin on my avatar and about the new haircolour? I am pondering to have my elf become a redhead. :)

Arica

PS: New outfit following soon! Had to redo them because I was not happy anymore. :(