OK, just like Matthias did last week, I’m reviewing the PlaySexy genitals this week, but for females!  PlaySexy only has one variety, descriptively named "PlaySexy Clit."  Let’s see if it can stand up to the test against today’s standards.  Like last week, this is definately not safe for work.

This is what the PlaySexy clit looks like (on a Hybrid skin by Santana Lumiere) when you first attach it and turn "Highlight Transparent" on.  Otherwise,  you can’t see it at all.  That’s a good thing, because it allows you to see the skin detail, as most skins these days have genital textures built-in since they look much more realistic that way.

One of the functions of the PlaySexy Clit is a pee function, shown just above.  The positioning seems very awkward and out-of-place, and the legs are bent far too much.  The particle stream is also a bit odd, and for best effect, probably shouldn’t be able to be pushed by the wind.  Other than peeing, the PlaySexy clit has 16 commands, all of which are paralleled in the PlaySexy "Commander" Cock that Matthias reviewed last week.

Like the PlaySexy "Commander" Cock, the PlaySexy Clit is around only by touching it – 60 clicks makes you "climax in ecstasy," which releases three particle bursts, the first two of which are shown above.  I don’t know about you, but I think that looks more like a time warp or something, not a climax.

One thing that should be mentioned is that the PlaySexy Clit is very talkative.  It releases six different messages during the arousal phases, which can be turned on or off, though it’s on by default.  Luckily, it’s all in whispers, so it’s not like everyone hears it or something.

I don’t know, I really didn’t like the PlaySexy Clit that much.  It required manual stimulation which makes it much harder to use when you’re in the "heat of the moment," and was pretty unrealistic.  The price was decent at L$799, though.

Ratings:
Function: 2/10
Appearance: 9/10
Features: 3/10
Price: 8/10
Overall: 5.5/10

Matthias will be back next week with a review of Stroker Serpentine’s   BV-3D cock!

by Matthias Zander

Hair Fair 2006 began this morning on Panache Island to a amongst a great amount of lag.  I visited the Hair Fair just after waking this morning, and let me tell you, it is HAIR OVERLOAD!  There are some things in the exhibition that lasts until April 20 that are done extremely well, but even more that were done very poorly, and some very obvious omissions.

The good things at the Hair Fair and the good things that Hair Fair participants did were very noticeable.  Unfortunately, part of that is because they are rather rare.

This amazing display is how Lash Xevious decided to display her hair at the Fair.  The statues, which can be seen from the central area of the Hair Fair, catch the eye and draw you in very quickly.  Excellent work!  Her booth is also not over-crowded, and it seems to load much faster than many of the other booths.  Lash wins Best Display by a longshot.  No other booth was close, except for one.

Zyrra Falcone and HoseQueen of Panache did an amazing display, especially on HoseQueen’s half (the right half).  Zyrra’s is a bit over-crowded, but the way that she did it makes it semi-work.  I personally would have preferred that she show less color options on each set, and put out a landmark giver to her store on the island the Hair Fair is being held on and direct people there for more hair and color choices.  Congratulations, Zyrra and HoseQueen, you have the Most Effective Display!

Unfortunately, there were also a number of extremely bad things that were done at the Hair Fair.  Hopefully, the people making these mistakes will read this and correct them before the end of the Fair.

When I was looking for the least effective display, it was honestly hard to find only one.  There were three that instantly stuck out, but I was able to narrow it down to two.

An empty display is certainly not an effective display.  That’s the problem that Carryn Concord from Tickled Pink, wuvme Karuna from Caliente Express, and Asri Falcone from Asri Falcone Originals are currently facing (wuvme’s display, in the center, is fully-loaded in that picture, from what I can tell.  The bottom eight boxes have a texture other than the default grey loading texture).  The Herald is told that Asri is currently building her display as I write this – way to go, Asri.  Better late than never.  What makes this especially bad is that Ticked Pink’s booth is directly seen from the central area of the Fair.  OOPS!

I waited for about 15 minutes while staring at this in my view to try to get everything to load.  It just wouldn’t do so because of all the tiny, tiny boxes with the huge textures. Let this be a lesson to Rita Groshomme of Empyrean Emporium and Sparkle Skye of Allure – don’t use so many boxes, and use smaller textures.  This and the empty displays above die for the dubious title of Least Effective Display.

I think there are four main overall issues that the Hair Fair faces, and unfortunately, they can’t all be overcome at the same time without great expense.
     1) The sim was constantly full.  I kept trying to teleport in a good friend of mine so that she could look around, but the sim is set to accept only 40 people – as an island, that number can be set up to 60.  They might look into temporarily raising that.
     2) The sim was too laggy.  I could barely walk at times because of the lag.  Other times, it seemed better.   Unfortunately, this would conflict with the solution to the first problem.
     3) Textures loaded far too slow.  I was literally there for over an hour, and I was never completely loaded.  Designers need to learn to use smaller textures.
     4) It was very disorganized and overwhelming.  The looming walls with tiny boxes climbing all the way up was just too much.

The only way to fix all this would be an idea that I overheard while there.  The suggestion was that this would work so much better at the corner of four simulators.  Let’s look at how this would impact the four problems above.
     1) With 4 sims, you can have up to 240 people there at a time.  No big deal.
     2) Lag would be necessarily cut in fourths by dividing it up between four sims
     3) There would be less textures in each sim, though it would still try to render them all.  That’s where 1.9.1 with its wall/render-blocking would come into play as well as…
     4) Create different categories, and have one category per sim.  Four categories I could see instantly are male, short, long, and "formal" hair that is more geared towards being worn with formal attire.  Having enough selection for a male section is something that obviously wasn’t worked on for this Hair Fair, so they’d have to do better with that.

The lack of male hair that I just mentioned leads me to the final criticism of the Hair Fair that I’ll discuss here: some huge, eggregious omissions.  I don’t know if it was a personal bias agaist certain people or what, but some of the larger names, such as TOmmy Fairplay of DragonFly Designs, weren’t represented.  TOmmy has a decent selection of male hair, something that the Hair Fair seriously needed.  To the organizers, I would say that it needs to be more diverse if you plan on pulling something like this together again.

Overall, I would sadly recomment skipping the Hair Fair altogether.  I’m attaching a list of all of the designers represented below, and would definately recommend going to their individual stores.  It will be less laggy, less crowded, and even with the travel time, it’ll take less time overall because you’re not waiting for hours for textures to load.

Participating Designers:
Six Kennedy, GuRL 6 
Babyboo Glitterbuck, Here Comes Trouble
Bailey Mackenzie, Here Comes Trouble
Raylin Portocorerro,  X’Clusive
Tami Mcoy , hairstyles by Tami Mcoy
Canimal Zypher, Canimals
Elikapeka Tiramisu, ETD
Asri Falcone, La Cadre
Lash Xevious: Lashed
tessa craven , Hair ~n ~Things
Zyrra falcone, Panache
hosequeen mclean, Panache
Rita Groshomme, Empyrean Emporium
Garbage Prototype, The Random
Wuvme Karuna , Caliente Express
Kiki LaFollette, Hair FX
Karessme Sugar, Karessme Designs
Carryn Concord, Tickled PInk
Sythia Veil, Unveil
Ginny Talamasca, Crowning Glory
Washu Zibrastripe, Mirada
Mystikal Faddoul, Mystikal Designs
Torrid Midnight, Torrid
Starley therian, Celestial Studios

To continue the Herald’s strong dedication to weeding out the weak for our readers, we are now bringing you the first of a set of genital test-drives that will review and rank genitals for both males and females.  This week’s victim is the Play Sexy "Commander" cock for our male readers.  Play Sexy was once the industry standard.  Have they been able to retain that title?  Read more below – and be warned, this is NOT safe for work (but if you’re here at the Herald, you should already expect that).

This is the way that the Play Sexy Commander looks when you first attach it.  The geometry is very basic, and the textures are just downright gross.  It looks semi-realistic, I suppose, but it doesn’t look like it’s been updated for looks in quite some time.  I guess the line across the top is supposed to be a vein.  Hmm, yeah, I don’t think I need to say more.

This is the Play Sexy Commander when erect, which happens either with one command or one touch.  That brings up a good point – functionally, this is one of the few cocks still being sold in SecondLife that uses a "click to use" system for arousal.  It is completely non-automatic, which some will find cumbersome in the "heat of the moment."  Another thing that points to the age of this cock is the fact that it includes a pubic hair tattoo, pictured above on a default slider skin.  The texture is quite blurry – what is shown up above is fully-rezzed.  This is really unnecessary since most everyone has a skin these days, but I can see how some may need it if they’re quite new to SecondLife.

Finally, the "climax" of this article covers the orgasm function of the Play Sexy Commander, which can be triggered either instantly via vocal command or by taking the cock through six different stages of arousal through clicks, until it reaches the seventh.  The particles themselves originate exactly where shown in the picture (which makes no sense), and the cock is unresponsive for about 30 seconds until it goes limp and is ready to "Play Sexy" once again.

The whole process of the Play Sexy Commander cock gives me flashbacks to the old Green Fate genitals (which were taken off the market just a couple of months ago, otherwise they would be reviewed in this series).  They claim to have 20 voice commands (only 19 of which are listed in the help card), including hiding/showing, hard/soft (the reset command does the same thing as the soft command), "everhard" (which makes it so that it never goes soft, though in my tests, it never went soft even without this command being active), pee/cum, sounds on/sounds off, animations on/animations off, text on/text off, emoting through the cock, numb, scan on/scan off (avatar scanner that triggers every 30 seconds for "safe sex"), and help.  This is a very basic cock compared to what is out there now (and what will be reviewed in the coming weeks), which could be either a good or bad thing.  It is entirely non-automatic, which can be very bothersome, especially when the user’s mind should be on other things than clicking their cock.  In addition, the Play Sexy Commander does not include or have the ability to include a HUD, something that is also an industry standard, and I would guess has become so since the last time the Commander was updated.

The best thing about this cock was most certainly the price – the "small" sum of L$799 for the male in SecondLife to be digitally complete.

Ratings:
Function: 3/10
Appearance: 2/10
Features: 4/10
Price: 8/10
Overall: 4.25/10

Next weekend, Chipsen will be reviewing the matching Play Sexy Pussy for our female readers.  If you have a line of genitals that you’d like reviewed by our expert staff here at the Herald, drop a line to either Matthias Zander or Chipsen Queso!  We have a couple of more vendors already planned, but we’d love to hear you you want reviewed, as well.

After a bit of a "Spring Break," the Herald is very happy to present to you this week’s Post Six Grrrl Toni Tiramisu!  Toni tends to be a woman of mystery, going through SecondLife and not joining many, if any groups, and mainly staying to herself.  It appears that she enjoys playing the piano, though, and has a very nice avatar.  Thanks to Daphne Molinari of Daphne’s Delights and Forever Yours for these, and all our pictures!  If you wish to be a future Post Six Grrrl, contact Daphne for more information.

Hi, I’m Toni and I’ve been in SL a a few months now.  I love to explore and see all the interesting work that people do in here.  I am amazed at the talents that people posess and express here in Second Life. After this shoot I’d like to get into modeling possibly.  This was a great experience and I’d like to thank Daphne and the Herald for asking me to be a part of Post Six. 

Due to frequent requests over the past 14 months or so (since the Post Six Grrrls were introduced), we at the Herald are very pleased to introduce the first of the Post Six Boys, Matthias Zander!  Matthias is not only the fashion and reviews editor of the Herald, but he also creates jewelry and shoes for the women of SecondLife.  Thanks to Daphne Molinari, the creator of Daphne’s Delights and Forever Yours, for agreeing to do what so many had been asking for by photographing the Post Six Boys.

Well, what can I say?  I’m honored to have been selected as the Herald’s first Post Six Boy!  It’s a feature that’s been requested rather often before in order to balance the weekly Post Six Grrrl that I’m personally glad finally got started.

You all know that I spend quite a bit of my time working as the fashion/reviews editor for the Herald, but I also find time to do quite a few other things, as well.  I design and sell women’s shoes and jewelry at my store, Alluring Elegance (locations in Isere and Forevermore), as well as designing the Forever Yours line with Daphne Molinari!  In addition, Grim Hathor and I are currently in the final testing stages of "The Collective," a game based here in SecondLife that is part of the Game Developers Expo.  Our launch date for that is March 20.  Besides those things, I enjoy building, scripting, and DJing on Wednesday nights for RockNGames Radio, not to mention shopping (perhaps a bit too much  ).

Thanks again to Daphne for photographing the (now two) Post Six series, and to the Herald for publishing them!  Have a happy St. Patrick’s Day!

He then showed his naivety by comparing the volunteer Stratics staff to the Lindens – a group of people you want to join because of just how good they are.  Right.  I’m sure that the Stratics staff is just like the Lindens when it comes to what they can do in SecondLife.

The emergence of a Stratics SecondLife portal brings the classic debate back up – is SecondLife a game or a virtual community/world?  Stratics typically covers games (Auto Assault, Dark Age of Camelot, Dark and Light, EVE, Lineage, Lord of the Rings, Project Entropia, Rising Force Online, Seed, Star Trek Online, and Vanguard are the current games with Portals), though many SecondLife residents, myself included, would argue that SecondLife is no more a game than it is a bugless product.  I’m just waiting for someone to start that debate in the actual forum thread.

The Herald is happy to introduce this week’s Post Six Grrrl, Rebel Hope!  Rebel is a noted clothier in SecondLife, who together with her husband, RH Engel, runs RH Designs!  Thanks to Daphne Molinari, creator of Daphne’s Delights, for this week’s Grrrl.

Who the hell is Rebel Hope?  I am a clothing designer here in Second Life and have been doing that for about a year.  I own a shop called RH Designs with my SLhusband RH Engel.  Most of my RL days are spent designing, making textures, creating new things, building and running all there is to run with our shops. 

I found SL through a friend in another online community similar called Worlds.  He brought me kicking and screaming and I even left and he drug me back by my hair the second time.  Being Rebel Heart in the previous game the name wasn’t available here "yet"….lol I have it now!  I started out as a dancer/manager at the Edge.  Became friends with Jenna Fairplay who was my original inspiration to make clothing.  She used to design and photoshoot and I watched.  I knew I had to at least try my hand at fashion design.  Along side my partner RH Engel we have learned and built our business what it is today.  As Rich designed and learned jewelry making I explored Photoshop.  What a trip it’s been and now totally addicted with the whole process.  Each design I do I think gets a little better and more fun. 

I’ve made SL my RL job now after being in the retail management field for over two years.  This is far better than the office politics and fighting over who is going to get the parking spots closest to the door.  My parking spot now is labled CEO and damn right it feels good.  I have to thank all those who are faithful customers as I could not have done this without you.

Some of my most favorite things about SL are my Starax wand, meeting new people, racing my Dominus, shooting my guns (at Rich), riding my Harley, hanging with my SL family and spending time with Rich.  My personal life is just that so no need to go there.

Many thanks to the Herald for asking me to be a part of this.

by Matthias Zander

I just finished attending a fashion exposition (I’d heasitate to even come close to calling it a "fashion show") for the SecondLife designer Ambergris Baphomet.  It was a very mixed set of clothing and raises some interesting questions about the fashion world in SecondLife in general.  Overall, it was an interesting show with some high points and other very low points.

As was done once in the past, I am going to divide this review into three sections: The Good, The Bad, and The Extremely Ugly.

The Good

The highlight outfit of the evening in my mind is the "Lavender Tingle" dress, modeled by Simone Stern.  This dress made its premiere tonight, according to Ambergris, and is stunning.  It was completely hand-drawn, and shows a nice technique.  As one person who attended the exposition put it, "that dress screams queen of all the world".  I couldn’t agree more.

Next up, we have Bubba Ash in a combination of the Abalone Male Silks and Handrawn Bluestone Loincloth.  I couldn’t get a picture of him with the silk bottoms on because he hopped off the posing stand whenever he put it on – and with good reason.  This pose, which was done by Jonny Dusk (as we were reminded with each and every model description), is horrible for this kind of thing.  Whomever picked out which poses go with which outfit needs a pair of glasses or something.  The outfit itself, though, is nice, if silks are your style (or your lifestyle requirement).

The Bad

This outfit is called "Midnight Persia," and features Raven Callisto as the model.  The name certainly fits this – it looks like she cut pieces out of a Persian rug and pasted them on a black material, and then decided to wear it.  I’d definately skip this unless you’re dressing for a "best floor textures applied as clothing" contest.  The prim style is nice, but the textures honestly ruin it.

The Extremely Ugly

This outfit is "Purple Swirl," with Sunid Gorky as the model.  This outfit is based off a texture by Margeaux Mirabeau, an old friend of mine.  However, I am not a fan of this outfit, at all.  First off, it looks like all Ambergris did is cut out pieces of Margeaux’s texture, apply it to clothing, and put it on the model.  The texture doesn’t really even fit clothing, though.  It looks to me like more of a flooring texture – I guess when you combine this with the Midnight Persian dress, you can assume that Ambergris has a bit of a flooring fetish.  However, OH BOY!  This outfit comes in other colors!  I’m shocked and appalled.  My apologies for the bad angle on the shot, as well.  This model was stationary and did not turn (unlike the rest), so she was stuck with her butt towards all of us the entire exposition.

This final outfit is Renee Riva in "Fuscia Sparkle."  Where to begin with this outfit?  It’s more than ugly – it’s fugly.  I believe Ambergris said that this was one of her early outfits, and she has certainly progressed (see "Lavender Tingle," above).  Why show this at a fashion exposition, though?  The prims are horrid and look like a bad cartoon hairstyle, the dress is obviously photosourced (and badly at that), and the stockings are just plain pink with black bows at the top.  Once again, though, this outfit comes in NUMEROUS COLORS!  Can’t you see how thrilled I am?

Another issue I have with this is the pose.  As is very common in poses, the ankles are broken.  By this, I mean that the feet are angled downards at a very unnatural angle, causing the shoes to go through the ankle.  This honestly isn’t that hard to fix in Poser, and is something that pose creators should watch out for and prevent.

Conclusion

I absolutely hated the format of this fashion "show."  What Ambergris did was have the models stay stationary on a poseball each on columns in a square around the courtyard.  This made all of the attendees move, which caused all kinds of lag.  I had extremely bad lag the entire time, as did many others (there were frequent complaints about lag in chat).  Call me old-fashioned, but it’s much more effective in my mind to have everyone sit down, and have the models come out one by one.  This reduces lag because there are less people moving, and makes it much more effective and dramatic.  Here, unless you wanted to stick around for Ambergris’ explanations, you could come, see it all in 5 minutes or so, and then leave, if you could move.

The poses were all absolutely horrible.  They need to be re-done with attention to detail (such as ankles), and better ones chosen next time for a fashion exposition such as this.

Certainly not the worst show that I’ve reviewed, but certainly not the best.  Two out of five stars.