Bringing out the good stuff in Second Life®: fashion, hot spots, freebies, etc.

So I’ve been thinking lately that I am kind of blah about blogging, and I really am, but just today I stumbled upon this skybox by Magneto Jie of Drobak while traipsing around. Inspection says it might be as old as 2009 so it might not be so new but it’s new to me and it’s always nice to be reminded of how good things can look in SL if you have the skills and patience to make them so. If just all of SL could just be like that, not necessarily in that style, but as good as that… It really could, you know. Just see what a talented person can do ! It might be a little hard to furnish; you might have to either use other Drobak furniture, of which there is not an abundance, or you’d have to find other things that match the clean, modern, carefully baked style. Anyway, just empty, it is pretty fantastic, although too modern for me but I can appreciate the skills. It is 66 prims in all, counting the light fixtures and what furniture there is (mostly it is a commode). The demo is here.

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This high-quality skybox by Mattew Lacombe is currently free on the marketplace. It’s copyable and 90 prims for the skybox alone. There’s also rezzers included for two other versions where the skybox opens onto a tunnel road. So very well textured ! I don’t think I saw a single seam anywhere. If we could only see more like this on SL. But I know this is a whole lot of work. It’s also a pretty masculine space with all the bricks and woods. I decorated it sparingly to make it a bit more homey for the pictures. I generally liked the proportions and the wall recesses to cram personal touches in. It doesn’t feel cagey, and it even feels cozy after you have put a few things out. And I think I might have really loved this prefab to death, and paid good money too, if it could have been in a lighter colour theme (though I understand this is a one-off and not only was I lucky to snag it for free, but who knows how long this will even be around).

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NOTsoBAD has recently released their first modern prefab, the Eams House. It comes unfurnished at L$5 990 (counting 391 prims) or at L$14 590 with an accompanying pack of matching transferable furnishings. As is to be expected from NsB, the house boasts a flawless design, professionally baked textures and the very complete set of furniture is beautiful as well as tasteful (everything seen on the pictures is included).

Now for the onslaught of pictures. I always take as many good angles as I can, and this house has plenty !

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Furniture that works, by Thaumata Strangelove, at Grindstone. I had spied some of these on flickr at the time of the opening of the store late last year and had it since in the back of my head to go and check it out, here I’m catching up.

A few months ago, Johanick Hutchinson, whom I blogged about in October, teamed up with Venessa Khandr of Foursquares, to create the Mesh Mode brand together. Exclusively on xstreet, they offer an entire line of sleekly designed, contemporary furniture, including full kitchen and dining room sets, that are retailed full perms for 299L apiece only (exception made of the kitchen which is 599L). There are also a couple of freebies: 1, 2 and 3. They all come with a linked model, ready for use, as well as full perm maps and baked textures to assemble the pieces by hand yourself.

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Oooh, Gogo just blogged these amazing Doc Martens from a store I don’t think I’d heard of before, Gos, and I had to hop over ! In addition to shoes, they also make glasses, watches and some furniture. Gospel Voom who made most of these I’m showing is part of  a team of developers and this store is like their side project. It’s worth going just to check out the amazing lighting on their sculpts. I even loved the box that the furniture came in !

Yonemaru Allen makes these awesomely baked pieces of furniture. Wish he had more ! The bar set is available in brown or black, and the stools below are colour-changeable. The shelves are one prim only. You can find these on xstreet or check out his more traditional Japanese items at his in-world shop.

No mod/no copy.

Holy freaking cow, this could be the most real-looking prefab I have seen to date. I had already had my eye on Orange Creations since I saw them blog the release of the Danese skybox several months back, but seeing this latest release by nut Barak, the Eclipse loft, has totally taken me by surprise.

These pictures were not taken with shadows enabled, it’s just the way the skybox was baked, so what you see here will most likely be what you get, whether you’re running SL with all your settings maxed out or not. I switched from “ultra” to “mid” and did not detect a difference, and in “low” mode, the only change I could discern was that a couple of the ceiling lights lost some brightness.

The Eclipse loft is copy/mod, 113 prims and 1899L for the unfurnished version or 250 prims and 2999L with the furniture.

A pretty popular item has been popping up around a couple of fashionable places of late, and, checking out the shop that it originated from, I found some more awesomely baked pieces there, which were mostly in a more minimalist vein. I loved many of the chairs and armchairs I saw, even if the sitting animations were not a big hit with me (this being further aggravated by the fact that the chairs aren’t modifiable but at least there was in most cases a ‘no pose’ button option). Anyway, LP2 is definitely a must-see when shopping for your house !