After months working on getting Temenos Island built and open, and even more time working on new releases of clothing and accessories to expand Boneflower's offerings, and the even longer working on my skin line, I recently had a chance to sit back and work on some new items for the Jungle Voodoo line that I had been promising for some time.
It was a nice change of pace, hectic as it was, to work on the new Neko stuff for a while, and we have released a lot of new content for that brand in a very short time...but, for the most part, I failed to advertise it, post about it or blog it. So, now that I have a moment, I wanted to take a bit of space to mention some of the new goodies for cat girls and bois we have put up at Jungle Voodoo in the last month.
Male Neko Skins -
Okay, these were rather long in the coming I will admit. The initial female skins were released many, many months back and almost from day one I had cat bois showing up, IMing and mewing for a male version. I was at first very surprised at the number of requests from guys for these skins, but soon opened my eyes to just how many cat bois SL really does have. So, obediently...and in fear of being eaten alive if I didn't follow through...I started work on a male counterpart. Well, it wasn't as fast or as easy as I had hoped.
Many things tried to conspire against me and make me set aside these skins, including the purchase of my first island and the time involved to build and open it and move all my stores. But, as often as I thought of giving up on this project, I always had the thought of sexy cat bois running around in them to cheer me on, and the horror of what they would all do to me if I didn't deliver to light a fire under my lazy ass.
So, literally the moment I finished Temenos Island and had the grand opening out of the way, I turned my full attention to these skins. With the female skins I had used the early draft of my Divine Mystery human skin line as the base, but with the cat bois, I had no male skin in the works to use, so I first had to create the underlayer. That required a male model to test it on, and as much as I would have enjoyed taking screenies of some other sexy cat boi naked in my clutches for this, I work weird hours and on a whim, and it's best I do all my own modeling, etc. So...I made a male shape, hair (I am neurotic about being seen without hair) and turned myself into a cat boi.
Ebony LeopardGolden Striped
Yes, that is me in the pictures on the ad, and yes it was hard getting the pictures taken with me drooling over myself so much...but I finally managed.
So, in a whirlwind week of flying fur and overloaded photoshoppe sessions, I finally got these skins where I was mostly happy with em. Enough anyway I felt I should release em and offer em up as a sacrifice to the restless and impatient neko guys pounding on my door.
All I can hope is that they like em, enjoy making mischief and catterwalling about in them...and that they don't decide to eat me anyway for being so late with em. =/
Neko Ears and Tails -
These are another project I put off forever and finally have completed. For the longest time I had no plan to make ears and tails to match my neko skins. Anisa Naumova of Outland Tech and Curious Relics had already made what are undoubtably the most comprehensively done, amazingly scripted neko ears anyone could do...so why should I try when I will just be second best at the highest?
But, over time, the requests for ears and tails that specifically matched my skins got to me, and I decided...second best or not, I should make em anyway. But, then I had the next problem...how to design them and make a cute set of scripted neko ears and tail that didn't just look like a clone of Anisa's. Anisa is a friend of mine and someone I highly respect creatively. The last thing I wanted to do was copy her design, even unintentionally. I needed to make something cute, neko appropriate, realistic and matching my skins, but that was unique and not just my own interpretation on Anisa's work. That plagued me for months. Nothing would come to mind. I had no ideas on how to 'improve' upon her ears since they were already so damned, bloody perfect.
So...I kept putting them off. Time and again. People kept asking, but I would send em to Anisa for ears and ignore the project. A few times I started a set of ears and scrapped em...too much like Anisa's, despite using totally different shapes and prims. Why did she have to make such a perfect look? Pfft.
Then, while working on a script for a flexi tail for my friend and business partner, QuietlyCharmes Vega of Playful Kitten, I was struck by an idea. My ears needed to be flexi.
Once I had that revelations, it took me all of one day to make them, script them, and get them up for sale. It was like I became possessed. A twistie flexi shape here, a few tufts of flexi fur there, and a script to pose and move em in a few simple animations, and poof...ears!
I textured em in all the colours and designs of my skins, finished the flexi tail I was making and got em up.
In the end, I am very happy with my ears and tail. They are less detailed than Anisa's, use far less prims, and are really kinda simplistic in a way. The scripting is very basic compared to hers and doesn't offer any of the cool advanced features hers do...but they were what I had wanted...cute, unique, different, and they matched my skins to a tee.
I just hope other people like em as much as I do. *bounces around so her floppy ears floop and droop and bounce*
New Female Neko Colours -
I pondered the idea of adding some new...more unnatural...colours of neko skins when I was working on the leopard version, months back. I even made a pink Leopard at the time and offered it for sale then. But then I kinda forgot the idea in all the madness. Until I started getting requests for purple nekos, blue nekos, etc.
So, with the neko ears and tail finished and the long delayed male neko skins done, and Temenos doing well after the grand opening...just for the total "why the fuck not" of it, I went back and made 5 new colours of both the striped and leopard neko skins.
Berry StripedBlood StripedBlueberry StripedLavender StripedMint StripedWhich, immediately required me to go and make ears and tails to match and update the just released Ears and tail sets. =P But, in yet another whirlwind of activity (see a pattern here? Months of laziness followed by a few days of work...catlike, eh?) I messed in PS until I liked the colours and got it all out and photographed (my work part...someone slit my wrists so I don't have to do any more photoshoots please!), boxed and in the vendors.
Yay for colourful nekos!
P.S. - Yes...the new colours will be coming for the cat bois too...don't eat me please! <---is now nerotic about cat bois eating her.
Neko Clawed Feet -
This was a totally unplanned for and unexpected surprise, but one I can't rave about enough.
QuietlyCharmes Vega, my adorable kitten partner at Temenos Island, and owner of Playful Kitten is best known for her amazing hair. She was the first person to have flexi hair for sale when the servers came up after the great flexi update, and she developed a almost cult like following among those who were exposed to her tresses. But...I log in one day and here she was making neko stuff that wasn't hair! I was floored.
These Neko feet are just amazing. They aren't your mom's cutesey neko cat feet that people are used to either. These aren't anime or cartoony...these are wild, feral and oh so dangerous looking! Long, feral claws and toes and feet that use my textures from the neko skins, these feet fit so perfectly with my skins and with the wildness of Jungle Voodoo...I begged, annoyed and pressured her to release em under the Jungle Voodoo name.
You got to see em on...see how they match the skins, see the feralness of them to appreciate these wonderful works. I have never been prouder to beg someone to sell something in one of my shoppes as this.
Wonderful work, kitten, I adore em!
More Neko Ears -
Yesh, it's true...there are more than one brand and style of Neko ears and tails available at Temenos Island. Quietly started her ears before I started mine...same time she was making her amazing neko feet. She went a totally different route than me, but her results are just as wonderful and cute...totally adorable even.
Her ears are smaller, cuter, perkier, and more understated than mine or Anisa's, and they use her hair textures to make the fur...but the result is still kawaii! *purrs*
You gotta check these ears out. She offers em in all the same colours as her hair, so they match it perfectly in texture and hue. She recently changed from offering em in seperate packs to offering em in a single big bundle of neko cuteness, so for one low price (yes, cheaper than mine), you get em all, ears and tails.
The ears aren't scripted, but the tail is...same script as mine uses, though different textures. But when ya see em on someone, especially Quietly...OMG, the cuteness level is like total overload! So, be sure to check out her ears over in Playful Kitten too if you are a neko or cat girl fan, they are must haves.
