VT black and white dance

Yesterday afternoon VT made their last use of the past week's dance set with a "black and white" themed dance. The idea was simple enough: wear something black and/or white. This, it has to be said, wasn't so difficult for me. Well, actually, it was pretty damn difficult given that the vast majority of my wardrobe is black, along with some white.

In the end though I decided to go with my current favourite suit.

There's an album of photos I took at the dance over on imgur and, as usual, I took a few videos too:

VT couture dance

Yesterday evening VT kicked off a new week of dances with a couture-themed dance. The idea was to come along in something amazing and outrageous, with the dance set in an art gallery built by Miss Eve.

Now, the group notice did say that the male subs could do the tux thing, which seemed fair enough. But I couldn't help but think that just doing a tux was kind of cheating, and missing out on some of the fun. So, with a little bit of encouragement and fashion advice from Miss Eve (who at the time was, herself, working through lots of different outfits, on the way to her final form), I went with this:

Of course, I didn't just spend the night photographing myself, I took an album of photos of everyone around me too.

Also, as I've being doing recently, I took a few videos too:

Some new shackles

Given my current status these days I don't really have much call for 24/7 cuffs or shackles of any sort. Back when I was owned by Miss Vila I almost always had a set of Real Restraint Elegance Cuffs locked on; they've always been a favourite of mine in that they look big and heavy and they're all metal but they also look smart.

I still need and use cuffs these days, of course, but that's mostly for product building and testing purposes. For that I have an old set of Elegance Cuffs, with all their scripts removed (the full-blown RR cuffs are a little heavy on the script count, it has to be said), and with a hybrid LockGuard/LockMeister script in them (that's also no-script safe too, which can come in handy at times).

After today though I think I might move over to something new:

These are the wrist cuffs for a set of cuffs from Dutchie. I first noticed them in the advertising material for Froukje's latest release. While I don't in any way want to diminish how important a role the female model plays in the advertising images (wink) one of the first things I noticed was how good the cuffs looked in the photos.

And now I've got a set.

They're just the sort of thing I like; while elegant-looking they also look solid and look like they'll hold up against all sorts of wear.

The really great thing is that they're a single mesh object, not a linkset. This made sizing them to fit my male frame really easy. Also, because they're copy and modify, I can make a few different sets for different needs.

They also have a spec map applied for those who run with ALM, which means they nicely catch the light as this sort of metal would. Here's a little video where I try and show this off (please forgive the shaky camera work -- controlling the SpaceNavigator when in this close is kind of tricky, I find).


While they come scripted to work with LockGuard furniture (so perfect for all Z&A hold/display products that use chains, for example) they won't work for LockMeister items (not really so common with furniture these days, but not uncommon for when working with other restraints). So, for example, out of the box they won't work with the Z&A Yoke. Again though, because they're modify (oh how I do love when people leave modify on for their products!), that's easily fixed because I can just swap the scripting for the hybrid script I mention at the start.

They're a great addition to my folder full of cuffs in my inventory. I suspect they'll get a fair bit of use when it comes to building and testing my own products -- and they'll also be my preference when I need cuffs on an outfit.

VT floral dance

Starting yesterday the dance venue for The Velvet Thorn is a garden party (built, as always, by Miss Eve). Given I had the evening free and given that Miss Eve was DJing the first dance it seemed like it'd be fun to join in. The theme was "floral", the idea being to wear something floral.

Thing is, I don't really do floral -- there's nothing in my inventory that really comes close. I did entertain the idea of cosplaying Wash from Firefly but even his loud shirts aren't exactly floral. Besides, that didn't seem to be in the spirit of the "dress code".

And then it hit me: a suit I'd purchased recently has a handkerchief in the pocket that is texture change -- floral being one of the designs. Thing is, as is normal with my purchases, the suit was black and there's something about a black suit that doesn't say "garden party". So, one purchase of an extra colour later...

Sadly I don't really have any shoes that go well with this suit. The shoes I do have poke out the back of the trouser leg a bit, which is fine when it's black shoes with black trousers. That's when I decided that this might actually make sense barefoot. So I did that and I think it worked. While I have no photos of me at the dance barefoot you can see how it looked in this post-party comedown time photo back in the Z&A workshop:

As always, while at the dance, I took a whole load of photos which can be found in an imgur album. I also continued my experiments with making little videos (you might need to click through one or more because of restrictions due to the music playing at the dance):

VT Wonderful Women dance

Yesterday afternoon Miss Eve was filling in a DJing slot over at VT and, given I'd got my jobs for the day done and I'd not had a chance to enjoy the current week's dance build there I decided to pop over.

As normally happens, I also took an album of photos. I also toyed some more with grabbing some video too: