Category: Second Life Fashion

Second Life Steals, Deals, and Freebies: A Custom Steampunk Look for Only Seven Linden Dollars!

Have you joined the RyanSchultz.com Steals, Deals & Freebies group yet? I will be posting EVEN MORE news and tips on finding fabulous freebies and bargains in Second Life than I post here on the blog! More information on this brand new SL group here.

Bray’s Place Blues Club and social community is celebrating its third anniversary on February 21st, 2021, and the theme is steampunk, that is, a genre of science fiction that has a historical setting and typically features steam-powered machinery rather than advanced technology.

Steampunk clothing features a style of design and fashion that combines historical elements with anachronistic technological features inspired by science fiction. So yesterday evening, I began to rummage through Vanity Fair’s overflowing inventory of over 236,000 items collected over 13 years, to find something suitable to wear to this event!

Most of the steampunk outfits I had were of the old system-layers-and-flexiprims variety, but I wanted a more modern, mesh outfit. I was so pleased with what I came up with (and how I did it so inexpensively), that I wanted to share my results with you!

Vanity Fair is wearing:

  • Hat, Hair, and Monocle: Mono by EMO-tions (I picked this up for free from their group gifts area sometime last year or the year before, I believe, and while I could not find this gift again at their new store location, I was able to find it on the SL Marketplace for only L$5 for a complete fatpack of colours; there are options for you to wear just the hair, just the hat, or just the wonderful steampunk monocle, the hair with the hat only, or the hair with the monocle only.)
  • Steampunk Necklace: I picked this up as a freebie years ago from a store called Newtique, but I’m afraid it’s no longer available! Any steampunk necklace should work well with this outfit, I think.
  • Peplum Jacket: Now, this part gets somewhat complicated, so please pay attention! This jacket is based on the steampunk peplum jacket by Meli Imako; this is the full-perms version (L$150 on the SL Marketplace), which you can texture and colour it as you please! You can also pick up one of 41 different full-perms textures for this jacket for only L$1 each from Amazing Creations on the SL Marketplace. Please note that in the original version of this blogpost, I had mistakenly assumed that the Amazing Creations Marketplace listings were for the complete jacket, and not just the textures! So be careful to check what you are buying. To add even more to the confusion, at the Amazing Creations discount sales wall you can buy outfits containing various pre-textured versions of this peplum jacket for only L$2 each, if you join the Amazing Creations group for free. So I suggest that you buy the Meli Imako jacket only if you really want to customize it; otherwise, head to the discount wall at the Amazing Creations store in Second Life (here’s the exact SLURL; please save the SLURL to your inventory, then right click on it, select Show on Map, and just follow the red arrow to find it). Got all that? Whew! Nobody said being a freebie fashionista was always going to be easy!
  • Long Skirt: This delightful boho skirt, with a triangular floral inset at the bottom hem, is a free group gift from a tiny, obscure little store called all…About on the Second Life grid (here’s the SLURL, just click the Join Group sign to join the group for free, then click on the gift panel as shown in the picture below.)

MY TOTAL COST FOR THIS ENTIRE STEAMPUNK LOOK: Only 7 Linden dollars! (If you choose the Meli Imako full-perms version of the jacket, the cost goes up to a still-reasonable L$155.) So, as you can see, you don’t need to break the bank to get a polished steampunk look, suitable for wandering around the Caledon or New Babbage sims!

If green is not your colour, there are eight other versions of this long skirt for sale for only L$90 each in the all…About store (and, at the time of this writing, the brown skirt is on a Super Sales Weekend promotion for only L$50!).

Please don’t forget to come to the steampunk-themed 3rd birthday party at Bray’s Place on Sunday, February 21st, 2021, with a wide variety of deejays and live musical performers happening all day between noon and midnight Second Life Time/Pacific Time. In 14 years of traversing the grid, I have rarely come across as warm and welcoming a community as I have at Bray’s Place! And you’re cordially invited to join us as we celebrate three years of great music and amazing community! If you don’t have a suitable steampunk outfit, please do come anyway, but please note that there is a “clean and classy” dress code in place. Bray’s is also LGBTQ and furry friendly!

We’d love to have you join us. Mark your calendars!

Vanity Fair is also wearing:

Pictures taken at the all…About store and at the Lappock Rock Lighthouse in the Vernian Sea at New Babbage.

Second Life Steals, Deals, and Freebies: How to Get 101 Womenswear Fatpacks for Only L$100!

I invite you to join the RyanSchultz.com Discord server, the world’s first cross-worlds discussion forum! Over 460 people from around the world, representing many different social VR platforms and virtual worlds (including Second Life), meet daily to chat, discuss, debate, and argue about the ever-evolving metaverse, and the companies building it.

A “fatpack” is a commonly-used term in Second Life, used to refer to a package of every single available colour and pattern of a particular outfit. SL stores often offer fatpacks to their shoppers as a cheaper alternative to buying every single colour of an item of apparel, footwear, or a hairstyle separately.

Well, Scandalize (which has always been among the most generous stores on the grid when it comes to group gifts) is now offering twenty fatpacks of female outfits! Just walk behind the front desk, and they are on the back of the wall behind the desk, opposite a large Christmas tree.

Christmas came early, folks! You do have to join the Scandalize group for L$100 to pick up these group gifts, but most people already have a membership in that group to pick up past freebies from their vast and wonderful gift wall, and to smack their Lucky Boards when their initial comes up. If not, then L$100 is a pittance—it works out to only five Linden dollars per fatpack!

Among these gifts, I was absolutely delighted to discover a fatpack of a gown which I had previously purchased in a couple of different shades for Vanity Fair, the elegant Azahara ballgown! It’s one of my favourite ballgowns, perfect for seasonal festivities! Here I have paired it with a free gift from the 12 Days of Christmas calendar at JUMO, the Gala Rachel golden tiara and matching costume-jewelry earrings:

This gown comes with an optional belt with a large bow at the back, plus a long fur stole for that extra touch of luxury! The fatpack includes a HUD to change the colours of the gown, bow, and stole separately.

By the way, if you haven’t done so yet, I would very strongly encourage you to join the free Scandals SL Frees & News group (a separate group from the main ‘[SCANDALIZE]’ group), and scoop up all the free womenswear from the nearby Scandalize Outlet store (more information here and here).

Adding the 81 free womenswear fatpacks from the Scandalize outlet store to the 20 fatpacks Scandalize is now giving you as Christmas gifts, that is a staggering 101 outfit fatpacks, for a total outlay of L$100—one Linden dollar per fatpack! Seriously the best deal on the grid!

Vanity Fair is wearing:

  • Gown: Azahara ballgown by Scandalize (one of the 20 outfits now available as a free group gift; the Scandalize group costs L$100 to join)
  • Shoes (not shown): Heidi pumps by Garbaggio
  • Crown and earrings: Gala Rachel set from JUMO (a free gift from this year’s 12 Days of Christmas calendar)
  • Champagne glass: by Hive, which includes the Bento hold pose (more information here)
  • Cigarette holder: by Kunst, which comes complete with Bento hand and face animations (further details here)

She is also wearing:

Pictures taken at the Scandalize mainstore and at my newly-decorated home at Bray’s Place. Looking for a home in Second Life? Come experience a warm, friendly welcome at Bray’s Place Blues Club, which also offers home rentals with generous prim allowances at affordable prices (more information here).

Second Life Steals, Deals, and Freebies: Belle Epoque 5th Anniversary Hunt and Sale

Belle Epoque makes well-designed clothing for female avatars, focusing on classic, retro, and some historical/fantasy styles. She used to create clothing only for Maitreya Lara mesh bodies, but I see that she has now expanded to create clothing for the Legacy female mesh bodies by Meshbody as well. All Belle Epoque clothing is beautifully detailed, and includes an autohide. (For those who don’t know, autohide is when an article of clothing automatically hides the mesh body parts underneath it, so they fit better, and you don’t have to use the HUD that came with the mesh body to do it yourself. It’s a thoughtful feature I wish more designers included with the clothing they sell!)

Here’s an example of the classy, elegant style for which Belle Epoque is famous: the Beatrice blouse, tucked floral sweater, and matching belted skirt combination, which is all in one piece. Today only (Tuesday, November 10th, 2020), you can pick up the Beatrice outfit for L$25 each (or the complete fatpack of all six colours for L$150):

You can pick up this classic Beatrice outfit for only L$25 for each colour today (the version Vanity is wearing in this picture was a limited-edition group gift, no longer available)

To celebrate the 5th anniversary of her brand, Belle Epoque is holding a 50% off sale on everything in the store (except gachas), plus a free hunt with 32 prizes (10 from Belle Epoque, and another 22 from a variety of guest content creators).

You do not need to join any group to participate in the hunt; just look around the store for white frosted cakes with a pink rose on top, and click to claim your prize!

What you are looking for…

Vanity Fair here models five hunt prizes which I quite liked. ARTE is offering a set of lovely, clear, light blue, green, and violet eyes (Catwa and Omega appliers, mesh eyes with a HUD, and system/Bakes on Mesh eyes):

On a Lark’s generous gift is the Naima jewelry set which consists of a necklace and matching earrings, with a HUD with three choices for the metals, and 16 colours for each of the three stones, giving you thousands of possible ways to wear them to match any outfit.

Here Vanity is wearing the gift from Faida, the Carolina pastel pink-and-blue plaid dress, with the Meredith heels from ChicChica (which come in both brown and black versions):

Finally, we have this delightful casual blue dress with a design of dandelion seeds blowing in the wind, one of the ten hunt prizes from Belle Epoque! (The shoes are the same Meredith gift from ChicChica, this time in the black version.)

The sim on which the Belle Epoque store sits can only handle twenty avatars at a time, so you’ll have to be patient to get in. The hunt runs until November 30th, 2020, so you should have plenty of time to teleport in and snap up these and many other fabulous freebies! The 50% sale ends on November 15th, 2020. Here’s your taxi.

UPDATED! Another Fifteen-Minute Second Life Avatar Makeover: You Must Be an Angel

No one on earth could feel like this
I’m thrown and overflown with bliss
There must be an angel
Playing with my heart

—There Must Be An Angel (Playing With My Heart), by the Eurythmics

Time for another one of my patented 15-minute Second Life avatar makeovers! I hope that you enjoy these transformation as much as I do 🙂

This time, I have selected an alt which I have styled as a heavenly angel (her actual, Second Life legacy name is Prayerful Vigil, quite fitting!). Here is a before shot from 2018, a classic avatar with a system-layers-and-flexiprims outfit, outfitted with the free Bento wings and sword from the Marcus starter SL avatar:

And here is the after shot. This avatar is a perfect example of one of Ryan’s top ten tips for freebie hunting:

Be patient: Freebies can come and go; freebie stores like The Free Dove and Ajuda SL Brasil rotate their freebies regularly, so it’s worthwhile to visit every couple of months, just to see what’s new. It can take some time to pull together a complete look from various components picked up as freebies at different times from different stores and events.

In this case, the complete look was pulled together by patiently picking up freebies at various times throughout the past two years. I also took full advantage of the then-free Kalhene Ariadna mesh body when it was avialable! The wings and hale were the final two bits I picked up in the past week (please see the style credits below the picture for details).

This avatar is wearing:

  • Mesh Head: the Strong Face Bento mesh head by The Genus Project (free group gift; group is free to join)
  • Mesh Body: the Kalhene Ariadna mesh body (I was lucky enough to pick up the free predecessor of the current Kalhene Anya mesh body, which is now for sale for L$1,695 here; this body is compatible with Maitreya Lara apparel and footwear, and includes a Bento mesh head, not used here)
  • Bakes on Mesh Skin: White Queen skin gift by A&A (free on the SL Marketplace)
  • Hair: I picked this Jessi hair in goth white up from Sn@tch as a free prize in a previous year’s Trick or Treat Lane hunt
  • Necklace: This was a free hunt prize by Dreaming Thicket, in the Spring 2019 edition of the Twisted Hunt (which had a colour theme of gold and white, perfect for this angel avatar!)
  • Gown: This was also a free hunt prize in the Spring 2019 Twisted Hunt, from Appliqué Chic
  • Shoes (not shown): Amy flats from Hilly Haalan (free group gift; group is free to join)
  • Wings: golden Icon angel wings from Blueberry (I was able to pick up the Gold Pack of these wings last weekend, using the L$500 in free store credit which was in the group notices, and taking advantage of their four-day 50% Off Sale; the Blueberry group costs only L$20 to join)
  • Halo: Aether halo by Cubic Cherry (free gift at the current Engine Room shopping event; the event group is free to join; the halo is resizable and I made it smaller)
  • Sword: from the free Marcus starter Second Life avatar
  • Particle Effects: This is the only thing I bought at full retail price! The Valkyrie particle aura is from Cole’s Corner: animated halo, hands, and body particles in either silver or gold! (L$300; more information here, including an animated GIF)

TOTAL COST FOR THIS AVATAR LOOK: Only L$320! (L$20 to join the Blueberry group, and L$300 for the Valkyrie aura particle effects; if you need to purchase the Kalhene Anya mesh body, the cost is L$2,015)

UPDATE Sept. 30th, 2020: I just found the perfect finishing touch for this avatar! It’s a gold wing necklace, the free gift from the MINDS booth at the 5th anniversary round of the SanaRae shopping event (here’s the exact SLURL; it also comes in a silver version). It’s beautiful, and very fitting indeed for an angel!

“After” pictures taken at the Engine Room shopping event.