Ravenna Hennin @ Midnight Order

      Today is the start of Midnight Order, a dark and noir themed shopping event.  Since coming back to SL it's been one of my favorite events, full of luscious gothic elegance. As I've been catching myself up to modern workflows over the past three years, I daydreamed about being able to make something worthy of the theme. When a friend involved with the event tapped me on the shoulder and told me I should apply, I felt I was finally ready to make something deserving. 

 

 The Ravenna Hennin is inspired by the costume of European noblewomen during the late medieval period.  It's a tall structured hat, worn with layers of fabric to create drapes and veils with a wimple or cowl to hide the hair.  My version is also inspired by the magnificent garb worn by the attendees of the Venetian carnival, and my recent desire to give Evil Queen vibes.  It comes in two pieces, with a cowl to wear underneath, and an upper crown that can be worn rigged to the body with the drape, or unrigged and free to resize without it.  It comes in my usual selection of twelve colors, with four separate colorable areas for maximum customization.  You can wear just the crown with hair, but it will probably not play nice with most styles.  There are no specific body fits, but it was tested on Legacy, Lara, Lara X and Reborn and didn't seem to have any terrible conflicts.  Please forgive my newbish rigging if there are peeks of your neck now and them. 

This was a very ambitious project for me.  I have not tried making cloth since the Ladro mask, and have only made baby steps into rigging.  This was a chance to experiment with Zbrush's new (to me) cloth simulation system and to learn how to make something that actually moves with the body.  Not only that, but I wanted to make something built from the beginning with PBR in mind.  I still am not comfortable working with modern material programs (I am learning Instamat but haven't been happy with the results yet) but I am actually getting the hang of manually manipulating the image maps that make up PBR materials.  This allowed me to play with creating bump and shine on the brocade, and the way the threads in the floral pattern catch the light makes me so happy.

The rigging was an adventure in troubleshooting, and an education in how the bones of Second Life avatars work with sliders and with animations, as well as 3rd party body parts.  I uploaded dozens of test versions on the beta grid and made many many tweaks, and I only just barely managed to get most of it to behave without clipping.  I still don't know why the edge of the cowl clips through the back sometimes.  This, along with some nonsensical technical issues that decided to crop up during texturing, ate up my time and necessitated the support of my family this weekend while I neglected my usual responsibilities and pulled an all nighter to get this done on time.  Right now, it is only rigged for feminine avatars, but I will be starting work on getting a masculine version done after I crash.  I'm exhausted, but when I look at my avatar, it feels worth it.

 

The Ravenna Hennin is available exclusively at Midnight Order for 600L until February 20th, after which it will be available at my shop on the Twilight.

Ear Cozies Update and a Cozy Hat

 Last year I released a set of little knit ear warmers for all of those elves living in colder climates.  I didn't have much time, so I released them with only one default color, and with fits for the ear shapes I had available which was just the Sylph and Sprite ears at the time.

Since then, I've released three more ear shapes, and this year I decided I was going to go back and show them a little love for the holidays because, honestly, the pom poms still crack me up. 

 

I added fifteen new color options, so you now have a whole selection of fun color combinations.  The texture was updated to tile properly and now there are cozies for all of my current ear styles.  These do use PBR materials so if you are still on a viewer that can not see them, they will default to the white knit color.

After putting the cozies on, my ears were warm, but what about my head?

I won't lie, this hat exists purely because it matches the ear cozies.  I won't pretend it's anything special, but it has all of the same colors as the ear cozies and will change along with them as you select your colors.  It's unrigged to let you position it on your hair or head as you need to and of course can be stretched and modded as needed.

These are out now at my store on The Twilight, and they're deliberately priced at the "I guess why not" amount of 50L per ear cozy.  Happy holidays!

Verdan Mask @ the Autumnal Court Fae Faire Hunt

The Fae Faire: Autumnal Court starts today, and is my first "modern" hunt event.  I could shake a stick at the clouds and shout about how, in my day, hunt prizes were always free, but I have to say the themed areas and the quality of the prizes is a nice improvement.  The theme is autumn and fall fantasy, and while I still need to complete the gauged Seelie ears, I took a break from them to work on a blast from the past.

 Back in 2012, I hosted the Unseelie Ball, a night of dark fae themed revelry and dancing in my event hall on the Carnivale sim.  That was a long time ago, but after rummaging around in my old mesh files I found the mask I made as a party favor.  After some discussion with the folks in my Discord server they said they would be fine with old exclusives being available for normal sale.  I decided to set myself to fixing some of the oddities and issues with a mesh made I made back in 2012.  

 

After some remeshing, texture touch ups and a slew of new colors, I am pleased to reintroduce the Verdan mask as a release for normal sale.  It is now updated with PBR materials, with new colors in a range inspired by the colors of leaves and fall foliage as well as my metallic colors.

However, as this is a hunt event, you have the option to search for discounted versions with more limited HUD's for just 25L each

Come explore the beautiful fall themed sim and find prizes from myself and exclusive items from many other talented creators, like my friend Violaine who has a gorgeous set of fairy wings to find.

Fae Faire runs from today to November 24th on the Seas of Eden sim.

Illusions @ the Halloween Shop & Hop 2025

 It's been a busy few months for me in real life, but I'm happy to be back at this year's Halloween Shop & Hop! 

I've been quietly working on some modest projects with the time I have currently.  I am very pleased to share that I have now released my Batty Mask, a previous limited time freebie, with a new HUD and PBR materials just in time for Halloween.

 

I don't know if you would consider it a new release, but it's something!  I am going to try to go through my old mesh files for event exclusives and other items that were only available for a limited time, and update or otherwise finish them so that they might be released for normal sale.

Speaking of event exclusives, part of participating in the Shop & Hop is contributing a new item as a freebie.  This year I whipped together a variation of an old mask I once made in a new color. 

 

 

Inspired by my old Phoenix mask, the Raven Mask can be picked up for free from the black and purple giftbox on the stand in my stall.

Another bit of news is that my good friend Violaine Villota of Fancy Fairy has recently returned to Second Life.  Like me, she took a long break from creating things but has come back to bring her gorgeous art into the metaverse with all of the fun new tricks we have to play with.  Since she is still working on updating her work and building up an inventory, I let her have some space in my stall.  She makes incredible fairy wings in real life as well and I highly recommend checking out her website. 

You can find us both on the Chickory sim, where you can pick up the Raven mask as well as a gorgeous iridescent set of fairy wings by Violaine for FREE!  All items there are also 20% off!  There's no better time to grab a set of elf ears or a mask for an upcoming event.

Illusions & Fancy Fairy @ the Halloween Shop & Hop 2025

Barocco Earrings @ The Vault 2025

The Vault opens this month on the 8th, an event especially for accessories like jewelry, hats and masks.  As an accessory store, of course Illusions needed to be there, and I already knew what I wanted to make.  When I finished my Barocco necklace, and put on the mask and ear accessories with it, my immediate thought was "this needs earrings".

    They're unrigged to allow you to reposition them and scale them up or down, and using the Barocco Necklace HUD will also change the textures and colors of these.  After a lot of playing with my Barocco pieces, I had some versions that were too fine or too small and I had to make sure that all of the scaling was relatively consistent with the other pieces. I think I finally got a decent balance of fineness and size so that it's all cohesive.  I'm looking forward to taking pictures with the whole set once I have a moment.  

     I also found some time to work on something else that's been on my project list since Fantasy Faire in April.  More fits for the ear accessories!

 

    Despite seeming like a simple ambition to adapt the ear pieces to different ear shapes, perfectionism took over.  Just warping the pieces into place so they didn't clip through wasn't good enough, I had to make sure every element of every piece looked right on every ear.  I love all of my ears and wear each on a regular basis, so they all deserved ear accessories that were made just for them.  I didn't want to show any specific one special favor. 

What do you mean, there's only four? Oh, right, yeah... I'm still working on the Sylph ones.  They're hard to adapt for, okay?  Don't worry, I do love my Sylph ears too, they're just taking me a bit longer and I didn't see any reason to hold up the other shapes in the meantime.

I'm also going to be sending out an update to the Elfin versions, so that all of the HUD's will work with each other.  My goal is that you will be able to change all pieces of the set at once with one HUD. so you don't have to keep detaching and reattaching HUDs to change each piece.

The Vault opens on the 8th and runs through to the 18th.  The Barocco Earrings are a Vault exclusive, but the ear accessories can be found there as well as at my store.  Check them out!

Illusions @ The Vault 2025

Seelie Ears @ Androgyny

A while ago I ran a little survey on my Discord Server to see which of my old ear designs I should remake next.  I figured that, moving forward, I'll be doing new designs but first I wanted to make sure I wasn't leaving out anyone's favorites.  The design that got picked was the Seelie ears!

 

The Seelie ears are meant to be a half way point between the short and curly tipped Sprite ears, and the long and straight Elfin ears.  With an elegant curve and an upturned tip, they are whimsical but still dignified.  Don't tell anyone wearing these your real name, and be careful not to make any bargains with them!

These are the culmination of a lot of time, frustration and effort working on refining the edge of the ear to meet better with the LeLutka heads.  My goal is to eventually achieve a fully seamless look, and if and when I do manage it, it will be a free update.  I'm still working on that, but these do have a better texture match to the head, and a new version made especially for the LeLutka Lite heads.  In case you weren't aware, LeLutka and some other creators donated items to help new users build a modern looking avatar, with free mesh heads and bodies, able to wear Evo X mapped items and any clothes fit for Legacy bodies.  You can find the Lite heads that LeLutka added to the library in the Avatar Welcome Pack, but they do not have HUD's.  So, if you want to wear non-human ears, they must have their human ears hidden by an alpha layer.  The edge needed some work to meet up just right to hide the big holes in the sides of the head, and this unfortunately means they can't use Evo X skin layers and need to be manually tinted. I'll be working on making Lite versions for the other ears as well, but it may take me some time.

You can find these at the June round of Androgyny, a new monthly shopping event focused on providing items for people of any gender identity.  Since I've always tried to make my items as inclusive as possible for avatars who are masculine and feminine and everything in between, I'm happy that I got the opportunity to release these as an exclusive there.  

Androgyny opens today and runs until the 28th.  See you there!

Barocco Necklace @ Vintage Fair 2025

 I took a bit of a break after Fantasy Faire, which gave me the opportunity to really explore and enjoy it for the first time in years.  I got an intriguing invitation though, and while I'm still very slow in making things, I decided to accept.  Vintage Fair is an event focused on items inspired by history, and anything before the 21st century goes.  Since so many of my items have historical roots, it was an opportunity I couldn't pass up.  I didn't have much time though, and to do the event I had to make a new item.  After dressing for (and finally attending) the Fantasy Faire masquerade ball and bedecking myself in my Civetta Barocco mask with my new Barocco ear accessories, I realized the dreadful lack of accompanying neck adornment. 

     

    After spending the time designing and making these mesh pieces to play with on my masks, it's not just economical good sense to reuse them, it makes everything match! There were certain areas I felt were lacking though, especially around the center stone, so I actually ended up grabbing pieces that I had made for my demo frame, playing around with their size and position and found that they paired very nicely with the pieces from the masks.  After a bit of retexturing, they look like they were always there. 

    I had planned to use my existing stone textures and I was actually still pretty happy with them until I tried putting them into a PBR material.  Oof.  It turns out my current stone textures were made in 2013, but being the data hoarder that I am I was able to access the original files to try to make them play nicer with PBR.  Then I just kept tweaking, and next thing I knew I had a set of 16 new stones to play with, inspired by the colors and shading of real minerals like flourite, ametrine, aquamarine and pink sapphires.  They are still very much based on and closely related to the originals, but the effect when they are viewed with high graphics settings is much more decadent.

    I have been making strides towards creating HUDs and converting my items to use them.  I have certainly come to appreciate that most customers expect them now, and that it's the dominant paradigm for color change.  I also quite like seeing the actual colors represented and find it to be much friendlier to the international community and non-English speaking folks out there to be able to just click on options you think look nice, rather than having to guess at words you might not understand.  With this necklace done I now have a much easier path towards updating other items, especially the Barocco masks, so hopefully you can see PBR and HUD updates for those coming soon.

Vintage Fair opens June 6th, and goes until the 16th

Elysian Veil

Project Mesh Revolution, and Paper Elves

    Through March, some designers were coyly teasing something on social media called "Project Mesh Revolution".  It promised a free mesh body and head, with skins, clothing, and even developer kits available for creators on launch day.  The promotional material said it was "lightweight, flexible, and ultra optimized", which had a lot of people buzzing.  With the average price of a modern looking avatar in the multiple thousands of Lindens, people were hopeful that they might have access to that for free, and a lot of excitement built up.

    On April 1st, PROJECT MESH REVOLUTION launched.  It turns out, those free mesh avatars were in fact... paper dolls. Rigged mesh, but flat and completely two dimensional.  A lot of people were disappointed, and there were some angry posts on the forums, complaints about misrepresentation, and dashed hopes.

    With 2k BOM, physical based rendering, animesh, new environmental shaders, and high definition and rigged mesh, Second Life has come extremely far from its launch in 2003 on its march towards realism.  It's been behind the curve of higher end games that have coordinated art teams, but over the years it's been steadily getting more polished in its presentation and capabilities.  Some sims are truly stunning, beautiful user generated immersive experiences.  However, creating in Second Life has only gotten harder and more complex, and every new advance makes it even more daunting to learn.  Paths to creation, like modifying or customizing attached items, have been blocked by rigged mesh or no modify permissions.  Some of us have managed to grow and adapt, but there was some charm in the openness of prims and sculpties.  I remember enjoying fully two dimensional clothing and skins that had been lovingly "hand drawn" by hobbyist artists, who did them the hard way, old school, starting with nothing but a blank white canvas.  The artists who still do things this way are few and far between, and I've heard multiple times from other creators that there's "no market" for hand drawn things, that stylized things "don't sell", and that "everyone wants realism".

In spite of this, for the past few weeks since April 1st, the paper doll avatars (called Cardy and Cardo) have found a foothold.  People have been embracing the charm and fun of both creating for and wearing something so raw and quirky.  Cardy and Cardo have found a community who loves them, who recognize them as meaningful and more unique than just another realistic high definition mesh body or head.  Plus, they really are light weight and well optimized (who knew losing a dimension would be so efficient). 

 

 

    Second Life used to be a place where you could join as a total noob to 3D, and grow to start a successful and well known store with content beloved by thousands of people.  I know this, because I joined in 2006 and fell in love with creating by goofing off with primitives in a sandbox.  When sculpts were introduced, I taught myself Zbrush so I could keep up, and then when mesh was introduced I taught myself that too.  I had stepping stones to follow, a gradual increase in difficulty and complexity, but would I have ever started creating if I had had to start right at rigged mesh and PBR materials? I'm sure it's still possible to start from zero these days, but I'm also sure many more have been discouraged or would never imagine it now.  We may not be able to, or want to, go back to the ancient days of sculpts and prims but Project Mesh Revolution has given new users an easier path to be a part of content creation again.  It has reset the barrier of entry, back to the days where if you had some time, an image editing software, and an idea, you could make fun and satisfying content for yourself, your friends, and maybe even some customers.  You can make your own content for Cardy and Cardo regardless of your skill, and there will be a bunch of flat funky folks eager to embrace you.  With this style of content, the imperfection is the point.  The flaws are its charm.  

 Salt and Pepper's April Fools "prank" has ended up proving itself true to its name.  There really has been a mesh revolution.  People who might never have dreamt of attempting to make things in SL in 2025 are now looking at an open door with a welcome mat.  Even us oldbies who've been around since the ancient magic of the prim was written are remembering the fun and playfulness of making low stakes goofy stuff.  All of this is to say that I have happily become a part of it.

 I've joined in the fun, with special sets of my elf ears rigged especially for Cardy and Cardo as my gifts for RFL this year at Fantasy Faire.

They are available at my store on Gwath through May 4th, for just 30L each, all of which is donated to Relay for Life.  They include compatibility for a bunch of the available skins for Cardy and Cardo, and in the spirit of the open creativity surrounding these avatars they come with UV guides and BOM layers to allow you to not only match your own skins, but to make your own tattoos, earrings, or whatever else your heart desires.  I am planning on creating more, and anything else I release for PMR will also include UV's and customization options so no matter who you are, you can start playing with making it yours.

The door is open, won't you come in?

http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Gwath/187/205/62

Illusions @ Fantasy Faire 2025

The weather's getting warmer, the snow is gone, and birdsong is in the air, which means Fantasy Faire is finally here.  One of the biggest user run events on Second Life, it's full of exquisitely crafted sims and gorgeous works of user created art, and I'm excited to once again be a part of it. 

    This year it was very satisfying to put a year's worth of releases up on the walls of my little shop.  I have more recent work now to show than I have for almost a decade, but I set an additional goal for myself.  I wanted earrings or something to wear with the elf ears that was PBR enabled, rigged, and HUD scripted.  Real life has been very demanding this past month, so I ended up running out of time to be ambitious.  Instead, I was able to whip together something out of some old favorite pieces.

 

    The Barocco ear accessories are rigged to my new generation of EvoX ears, and are made out of the same pieces that adorn my Barocco masks.  It's so they match!  Yeah!  Not because using pre-existing pieces was easier or faster or anything...  So far they are only fit for the Elfin style of ears, but I will be working on them to support more of my current ear styles.  They are indeed HUD scripted, and I was able to convert the existing textures I had to something I was happy with.  You can still use the existing textures if you're one of the 20% or so of users still on a pre-PBR viewer, but I think they do look very nice with the new metal effects.

This year Illusions can be found on the Gwath sim, though I have decided I'm moving into the Galerie Gaillard and declaring squatter's rights if anyone tries to tell me it's time to go.  I'm not surprised I wasn't able to get a spot there, as Walton's sims are incredible and it wouldn't have surprised me if everyone put it as their first choice.  It would have been painfully perfect for my store's aesthetic but I am trying not to be too sore about it.  I did make myself cozy where I ended up though, and am quite pleased with how my stall turned out. There are many incredibly sims to see, so do visit it and the other Fantasy Faire sims from now until May 4th.  

 

Gauged Elfin Ears

 Took me a little bit because RL has been a bit crazy, but I managed to get the gauged versions of the Elfin ears done.  You can now get the Elfin shape with gauges that fit plugs that are sized for the gauged ears by Swallow. 

 Skin by Alt3, Gauges by A*S, Face makeups by Aerth, Lunam, Eyes by Gloom, Hair by Doux

    You can wear any plugs or tunnels that say "Swallow S" or "Swallow XL", and although they're made for the LeLUTKA mesh heads, they might fit others, just make sure you try a demo!  The thing I'm most proud of with my ears is that you can wear your own HD ear skin layers that come included with all EvoX skins for automatic, effortless, skin tone matching.  No messing around with HUD's!  Just wear the included BoM shading layers in the strength/opacity of your choice.

Skin by Gloom, Gauges by Opalite, Facepaint by Effervescence, Eye makeup by Ivy, Eyes by Ikon, Hair by Kuni

        In other news, I will be in Fantasy Faire this year, which is coming up fast.  I will be working towards being ready for that and so you won't hear much from me until then.  I have some things I want to work towards and so many projects buzzing around in my head, but only so much time.  We'll see what I can get done!  

In the meantime, these are available now at the store or on the marketplace

*~*Illusions*~* "Elfin" Long Elf Ears Gauged S for Lelutka Evo X Heads

*~*Illusions*~* "Elfin" Pointed Elf Ears Gauged XL for Lelutka Evo X Heads