Onigiri ~ Kawaii Style!

I haven’t been on a skin binge in a long while (since Gala Phoenix put out those skins at the skin fair some time back that were all over the feed for months) and I guess it was just waiting to catch up with me. While I find myself falling in love with one skin after the next for the cute-yet-refined faces people have been coming up with, I find myself noticing that, once again, tan is back in style in SL. More and more designers are leaving their fair-skinned friends in the lurch and making many shades of tan, tan, more tan, or really tan. Is it because summer is coming?

They warned me my facelamp would do this to me...

It isn’t that I don’t like tan skin, although I’m more of a fan of pale skin with a smattering of cute little freckles myself (maybe a trace of narcissism since it’s how I look in real life.) I’d just like the choice. I’ve even “settled” for some of the darker tones (calling themselves “fair” or even *gasp* “pale” – harking back to the days where Naughty skins seemed to reign the feed) but I have a major problem: I’m a big, big hair whore and the vast majority of my hair is pale blonde. What isn’t pale blonde is pitch black. Neither of these look good on the tones of tan skin that are so popular in SL, unless I’m going for the “hey look, it’s Malibu Barb…uh, did she get a spray-on tan? No blonde is THAT dark.” look.

Please, oh pretty please skin designers – have mercy on us the melanin-challenged and offer us some lighter tones? ^_^ I know that, like I said above, some people have tried to offer what they consider “fair” or “pale”, but I’ve spent quite a bit of time in the Arizona sun already this spring and my skin doesn’t touch these “fair” skins :( My best suggestion would be trying out your lightest skin tone with platinum blondes from a variety of hair shops (most of mine are Magika’s platinum blondes before their blondes went dark and desaturated, but even ETD’s are sufficiently light for this test); if you look like you’ve spent too long in a tanning booth, try a little lighter!

A few months ago, I got it in my head that what Onigiri really needed was to script the wings. I LOVE making wings, but they just didn’t shine when compared to the ones that fluttered and all of that other stuff. I tried it on my own for about an hour before I was tearing my hair out :D So I went to Thom, my genius coder (and husband, as he reminds me), and told him that what I really want for my birthday is for my wings to flutter and resize. Those were the only specifications I gave him… but he went absolutely all-out. I built a HUD and he made it work, and now just a few days before my birthday, Onigiri has the scripted wings of my dreams!

Not only do they flutter and resize, they can glitter, glow, change colors, and all kinds of other crazy stuff to make any control freak salivate. Basically, if you could do it with Edit mode, you can do it with the HUD and be assured you won’t mess up the wings. I love it. I’m so happy!

I’m now going through the process of updating most of the old wings to the new scripted system. You’ll also probably see quite a few new wings in the near future as I giddily play with my new toy. You can pick up demos in the store, or if you want something to dance around in and play with all the capabilities of the HUD without a demo sign over your head, I’ve also put out a freebie pair of scripted swirly wings for your entertainment. :D

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Here are some pictures of me goofing with the HUD wearing the cyber wings.

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As I was updating some of the decor in the store, I also made a new moon, sculpted, with the pose built in to save prims. I decided to share it as well.

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