Recently I bought a lovely vintage cycling outfit called “Velocipedestrienne” by Apricot Paws at The Engine Room event.
(Edit: Tipped off by my friend CC, who is demanding credit. LOL)
Initially I bought the white blouse for L$124 (fatpack was L$414), and the bloomers in burgundy also for L$124, and I also picked up the blouse in wine as a free gift at their mainstore.
However, afterwards I realised that I liked several colours of the bloomers, and contacted Zii Minotaur (the owner of Apricot Paws) and they were more than happy for me to buy the bloomers fatpack at L$414 and to refund me the L$124 that I had spent on the single pack, which was absolutely wonderful of them.
I also wanted some boots to go with the outfit, and I already owned Solvej by Ingenue in Noir, Oxblood, and Walnut, which had cost L$295 each, and I had written myself a notecard at the time saying that I had decided to buy single colours because the fatpack was L$1,500 (a breakeven of 5.02) and that the only other colour I could see myself wanting was Saddle. The Walnut looked too dark (although perhaps might have sufficed) and I thought that I did indeed need the Saddle so bought that.
I also wanted some hair to go with the outfit and, as luck would have it, the ideal hair was right there at The Engine Room
The hair was L$325 for the Natural pack. It is Rigged in two sizes, and also comes with three separate Unrigged bangs, and also the HUD allows 4 different style variants. I’m wearing Bangs2 in the pic, and Bangs3 is a wider version, whilst Bangs1 is a straight fringe.
So, with the outfit all done, it was time to look for location and a bicycle.
My first idea was to find a nice sim which had free bicycle rezzers, and the first place I found was Calas Galadhon Park. Whilst it is a lovely sim I wasn’t happy with the sizing of the bicycle (it came in fixed sizes, and I was between sizes) nor was I happy how totally uncontrollable the vehicle-based bicycle was, with it being way too oversensitive.
The picture was fair, and frankly I could have left it there, but I went looking further.
The next place I found was a delightful bicycle-themed cafe called Java Sprockets which has a vendor board giving free “Java Cruiser” ladies bikes.
For a freebie, this was actually pretty nice. You rezz it, and then it automatically attaches to you. It rides fairly well, but has fairly poor anims. It has a script which allows you to recolour with a choice of “Cherry Red”, “Lemon Yellow”, “New SL Blue”, “Coffee”, and “Old SL Green”. It also allows for resizing.
With hindsight, a few mins with AnyPose would have come up with a half-decent pose (this is what I managed in 30 secs).
Finally I bought the Sonoma bicycle by {what next}, which actually turns out to be who makes the rezzer that I found at Cala Galadhon, only this version you wear as an attachment and it acts like an AO, meaning you can ride it anywhere. It sells for L$249 for a single colour, but I noticed that it is copy-mod so I bought it in Cream and then retextured it to a lovely Bugatti Blue and also made the flowers in the basket transparent because I felt it suited the type of picture I wanted to take rather better.
Where to go for a backdrop? My first thought was the Paris 1900 sim, even though the bicycle is more of a 1950’s style, although I would say the outfit is much earlier. I chose the famous Moulin Rouge as the backdrop.
I sent the pic to my sis, Karen, who I know loves that sim, and she suggested that I might like to try Soul2Soul River, which is a gorgeous quintessentially English village, and it was a good suggestion.
This is the picture I finally settled on because I had to stop somewhere.
Summary:
Outfit: Velocipedestrienne by Apricot Paws (at The Engine Room event)
Boots: Solvej by Ingenue
Hair: F191 by KMH (at The Engine Room event)
Bicycle: Sonoma bicycle by {what next}
