Tag: YDEA

UPDATED! Second Life Steals, Deals, and Freebies: A Selection of Valentine’s Day Gifts and Hunt Prizes for You!

Here’s a rundown of free gifts and inexpensive hunt prizes for Valentine’s Day, from a number of different locations in Second Life.

Shanti is holding a Valentine’s Day Hunt, where you are looking for the “XO” hugs and kisses symbol hidden somewhere in the store or in the grounds outside. The prizes only cost 2 Linden dollars each! Gift #10 is this lovely strappy dress, and the long-sleeved pink cardigan is gift #8. Total cost for this cute outfit is only L$4!

(The heart earrings are a free gift from Beloved Jewelry at the 2022 Valentine Shop and Hop, which ends Feb. 15th! They come with a HUD with 16 different metal textures and 56 different gemstones, to match literally any outfit! Get the SLURL and see pictures of more Valentine Shop and Hop gifts here.)

Below is the Shanti hunt legend, which unfortunately doesn’t tell you which number is which gift! However, this Low Price Fashion in Second Life blogpost does link the hunt prizes with their gift numbers, which should help you out a little bit. Happy hunting!

NILSY is a store which offers a free gift each week, and this week, the gift is this red party dress, which comes in a variety of sizes to fit most brands of mesh bodies. No group is needed, just teleport to the store and slap this sign! It’s worth popping into NILSY every week to see what their weekly free gift is.

(UPDATE Feb. 12th, 2022: Apparently Saturday is the day that NILSY switches its weekly free gift; I’ve been told that there is a different red dress you can pick up as of today! Below is a picture of the new gift, a strapless ballgown.)

Maai is another Second Life store which offers a variety of free gifts (the Maai group is free to join). The store usually has a new free group gift every month, plus a number of gifts for the various freebie groups, like Maitreya Gifts, Sales & News. Their Valentine’s Day present is this beautiful red ballgown with beaded straps, which comes in sizes to fit Maitreya Lara and Petite; Meshbody Legacy and Perky; INITHIUM Kupra; and eBody Reborn.

If you’re looking for a purse to go with this gown, Mon Cheri has among its selection of free gifts the Roxxy Clutch, a fatpack with three different Bento hand poses! You don’t need to join a group, just come to the Mon Cheri store, look for the gift wall to the right of the front counter, and buy them for L$0 each.

Here’s what the three static Bento hand poses for the Roxxy clutch look like (there’s also a version without a pose); these are high-priority poses which should work with most animation overrides. The fatpack HUD offers 20 colours for the clutch, 20 different decorative gemstones, and 12 metal textures, to match any outfit. It’s the perfect purse for any occasion! Here, my avatar is wearing it with the free gown from Maai I mentioned earlier:

Finally, Palomma Casanova’s long-running Second Life freebie store, The Free Dove, has a table groaning with Valentine’s Day gifts for you! You will have to join the Free Dove group (for free, of course!) to pick up these presents.

Time for a fashion show of five of these Valentine’s Day gifts from The Free Dove! First up we have this complete casual outfit from YDEA, which consists of the red patterned tied top, blue jeans, and high-heeled sneakers:

The present from Pandamomo is this grey knit minidress with a playful cutout!

The Alloma dress fatpack, the Free Dove Valentine’s Day gift from Le’La, comes with a HUD with 15 different textures as shown below:

From VIPs Creations comes this classy Louisa Golden Flowers outfit, consisting of a dress (which comes in two versions, with or without the gold trim), plus a pair of golden high-heeled sandals:

And NILSY has a Free Dove gift for you, too! It’s this strapless red beaded ballgown with the daring side slit (paired again with the Beloved Jewelry heart earrings and the Roxxy clutch from Mon Cheri which I mentioned above):

There are many other Valentine’s Day gifts at The Free Dove, so be sure to pay them a visit if you are looking to find some fabulous freebies!

Doing Drag in Second Life: Part III

If you can’t love yourself, how in the hell are you gonna love somebody else! Can I get an amen?

—RuPaul Charles, RuPaul’s Drag Race

My favourite reality TV show is RuPaul’s Drag Race! I never fail to miss a new episode. Currently I’m enjoying the very first season of the U.K. version of the show. I’m also a fan of the alternative, horror-themed drag TV show Dragula. I’m just so taken with the Charisma, Uniqueness, Nerve, and Talent demonstrated by the RPDR contestants (or, in the case of Dragula, the four tenets of Drag, Filth, Horror, and Glamour).

Given my hobby of designing complete avatar looks in Second Life, perhaps it’s not so surprising that I have written before on this blog about creating several drag queen avatar looks here, here, and here. (“Girl, you betta work!“, as RuPaul herself would say…)

So, when I found out that the edgy fashion store Boys to the Bone had an October 2019 group gift of a black mesh ballgown with a plunging neckline, designed specifically for male avatars, I decided to build a complete look around it! The Morticia gown comes in three shades of black: light black, dark black, and shiny black. Here my drag queen avatar, MissDrag, is wearing the dark black gown:

The Morticia gown is sized to fit the Belleza Jake mesh body, and I had to fiddle a bit with the body sliders and alpha sections on my Altamura Romeo mesh body to make it work. I still had a bit of a problem at the back of the neckline, but the Nikki wig covers that area quite nicely!

The fabulous drag queen wig selection at ZsaZsa’s House of Beauty

This avatar is wearing:

  • Mesh Head and Body, Including Lipstick and Nailpolish: Romeo by Altamura (a past Valentine’s Day group gift; the Altamura group costs L$50 to join; you will have to buy and install the Omega system kit on the Romeo body to be able to apply the eye makeup below (it’s for sale for L$99 at this exact SLURL)
  • Dress: Morticia gown in dark black (group gift from Boys to the Bone; the BTTB group costs L$100 to join)
  • Jewelry: Ophira by Lazuri (free, from the Free Dove at this exact SLURL)
  • Mesh Feet and Shoes (Not Shown): black chained sandal by Ydea (free from The Free Dove at this exact SLURL; just the thing to replace those masculine feet!)
  • Wig: Nikki wig in red (naturals pack; L$235 from ZsaZsa’s House of Beauty, the finest collection of drag queen wigs on the grid!)
  • Eye Makeup: Vanilla makeup set; L$200 from Dotty’s Secret (the best drag queen makeup store in Second Life)

TOTAL COST FOR THIS AVATAR: Only L$684!

Pictures were taken at ZsaZsa’s House of Beauty and Dotty’s Secret.

Second Life Steals, Deals, and Freebies: The Freebie “F” Store

If you’re looking for some Japanese style, ranging from traditional to kawaii to edgy ultramodern, check out the Freebie “F” store. Most of the items on display are either freebies or dollarbies, but please check the price before you buy! Some items cost 20 or even 50 Linden dollars (although these are usually clearly marked). There is clothing available here for all genders of avatars, something for absolutely everyone!

I was quite taken with this oversize jacket with a Japanese kabuki mask print by Haori, which comes in eight different prints, all free:

In this picture, my drag queen avatar MissDrag is wearing:

  • Mesh Head and Body, Black Nailpolish, and Black Jeans Applier: Romeo by Altamura (Valentine’s Day group gift)
  • Jacket: Japanese print jacket by Haori (free from the Freebie “F” store)
  • Brooch: Gadot brooch by Heth Haute Couture (free group gift)
  • Mesh Feet and Shoes: black chained sandal by Ydea (free from The Free Dove at this exact SLURL; just the thing to hide those masculine feet!)
  • Hair: Lilak by FABIA (free group gift)
  • Drag Queen Makeup: Vanilla makeup set by Dotty’s Secret

UPDATED! Doing Drag in Second Life: Part II

We’re all born naked, and the rest is drag.

—RuPaul, Born Naked

Last April, I wrote a blogpost about doing drag in Second Life, using a classic system (non-mesh) avatar:

Velcro Zipper, Second Life Drag Queen (System Avatar)
“The higher the hair, the closer to God.”

Today, I decided to challenge myself to see if I could create a drag queen look with the new Romeo group gift from Altamura. (By the way, today is the final day you can pick up the Romeo and Juliet full-body mesh avatars as group gifts at the Altamura mainstore! So, if you haven’t done so yet, hurry down to pick them up! They are a truly fabulous deal we will probably not see again for quite some time.)

One advantage of the Romeo full-body mesh avatar is that the lipstick, eyeliner, eyeshadow and nail polish can be applied directly from the included HUD! (How very metrosexual!) And the body is Omega compatible with the Altamura Omega relay installed, so despite the masculine shape, I could easily add Omega-applier ballgowns. Here’s what I was able to come up with in about 20 minutes:

MissDrag, Second Life Drag Queen (Mesh)
Hmm, I may have made MissDrag a little too tall. I may also need to adjust the body sliders a bit to get a shapelier figure…
Aah, yes, that’s much better. Shorter and curvier. Amazing what a little work with the body sliders can do, even with a male avatar!
The shoes under the ballgown!

This avatar is wearing:

  • Mesh head and body, including makeup: Altamura Romeo
  • Hair: FABIA Lilak mesh hair (free group gift, the FABIA group is free to join, but only between February 25th and March 15th, 2019)
  • Gown: black ballgown by UniQue (Omega appliers and flexiprim skirt; free from The Free Dove)
  • Stole and Jewelry: free group gifts from Glitzz at this SLURL; you must join the [G] Glitzz group for free to get these gifts)
  • Shoes with Feet: chained black sandal by YDEA (comes with a HUD to adjust the skin tone; free from The Free Dove). These are essential to replace the manly feet of the Romeo avatar! (You can hide the feet using the included HUD.)

TOTAL COST FOR THIS AVATAR: L$149 (L$50 to join the Altamura Design/Mesh Avatars group, and L$99 for the Altamura Omega system kit available at this SLURL).

Now, I’m going to take MissDrag over to Frank’s Jazz Club and see how long it takes before someone calls security 😉

UPDATE Feb. 28th: I spent another L$50 to join the Dotty’s Secret group and picked up all the free group gifts of drag makeup from the Dotty’s Secret group gifts wall (which include Omega appliers). Here’s another look, featuring the Miss Universe makeup set by Dotty’s Secret and yet another free ballgown from The Free Dove, this one by Graffitiwear: