Category: Exploring Second Life

Annwn Willows – click for full size

I first visited Annwn Willows nigh-on a year ago. Back then, it was known as Just Visiting, and  Joanna Corith had – as she explains in the note card visitors receive on arriving – recently (the end of 2012) started creating small builds within the region.

That visit was marked by me suffering from something of a mental block, blog-wise and struggling to put thoughts together on a number of subjects I wanted to write about. My visit helped clear my mind somewhat, each of the vignettes within the region serving to offer a little haven of peace and tranquillity at a time when even Second Life felt like it was getting a little too full of bustle and noise.

Annwn Willows – click for full size

More recently, Annwn Willows has again come to the attention of a number of bloggers: Ziki, Amy, Honour and more, who have all blogged or re-blogged about it – and rightly so; Joanna’s creativity is infectious in the moods and feelings it creates. As it has been close to a year since my last visit, I thought it time I once again bathed, as it were, in the calming influence of her designs.

One of the major attractions to Annwn Willows, for me at least, has been the fact that it is a water-based region, something Joanna acknowledges herself. This helps imbue the region with a sense of peace and calm, and to bring focus to each of the vignettes created within it. With the current design, the aquatic theme is very clear – the region is almost entirely covered in water, with individual scenes to be found both above and below the rippling waves – or in the case of the arrival point, floating over them.

Annwn Willows – click for full size

Don’t be deceived by the apparent “emptiness” here; there is more to Annwn Willows than may initially meet the eye, and careful exploration is encouraged. This is a place merfolk will enjoy exploring, given there is so much to be enjoyed under water. And when you’ve explored all there is down below, either side of the waves, don’t forget the teleport system, which will reveal more to you in the sky above, including the store area, where proceeds help to keep the region alive.

Annwn Willows – click for full size

“Annwn Willows is about a story still asleep. It dreams,” the introductory note card tells us. If this is so, then the individual elements within the region are perhaps images of those dreams slipping into a conscious reality, allowing us to share in them, become a part of them – even add to them through our own presence.

Related Links

• Annwn Willows SLurl (Rated: Moderate)
• Flickr group

Mystic Winter Dream – click for full size

It’s been a little uppy-downy in RL. Christmas and New Year are always taxing, thanks to the greater number of my relatives using the house as the “halfway” meeting-place, leaving me with people coming, staying or going from the week before Christmas right through until the week after New Year (as I write, the last of them are still here, and again looking like they’re about to put down roots!).

Not that I dislike my relatives, you understand. It’s just that it gets a bit, well, much over the course of 2+ weeks. And as is invariably the case, someone has decided that even though they have returned northwards to their own home, they’d leave me with their cold as a reminder of their stay.

Mystic Winter Dream – click for full size

When this happens, one needs a place to lose oneself in; a refuge from the maddening (family) crowd. I have several in SL, but after reading Honour’s post about Mystic Winter Dream, I forgot about going finding one of my regular haunts and hurried over to Smoky Cape instead.

The home of Adonis Lubitsch, Mystic Winter Dream is just that: a beautiful, winter-locked dream – or perhaps dreams might be a better term, given the overall look and feel of the region.

There is much here that commends itself to the explorer. As well as being Ado’s home, the region offers a beautiful ballroom which has its own air of fantasy: the stone flags of the dance floor peeling upwards in places, small groups of them suspended in mid-air as if frozen there after gravity looked the other way and then forgot to order them back into place.

Mystic Winter Dream– click for full size

Art is a huge feature of the region, as Honour points out, and I agree with her. The manner in which Ado has folded pieces by Cherry Manga, Rebeca Bashly (who is always sure to draw my attention) and others into the landscape is a real delight.

The entire composition of Mystic Winter Dream is a masterwork of design. While the region is almost completely open, everything within it exists on it own; each scene or vignette an individual piece, yet all of them coming together to present a complete immersive whole, wrapped within the arms of tall mountains. All-in-all the perfect place in which to lose oneself – and perhaps also rediscover oneself after the holiday excesses.

Related Links

• Mystic Winter Dream SLurl (Rated: Adult)

Collins Land – click for full size

Collins Land has appeared several times within this blog – and with good reason. Cerys Collins always offers an interesting and highly photogenic environment for visitors to enjoy whenever she reworks her place. So when I received an invite to go see the region in its latest iteration, which re-opened on January 1st, 2014  it really should come as no surprise that I hopped right over to take a look.

The new design is liable to please both those new to Collins Land and those who are familiar with Cery’s designs. For the former, there is a lot to see and explore and which will please the eye. For the latter, the exploration is the same, but punctuated with some familiar motifs from earlier builds. The greenhouse arrival point, long a hallmark of visiting the region, is still there, for example, as is a rope slide and a dramatic landscape of towering rock faces.

Collins Land – click for full size

The greenhouse sits towards the middle of the region, next to a winding road, which in one direction leads up into the hills and in the other, down towards the waterfront. Which way you go is up to you. Follow the road up, and you’ll come to a large house perched on the edge of a high cliff with a stunning view over the sea. Follow the road down, and you’ll be lead to a lovely little boathouse with a quaint apartment over it.

In between these two sits a rugged terrain, the road winding its way around a deep gorge which cuts into the land from the sea and which is also fed by tumbling waterfalls. Away from the road there is more to explore – copses, walks, tree platforms, ponds, and more.

Collins Land – click for full size

And the rope slide? That now connects a roadside platform with a smaller island which offers a cosy cave (which is also handy, given it is raining over there), and one or two other little nooks to explore.

Aside from the rainy little island, there is a distinct feel of spring about the place; all the trees are in leaf, sunlight slanting through the boughs – so if you’re looking for some relief from the snowy looks of winter which can be found across many regions right now, Collins Land may well be just the right tonic for you!

Related Links

• Collins Land SLurl  (Rated: Adult)
• Collins Land Flickr group

Back at the beginning of the month, I managed to drop-in to Kaelyn Alecto’s and Maxxster’s It All Starts with a Smile, which I last visited in May, when things didn’t appear to bode well for the region’s future. Fortunes rapidly improved, however, and right now It All Starts with a Smile offers a winter scene of composite parts, with a small village / town element on one side of the region, and more rural scenes across the rest of the island.

It’s an interesting mix of scenes, with the little town area offering small shops, a coffee-house and a light-hearted touch to car registration (license) plates – this place is clearly popular with those of an IT persuasion :-). If you’re tired of all the snow and cold of the northern hemisphere, you can pop into the IASWAS travel agency and book a vacation in warmer climes …

While the snow has been cleared from the town area, elsewhere in the region it lies deep and blankets the landscape, offering-up many opportunities for the SL photographer. Fortunately, the roads have been cleared, so you needn’t worry too much about deep snow – although the tree-lined paths make for a relaxing walk.

The landscape naturally lends itself to a lot of tweaking with windlight, as some interesting effects can be obtained. I settled for trying out some monochromatic efforts, or – as with the top image – what are more unusual colours for me to settle upon.

If you like your Second Life uncluttered, but with a rich feel of winter and plenty of snow to enjoy, you may well find it very worthwhile hopping over to It All Starts with a Smile and having a look around. And if it gets too cold outside, don’t forget there are at least a couple of places where you can get a hot drink and warm-up again!

Related Links

• It All Starts With A Smile SLurl (Rated: General)