New World Notes

Fashion Friday: Fantasy Roleplay Style Suggestions from a Flickr Microblogger

Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting

"A." is a Flickr microblogger who revels in roleplay. “A Heart Made of Yarn” is a gorgeous picture. I love the feeling of one thing on top of another on top of another. The woman’s face lies there as though in a dream. That arm covering, the staff, and the amazing background seem like something out of a fairy tale. 

• From Cerridwen's Cauldron
• Orb Slime- Variation 1 (No Spores)
• Twinkle Ivy - Tree/Columne Patch
• Twinkle Ivy - Large Patch
• Mythspire Arch Small Scales- White
• Prism Type 4- Small Scales/ Mythspire Edition
• Gorgon Lilly Set- Fatpack
• NightFire Aloe Set
• From Arkivet + /Vae Victis\ ::
• Nix Solis Staff

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Today's SL Flickr Pick: Maloe Vansant is a Long Time Favorite for Imaginative Images

Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting

Maloe Vansant’s photostream has been a favorite for close to fifteen years. I assumed I had written about her in the seven-plus years I have been writing this column, but what a huge oversight on my part. I have not. She is now doing a small series of pictures of women wearing veils. See here, here, here, and here. I love the richness of this pic. The sharp detail of the light and the statue. We can see the face through the veil to her vivid and striking face. I love that Maloe adds a bit of red by placing a flower on the papers. 

For more extraordinary pictures, click here:

Today's SL Flickr Pick: Visually Arresting Images from Titanxxx

Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting

Titanxxx has created a deeply personal photostream with pics of him and him with his “love pea” Candy. I appreciate that he comments on his pics. Without his commentary, I might never have looked at the titles of the books which are hilarious. Some of the titles include The Narcissist, Selfish: The Healthy Approach, and Life as a Balloon. They are a great reminder of the gentle sensibility of the late Kean Kelly who created the book models.

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Today's SL Flickr Picks: Devilishly Dramatic Male Avatar Portraits By Lᴇᴛᴀʀɢᴏ Cᴏʀᴠɪɴᴜs

Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting

Letargo Corvinus’ photostream is fun. I like how he has subdued color except for one or two that really pop. Take this one, the picture is desaturated except for his jacket. It makes the jacket the focal point which it fully deserves to be. The title is “Misery” so perhaps Letargo doesn’t like to dress up. 

For more color-popping pics, click here:

Today's SL Flickr Pick: Exciting & Thought Provoking Images by Lyra Romanas

Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting

Lyra Romanas’ “A Slow Decay” is a far too beautiful image to represent actual decay, but it’s more accurate than “ashes to ashes and dust to dust.” 

It did get me thinking about human composting, a more ecologically sound alternative to traditional burial. It’s legal here in Oregon and in five other states. Of course there is an industry developing around terramation, the dreadful portmanteau created to describe the process in a more brochure-friendly way than composting. It’s not cheap, running about $5000, five times the price of cremation. Of course, you could do like my parents and my sister have and donate your body to a medical school. 

Of course, she could have been thinking of slow decay in a more metaphysical sense, like the decay of our illusions or the representation of moral decay such as in “The Picture of Dorian Gray.” The picture could mean so many things. As Ansel Adams said, “‘A true photograph need not be explained, nor can it be contained in words.’

For more of Romanas’ thought-provoking pics, click here:

SL Artist Amazingly Photographs His Friends Roleplaying As Circus Performers

Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting

Zakk Bifrandt is working on a project featuring his friends taking roles in the circus. He plan is to create 19 pictures in total.

The third in the series (above) is an impressive glimpse into the true difficulty of the trapeze artists. The wrapped hands and feet hint at the physicality of the trapeze, the wear and tear on the body it entails. Funnily enough, one of my former coworkers was a trapeze artist as her first career. Now she is sending her kids to trapeze school. It’s actually easier to learn as a child because they are fearless.

For more of his circus-themed picture, click here:

Today's SL Flickr Pick: Mac Massimo, Metaverse Magritte

Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting

When I saw Mac Massimo’s “A Grounded Man” (right) posted on Facebook, I was stopped in my tracks, so to speak.

Such an original idea, but then Mac is full of original ideas from food blogging in Second Life to this deep dive into the surreal.

He works in black and white photography but still reminds me of Rene Magritte whose work was so colorful. Like Magritte he explores the body in relation to its environment, replacing blood and muscle with sap and cellulose in this picture.

He has a blog about his work and talks a bit about his process which adds even more to the pictures. 

For more surreal pictures, click here:

Seven Second Life Blogs We Loved in 2022: The SL Hotel Inspector, Cinnamon, Beauty & Grace, Blue, Cozey in SL, Toshikya Sato & Artifex Silence

Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting

When Hamlet asked me to highlight my favorite posts from my Friday Fashion blog column, the first one I thought of is: Second Life Blogger Reviews Virtual Hotels - Yes They Exist & Some Charge Over $12/USD A Night! 

Before I came across The SL Hotel Inspector, my idea of hotels in Second Life were the so-many-lindens per hour skyboxes and rendezvous rooms where landless residents hooked up to test the animations. However, unknown to me and many others, there was a thriving hotel industry for virtual tourism offering experiences far more varied and sophisticated than jumping on colored balls. The blog was a revelation. 

For more of my favorite Second Life bloggers of 2022, click here:

5 Further Flickr Feeds To Follow From Photographers of Second Life

Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting

See my first five follow recommendations here

Whiskey Monday not only gives us intriguing visual images, but her pictures are intended to make us think. She often takes a metaphor and makes it literal so we see it in a new way. For example, winging it implies just getting by, sort of an extemporaneous and haphazard approach, jumping in without preparation, but flying…that is success. So we have this image of her flying, but unseen, her success not visible even to herself.

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5 Favorite Flickr Feeds to Follow from the SL Photograph Community

Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting

It’s the end of the year and time to look back and share my favorite photostreams to follow. Nekonuko Nakamori is a perennial favorite. I love her consistency. Every picture includes her enjoying the scene. She goes from place to place and takes snaps. Her pics feel like watercolors. There is this softness, a luminosity that makes me smile every time. 

For more streams to follow, click here: