They said he was the son of a snake and a storm. Born with no name, because no name would go near him, he was known only by sound: silence and then the shiver of a blade being drawn. A hundred coins in his palm was all it took for a voice to be silenced for good; a thousand meant none would be left to mourn it.
Ahh, the bounty hunter. You have Ivey Deschanel to thank for his appearance, due to these incredible pants that she’s just released. You might not think that Harlequin-ish patterns would lead me to a character like this, but my brain is a weird-scary place sometimes, and it made this connection while I was searching for a collar, of all things.
I came across The Forge, and purchased one item from the store: the Noir Collar. Then, I went back and purchased the Daerwen Armour. About ten minutes later, I went back AGAIN and purchased the Daerwen Boots. It was one of those days and it’s one of those stores. There are no demos, but trust me: this shit is AWESOME. Everything is modifiable, so there are no worries about stuff not fitting. Ladies, you’ll be pleased to know that there are items for you in the store as well, and it’s not all wispy silks. You’ll find some absolutely kickass armour for the curvier sex ;-)
Let’s take a closer look.
I started with the skin. This variant of their Ashton skin, in tan, was one of Belleza’s “Best Buy” options at the beginning of July. Just L$400 for each top-notch skin, with three female and three male on offer during the first weekend of every month, in three skintones. Guys, the male skins do tend to have facial hair, but there have been a couple in the past without it; you just never know what’s going to be put out next month, so it’s always worth the lagfest pilgrimage to grab some demos.
Strawberry Singh mentioned on her blog that she’d asked on Plurk about tattoo stores. There’s a veritable wealth of goodies mentioned, and through it I found Letis Tattoo (and bought three tats on the spot). This Akahata tattoo comes in the usual fresh and faded varieties and goes right up the neck. It’s advertised as a female tattoo (that’s never stopped me before, as you know) and – apart from some slight, overlookable blurring on the shoulders and the throat – it works perfectly on the guys, too.
This murderous bastard needed a collar. I love the ambiguity of putting such a powerful avatar in what looks like a position where he’s bound to someone (or to something). In this case, I believe the Bounty Hunter is bound to the gods. If you’ve ever seen the opening scene of Legion then you’ll recognise the similarities between Bounty Hunter and the Archangel Michael, who – after falling to earth – cut off the collar that bound him to Heaven. (I can’t find the exact scene on YouTube, but in this Michael/Gabriel fanvid you can see the collars on both.)
I found the perfect collar at The Forge. This supports RLV, and also comes with an un-scripted collar for wearing as an accessory (always good; while I do like putting Skell in a collar sometimes, I also try to keep his script load down wherever I can).
Mmm, piercings. Lustful from HoD are still my go-to nipple piercings, and I always (invariably!) wear this ‘scorpion’ style, in ‘razor’. As ever, Skell is also wearing the Esoteric Unisex Piercings from Pekka, which are probably grafted onto him by now, the amount of times he wears them.
For eyes, I went with this beautiful shade in IKON’s newest series: Ascension. I have a great fondness for these paler tones, and ‘glass’ is one that I wear often. Again, it’s about incongruity; that slight unease of something being not-quite-right about this man. I could have gone for a cold, steely grey, but instead I decided on an almost-translucent greenish-blue.
For makeup I knew I wanted a Harlequin/Pierrot effect around the eyes. I dug through some old demos I bought a couple of years ago, suspecting that I had what I wanted already there. My memory is pretty good when it comes to the contents of my inventory, and sure enough I had these makeups from Nuuna. They needed to be a bit darker around the eyes, though, and a lovely little cheap eyeshadow – Raccoon 3 – that I bought last year (and have worn and worn and worn) by Luccy Sands (Marketplace only) did the trick. Without the makeup, the face is too soft and slightly gentlemanly for the look I was going for. With it… *shudder* – yeah ;-)
By now, I knew I wanted armour, but the kind of armour that a bounty hunter or Wastelands-dweller would wear, rather than anything more formal. I didn’t want to go full-on rusted grunge, but I did want something dark. I still had The Forge Marketplace page open, and lo and behold, there was the Daerwen Armour in black, with gorgeous coppery details. Ka-fucking-CHING!
The set comes with bracers (upper and lower arms), pauldrons, and a chest belt. It’s mesh and needed only the tiniest bit of adjustment on the chest belt, to get it to fit snugly. The mesh is beautifully-crafted, mostly in one single piece, allowing you to stretch in any direction you want without having to worry about re-positioning small additions like buckles.
I tried several pairs of boots, but I ended up back on The Forge’s page again! May as well go for the full matching set, so I bought the Daerwen Boots as well. As with the armour, each boot is one single mesh item. I stretched them up to cover Skell’s knees because I wanted them tall, and they look perfect. How often is it that you find something so fabulous, eh? ;-)
The belt was the hardest thing. I almost went for the Corn Studs and Ring Belt by BC322, but it turned out to be full-bright and no-mod (on the texture panel) so I couldn’t tone down the full-bright. After a fruitless search for a belt that worked (because, guys, I will say this: these pants are primarily ladies’ pants, and the crotch may look too flat for your liking. Me? I’m not bothered, but I did want a belt that had a lot of detail) I ended up searching my inventory for BELT and trying every damn thing on. The best one is, sorry to say, no longer available inworld. I bought it from a store that was on the Muism (I think?) sim several years ago, and it was part of a modern tactical armour set by Forge Hendrassen.
Skell is rarely without his nails, and they’re almost always the Gemma set from Rozoregalia. Any prim nails make all but a relaxed hand position a bit of a nightmare to work around, but I only had one sword pose that I wanted to use: a double-hander, so I didn’t need clenched fists ;-)
Skell’s blade is the amazing Patriarch from Remarkable Oblivion. You can buy either scripted or unscripted versions. I don’t fight inworld, so have no need for scripted versions. The unscripted version is modifiable (I shortened it slightly; it’s very long) and you can even scrunch it down to form a long dagger.
Finally, I had to finish up with one of those fortuitious “I clicked the eye HUD just as Skell blinked, and it froze his eyes shut beautifully” kinda pics.
Your shopping list follows:
Pants: Sn@tch – Bomber Latex Pants (grey) [ ivey.deschanel ]
Armour: The Forge – Daerwen Armour (black) [ deccan.arida ]
Boots: The Forge – Daerwen Boots (black) [ deccan.arida ]
Collar: The Forge – Noir Collar (steel) [ deccan.arida ]
Sword: Remarkable Oblivion – Patriarch [ axsisthorn ]
Belt: forge.hendrassen – Tactica Belt (from NS Ranger Suit)*
Tattoo: Letis Tattoo – Akahata [ leti.hax ]
Facial Piercings: Pekka – Esoteric Unisex Piercing [ kathya.szczepanski ]
Nipple Piercings: HoD – Lustful Piercing (scorpion) [ aydan.darcy ]
Nails: Rozoregalia – Gemma Ring & Nail 2 [ rozoregalia.braveheart ]
Hair: Maitreya – Moon (pitch) [ onyx.leshelle ]
Eyes: IKON – Ascension Eyes (glass) [ ikon.innovia ]
Skin: Belleza – Ashton Tan BBB3** [ tricky.boucher ]
Eyeshadow: luccy.sands – LS Raccoon Series Eyeliner 03 [ luccy.sands ]
Makeup: Nuuna – Nuuna’s Makeup v4 (#4) [ nuuna.nitely ]
*No longer available
**Belleza Best Buys July 2013 (event has finished)
And here’s your music:
Edit: The Bounty Hunter Skybox is now available as a freebie in the Domicile store. 10m x 10m with one 3D wall, and just 14 prims.
