Catch up - welcome to 2011

Video card issues made me miss both getting and posting on some of the fantastic gifts given out in December, so here's hoping 2011 will be a bit more productive.

A number of hunts started yesterday so I'll be tracking those.

But before throwing myself into them, I took a quick stroll over to the J Island set of sims to see what was new. J Island proper is the home of one my favorite designers [Mr. Poet]. Connected to it is a J Moon Island, home of the Fujiyama freebie mall.

Peppermint Blue has an outlet there along with several other small and mostly unknown designers. It's largely women's things but a little poking brought up some finds including a remarkably good skin from Heaven's Gate Neo.

Left is a full outfit from BEAT-RUSH, including belt and pendant. Beat-Rush is better known for their DJ equipment, and the outfit was done to promote that business; but tank, jeans, belt and necklace are a pretty good look for nothing at all. The clothing line runs under the name Vajira and you can find other selections including at the main shop, including a nice pair of short boots for $10L.

Speaking of Peppermint Blue, if you have not joined Alice's subscribo, you really should. She sends out gifts regularly and while much of her stuff is geared toward the younger j-pop set, she really does both create and assemble some nice stuff. Over the holidays she sent out several gifts including a couple of pairs of nicely done and detailed boots. The boots are still in the history of her subscibo as a January gift but they won't be there forever. They are sturdy looking and come with a resize menu that can be removed once you get a good fit (be sure to make a copy of them first.)

Heaven's Gate Neo offered up this skin, called Edgar. It comes with a shape as well, that is a little on the tall thin side for me, but nicely proportioned. (Not shown). but the overall detail on this skin, shading and definition is very nice. This skin is only available at the mall as near as I could tell, but if you want a more youthful skin, check out her main store.

The jeans are from the Peppermint Blue outlet at the same mall, and I like the double placard front on these jeans. I also like the detail and texture stretch on the sweater. The sweater is by Azul.K, and the only downside to it is that rolled sleeve prims are not modifiable, and so they didn't fit my arms at normal position (above the elbow,) shoving them up further solved most of my objections to them though.

The hair here is from -Lotus-, one of the men's group gifts, called Yuu, which is a hair I may be taking a closer look at in the future. Glasses are from HOC (not free), biker gloves are a group gift from +grasp+.