More from the House Islands

House Island and Deep House Island house a lot of showcased designers. Mimi's choice for men and women is there, and Mimi does her best to highlight up and coming as well as established designers and offers up unique gifts along with the latest offerings of the designers she showcases.

Emilia Redgrave also has her stores there...and it's worth it to wander the sim and see what else is there (and you get to listen to great music while you do it.)

Just a few steps away from Mimi's is Champagne! Sparkling Fashion which had some interesting, glitzy outfits for guys and some equally interesting thongs if you are feeling adventurous. But, as an opening gift, they had this sleek set out for the taking. Slim line sheened black pants and an open leather shirt with a little glitz (but no bling,) and if you go in Redgrave's main entrance, you can pick up a pair of these unisex ultra modern sunglasses.

Stepping over to Deep House Island will bring you to Urbanized; furniture and accents where you can pick up this texture change valentine's planter and multi-pose cushion. The planter has your typical V-day choices of hearts, but also a cracked, chipped patina finish both in pink and lipstick red. The cushion has three seating options, with a menu driven adjuster (which is a good thing; the "chill" pose was pretty off but easy to fix with the menu. ) The cushion is not texture change but it's fun and the poses aren't your usual ones.

Take a bit more of a stroll and you'll come across Simay Italian fashion. I'm going to have to go back and check some of their men's sets, which looked good, but it was getting late, so I grabbed this free graphic dove button down shirt.

And if you've got a girl, bring her along... plenty of places for her to find gifts and you can kick back and enjoy the tunes.

Kicking it up

Revisiting some favorite places, like Santero at Moonlit Desire, who has a habit of giving out really fantastic outfits in hunts, and who offers some unique styling choices in full sets. There's a freebie Chango Leather jacket out with Santero's MidNight-Mamba shades. The back carries the Santero logo in red, but it's a simple sharp look.

The hair is Morgan from Amacci's $30L Hair Sale ($90L for the full pack,) 2 men's styles, color change on the knit cap. Red carpet room only.

From Mimi's Choice, where the priorly blogged Gabriel shirts can also be found is this silver cross men's thumb ring, modifiable and sharp looking, and a arond the corner in the landmark giver you can grab M.R.M's Silver Necklace *Crest of Lily* necklace.

And just kicking around, I found these Dark Green Wash Jeans from Studz. There's a logo t-shirt in there too, but if you are tired of blue and black, these are nice, basic fit jeans.

Shifting Gears

The Free Finds for Men blog and group in SL are being disbanded and those are Eliza's choices. She built, nurtured and grew both projects mostly by herself and I'm not going to try and dissuade her from doing it.

Designer Spotlight was originally envisioned as a companion to that blog, but I'm going to re-purpose it a bit and expand it back to include primarily posts about free stuff for men but with the occasional spotlight feature that isn't just about the free stuff designers offer, but the other stuff designers who offer a lot of free content offer but to highlight their other content as well.

I hope you'll all stick around to enjoy what we find.

Raeyn

Henley Hunt Results

You guys have such an aversion to free stuff...Beth McBain & Ember Adored win for playing. And below are the designers and prices. I've since found a few more on xstreet, but the hunt goes on...

1. 2. 3.

1. The Casual Male CMX Henley and Faded Jeans $100L for the set
2. Sweeter Than Candy !STC Men's Henley $50L
3. Action Men's Henley Brown $150L (multiple wear options)

4. 5. 6.
4. Whippet & Bucks [W&B] Mark Long Sleeve Henley LONESTAR $60L
5. Storm Thunders Long Sleeve Henley (for women) fatpack $99L
6. Dan Senyurt Coltsfoot Henley Shirt $185L

7. 8. 9.
7. fri.day Thermal Henley Slate (womens) $150L
8. .:Meh:. – Kissed Hunt Gift (No longer available)
9. ~Simply~After Hours Henley Purple Grey (hunt gift. I didn't see this in the shop, you could ask the designer)

End of an Era

House of Serendipity and Relic are closing. The creative minds behind those two enterprises, Sue Stonebender and Baron Grayson are moving on to other and hopefully bigger and better things. If you are new to SL or you just happened to miss this, Baron Grayson is the original brain behind the Templum ex Obscurum sim and any number of builds and building components you still see on the grid. He's divested himself of most of it, given the care of his creations over to other people. His Relic store is still riding aboove The Nameless Isle but my guess is, it's going to be gone as well soon.

Sue is an amazingly lovely, talented, generous lady who for the last couple of years has been the driving force behind a series of "Givings" to help budding business people in some of the poorest places on the planet get a start toward a better life by raising money through SL to give out micro loans through kiva.org. She also makes beautiful trees, amazing pianos, and any number of clever and detailed pieces of jewelry, furniture, accessories and christmas items.

The wind down has been happening for awhile but the House of Serendipity line will be closing out this Sunday, the 31s,t at her temporary location on the Alchemy Immortalis sims. Some things will remain, like the song books for her pianos... but the rest of it will be gone, never to return as far as I know.

Sue has released a bunch of her smaller and unreleased items in crates, for $50L per crate. She also has a stack of free boxes to give away, mostly older stuff, retired or unreleased, and most of her stuff is deeply deeply cut in price, made copy, and honestly, one of a kind. If you ever wanted a baby grand piano that plays music...this would be the time to get it. Furniture, accessories for the home, elegant accents, are running anywhere between $25L and $300L and worth every L. She's got four shops on the Alchemy sim, but they will all be gone after Sunday, so don't put this off. The alchemy sim can be a little laggy too, so give yourself some time to look through the vendors. She's discounted her pianos, too, and as one who owns several of them? I don't regret paying full price for them them anymore than I do paying the discounted price now -- the same for her trees.

The only caution to some of Sue's stuff (and the Baron's as well) is that it's not low prim, usually, but as someone who made room for Sue's furniture by cutting elsewhere, there's reason to want it anyway -- the workmanship is just that good. These are two content creators who have been in SL almost from the start, the Baron since 2004 and Sue since 2005. Both of them are wildly talented, generous creators who have either mentored or influenced a lot of other creators on the grid.

Will everyone find something? Probably not. But this is one of those sales, those opportunities, that you look back at in six months and say.. Damn.. why didn't I....

Balancing Act

I'm running short on time as usual so it's nice when designers themselves give me a heads up about new stuff. Equilibrium is a new player in town for shirts and jeans. Right now, they are giving away a new freebie a week as well as a gift in their group joiner. This weeks. Freebie is a graphic white ribbed tank that you can pick up in the bag by the door. (click picture for larger view.)

Their regular prices run between $100-150L for shirts, $250-300L for some really well designed jeans and jeans sets (good texture, nicely done prim cuffs and belt options.) The freebie shirt comes in multiple layer option too. If you head upstairs where most of the shirts are, you'll also find a vendor that sells their older graphic design tanks and tees for $10L each. These are single layer as far as I know, but the graphic work is nice and the cloth textures are just as nice. I picked up this blue on blue fox graphic -- I wish it came ina shirt layer but I think I'm going to get a lot of wear out of it regardless.

After picking up the free tee, I headed over to Maschienenwerk to see what I could scare up there and while I'm not much of a track suit guy, the new ones looked sharp - top and bottom and a hoodie (down). I grabbed the grey, (365_Suit_coal) but there are multiple color options that are, as usual, free. These are great renderings, moddable, shirt in a jacket layer. But the other thing I caught was a really nice living room set on the first floor of the first building. Mute the Colors is a full set with poses; sofa, two stools and a table. It's not prim heavy, has a nice shadows, and again, free. (Sofa is partially pictured here.)

In a another time saver, Davi Designs, dropped a really nice tattoo called "Doodles" on me recently via DSN. It's a mayan/aztec influenced design in multiple layers and multiple shade options: Black, Dark, Henna and Soft.

I hit the store and what should I find but an MM board with a really nice dragon design and a fast camp chair for these gold and black wrist cuffs (10 minutes. ) I camped while typing and signed up on the board. The store offers and eclectic mix of goods: tattoos, jewlery, artwork, furniture and even photography. There are two lucky boards there that didn't roll me an "R" while I was there, but they are worth watching.

(The jeans pictured here are from Equilibrium (Calca)(RGs)(B1), $250L.)

The Hunt for the Perfect Henley

No, it's not a new grid-wide hunt -- although it kind of is. A personal one. See, I love Henley style shirts, and as far as I know they are a pretty enduring standard wardrobe accessory... only when I looked through my inventory...I had damn few...and that made me start thinking about what I buy and wear and how and why. So, I put the challenge to myself to find the perfect Henley and see if there was a huge amount of difference between them.

It's a slight step off from our usual posts here because other than the Henley's I had from old hunts none of these were free and the prices ranged from $50L to $185L (although the comparison isn't entirely level. Some of them came in dual packs, fatpacks, or multiwear options, so you know, take a pack and divide by the cost and some of these came in pretty damn reasonably.)

(Note: In keeping with the "Free Finds" part, there are three offerings at the end of the post: not Henleys)

So, to keep this fun and interesting, I'm proposing a game of sorts. I'm posting the pics here, but none of the pricing or designers. You vote which is the best Henley of the bunch and in a few days, I'll take the top three and list the designers of all of them, and the first person who matches them correctly, I'll buy you the Henley of your choice out of all of them.

Some of these are ostensibly for women but it didn't take long to realize that even the ones marketed for men specifically, can have the same telling mark -- i.e. the buttons are placed on the wrong side of the seam. (A little historical sidenote: the buttons on women's clothing sit to the left. The buttons on men's clothing sit to the right. It's a holdover from when people had dressers, and in some cases -- mostly women -- required assistance in dressing and the button orientation was set to assist the servants in their task. It's not as big of a deal now and even real life designers are beginning to let that little historical holdover have less influence but, there you have it -- a little bit of fashion history brought to you from Theatrical Costuming 101.)

The other downside to flipping women's clothing (not as easily done as women wearing men's clothing in SL or RL) is shading. Henley style shirts don't typically come with the kind of chest darts some women's tops and blouses do to give them shape. In SL designers use shading. Men's designers do as well; to give tight-fitting clothing muscle definition to show off these perfect bods we can choose to have. Shading can give depth to pixel renderings the same way texturing can, but the breast area can be a problem when you are trying to flip a shirt -- I'm fine with defined pecs, but there's a point where it's obvious it's a shirt made for women, no matter which side the buttons are on. It's more obvious the lighter the clothing color, where the contrast is more obvious.

History and style lesson over. The criteria for this little hunt was pretty straightforward; I went looking for:
1. Long sleeves
2. Single color
4. Unpatterned (Sorry Gypsy Soul)
4. Buttoned (I prefer open neck but I didn't make that a requirement)
5. Had to come in either a jacket layer or tucked shirt and underwear layer that avoided the bare midriff strip. (There were men's Henley's that did this too and I just passed them by: Layer option, please.)

I did my best to keep the shots equivalent in size and crop and these picks are untouched other than that. I also considered going for the same color but I honestly didn't need a dozen grey or red Henley's in my inventory.

So, that's your mission boys and girls. Nine shirts by different designers. First round is simply to vote for your favorite. Do it via comments and I'll update the voting by, say Tuesday, noon SLT. of the top three, I'll let you do your best to match the designer to the shirt. First one (or maybe three people) to drop me the correct answers and I'll buy you a shirt. (If possible. Some of these, as I said, were hunt gifts. They may not be available for purchase but I'll give you an equivalent prize --we'll work it out.)

1. 2. 3.

4. 5. 6.

7. 8. 9.

=========
Above from top (not in the contest):
Bunny henley from Gypsy Soul (gift from the Bryce Advent Calendar) currently $280L
MIA - Red: I debated about including this. It's been in my inventory since I was a noob. MIA (along with Perfect Style) is a fairly common brand across the grid, supplier of businesses in a box, resell items and a good many freebies. There are, as far as I know, legitimate MIA resellers, but I'm not up to sorting through all of them. If you like it and want it, I'd suggest you take a (long) stroll through MIA island and grab it there. Andy Enfield of HippoVend is ostensibly the creator of the MIA line, but I couldn't tell you if he did on behalf of LL or not -- he doesn't list the line in his picks, but as pervasive as the line is, it would be hard to miss if you wanted to crack down on ripped content. I'm open to being corrected and removing if anyone knows anything more about the status of the line.

==Gabriel Gifts==

If you missed it at the Menswear Fashion week, Gabriel is giving you another chance to grab a really nice shirt -- or three. The black is a group gift (male & female versions included), the blue and white denim shirts are dollarbies just in front of the Group join station.



Hair: Caught in Chestnut by Shag
Necklace: Logan by Sable Rose
Pants & Belt: Cort Brother's set by Husky GFX
Glasses: Discord

Congrats to MudHoney!

See I knew that this woman would dazzle you all with her awesomeness! Rayvn Hynes & MudHoney Designs won Vain, Inc's Reader's Choice Award for Best Furniture!

As a thank you, Rayvn sent out this cute little chair to her Subscribe-O Group! I couldn't help but get myself into a little Burlesque Mood to pose with it. ;-)



Congrats to Rayvn and all the winners for this year. :-)

---------------

Guen's also wearing a bunch of gurly stuff that if you really wanna know you can ask. ;-)

Got a little MudHoney?

Yeah you all thought I'd blog some clothes first, huh? Newp! I decided to go a route that so few of you guys tend to think about sometimes... furniture for your virtual pad!

Now I know a lot of you guys usually let your lady do all the decorating (yes I'm one of those chicks them who's kind of a control freak when it comes to that) since most of you are just as interior design challenged in-world as you are IRL. Don't fret though! A few furniture stores in SL do cater to men and even offer full sets so you can just click and point the whole thing in whatever room you want it in. Even better is there's no delivery truck or back breaking in the process. ;-)

:[MudHoney]: Designs is one of those kind of furniture stores. The owner, Rayvn Hynes, makes absolutely incredible pieces with detailed textures and unique poses. Her sculpts are very well made, the fabric textures so intricate you can almost feel the weave with your fingertips, and the shadow textures are noticeable but not overpowering against your floor.

And YES she has made items specifically for you dudes:



One of them is this 'Modern Man' bedroom set. Each piece you can buy individually for anywhere from $35L to $550L (and yes the bed has a sex engine in it in case yer wondering :-P) but you can also get the whole darn set (in either Copy or Transfer versions) for $990L. Still a great deal for essentially a whole room and accessories.

And you want some goodies for your virtual Man Cave?





Got those too!

The Dart Board ($125L) & Pool Table ($150L) can be bought separately if you wish. The Card Table ($125L) comes in either green felt (pictured) or red felt with chairs to match ($95L a piece). All you need now is a big screen TV and a beer keg and you're all set to hang with your pals all night.

Rayvn does offer freebies and discounted item sales as a courtesy to her Subscribe-O-Matic Group constantly, so it's totally worth it to sign up. Her newest freebie?



This Cuddle Lounge Sofa from the Peace on Earth Hunt is soooo worth it. It has 2 pose spots (to cuddle of course), 16 different poses and the option to not only change gender but also positioning. How can you NOT get a girl with this couch? Seriously.

I know it's staying in my den, that's for sure. ;-)

Showing your A:S:S

It's not quite couture or necessarily sleek, it may not be even particularly trendy, but what the work of Photos Nikolaids of A:S:S (which stands for Another Stupid Shirt Shop) is, is fun, versatile, off the wall, whimsical, sexy and above all, surprisingly affordable and incredibly wearable.

Photos may have started A:S:S as a basic t-shirt stop, but he's both expanded his inventory and grown his own skill just over the few months since I first discovered him. He does have awesome t-shirts that range from funny (and, yes, cute) basics to politically aware (see his line of free shirts for Amnesty International,) to bawdy and provocative.

Lately he's been pushing his skills into more complex designs. He still produces mostly casual clothes for men and women, but his separates are incredibly versatile and wearable and work both alone or as layers with other designers.

He's also aces at providing layers of clothing to allow you to mix and match in pretty much any combination. Shirts typically come with an undershirt, shirt and jacket layer version. Jeans and pants have both pants and underwear versions. His tank tops find their way under a lot of open shirts and jackets I wear, and his button downs fit nicely under my favorite vests.

You will occasionally find (especially in his older stuff) a minor seam glitch or misalign -- which I think he's been willing to fix in the past.

His prim collars and cuffs are modifiable and resizable which is awesome -- I've pretty much given up buying clothes from designers who make their prim attachments no modify -- not all avatars are built the same and I'd rather not have to keep adjusting my avatar because a prim collar is built so small I have to have a pencil neck to wear it.

None of that is an issue with the clothing from A:S:S, and I think that stems as much from the fact that Photos is a smart guy as it does from the fact that the vast majority of his offerings are unisex. He does have some strictly male, strictly female offerings, but most of his clothing looks good on either gender and in some cases, he's deliberately challenged what might be considered a female fashion application and made it into a statement on remaining masculine and thinking outside the box.

You won't find a lot of really complex textures that requires a massively powerful graphics card to render or (thank you, Photos,) basic colors such as white, black, red, green or blue that are uniquely his -- his reds are red and his whites white, not slightly off so no one can wear, say his red tank, with anyone else's red jacket.

Given the variable nature of lighting and graphic settings in world, and the vast difference in rendering color and texture between individual users and their computer systems, this is actually more important than it might seem. I have two PC's and a laptop that I frequently swap between for just that reason, the same with swapping between the LL release browser and my preferred emerald browser. Photos's colors/textures hold up pretty well across systems.

You can also find a wide array of non-clothing items in the store: tattoos, jewelry and mouth toys, furniture, skyboxes (and his skyboxes are seriously awesome,) shoes, and if you are interested in the more bishouen look, he has a nice collection of skins that are either free or amazingly affordable.

Nearly everything in the store is between $25L and $125L, maybe $250L for fatpacks, and there's a lot of things for under $25L, -- there may be a few things that range upwards of $500L (Skyboxes, some larger sets) but the average cost is probably between $75-$125L. He maintains a nice discount area and has a newbie pack for av's under 30 days old.

But here's the thing...It's pretty obvious that Photos is having a blast most of the time, and when he gets in a mood, you never know what he's going to come up with or what he's going to do. If he has an idea he runs with it, and if he likes it, he puts it out for sale or, he gives it away...

Not just in his lucky chair or discount room, but through his subscribo, or tucked into some mini hunt or just says, hey, I made this, come get it for free for the next day or so. I've spent a fair amount of Lindens in his shop, but I can guarantee you that what I've gotten free or for $1L is twice as much as I've ever paid.

So, stop by and take a look. Join the group. Check out his discount room if you aren't sure and spend very little to figure it out, and look for him in the next male oriented Make Him Over Hunt" beginning on October 15th. I honestly don't think you will be disappointed on any front.

And if you see him in his shop (and he's there a lot) say hi, or at least thank you.

~~~~~~~~~
A:S:S Designs pictured top to bottom:

1. Light grey turtleneck, light grey pants, dark blazer - Monochrome separates set - currently on the "Pay What You Want" wall on the second floor of the main shop.

2. Straps Jacket black/white - $65L
Blue Low Rise Jeans - $75L

3. Simple Tank Dirty Yellow - $50L Grungy Low Rise Jeans, rolled - $75L

4. Off Shoulder sweater & tank, white/black -$60L
Starstruck Jeans - prior group gift

5. Military shirt brown - $65L

6. Slacker Shirt Green (worn w/o cuffs) - $70
Mesh detail jeans - Silver - $75

~~~~~Also Worn~~~~
Hair & Beards:
Discord Designs
Goatee - Leon $90L for color packs
Beauty Salon Cri-Cri
mHat02-treasure $170L for 4 colors
JE*REPUBLIC
Love - Black Cap/Ash Black (Lucky Chair - still available - primarily a women's clothier but some unisex items)
Bryce Designs Main Store
Frankie $200L
Zero Style
Ron - raven $200L

Eyes:
Sin Skins
Intense II Med Teal eyes (med) - $10L

Skin:
Redgrave Men:
09B Emil Deep-Tan Skin / bald hair / fullbeard $990
03B Emil Deep-Tan Skin / bald hair / 2day beard $990

Leather Pants & double belt:
Husky GFX - Cort's Brother set $700 (this is a full outfit)

Shoes:
Zanzo/Bete Noire Clothier
Classix Grey sneaks $250L

Accessories:
.:iNflict - After Earth:.
Tattoo - Beauty and Beast
Discord
Ryu-Sei Glasses Brown - 2009 New Year's Gift Pack
Sable Rose:
Zoe Celtic Cross Ruby $150L
Unisex Zodiac Necklace (Taurus) $150L