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Jareth the goof, or, Sometimes the best things in life are free!

Jareth the goof, or, Sometimes the best things in life are free! published on No Comments on Jareth the goof, or, Sometimes the best things in life are free!

I’ve finally approximated something close to Jareth’s usual expression, which is about one-third playful, one-third fabulous and one-third off-the-wall. Hey, I even threw some lights in there! You don’t know how much of an accomplishment it is to finally have him able to stick out his tongue.

As for the subtitle of this entry, it derives from the fact that most of his outfit [minus collar, glasses and shoes] is part of a freebie set for Victoria 3, MDDress [Maid Dress?] by ISOP. I have sentimental attachments to this particular outfit because it was among the very first that I downloaded and ran through CrossDresser and Wardrobe Wizard the first time around [late 2007, according to my blog]. I didn’t really care much about the quality then, only that it was fetishy and skimpy and freeeeeeeee!

Now that I return to the outfit 7 years later [which is approximately a millennium in digital time], I examine it more critically. It’s a simply sculpted set of clothes [including pumps and a choker, not shown here], nothing fancy, but a few strategically sculpted wrinkles in the skirt and apron help to give it some realism. Furthermore, ISOP’s attention to detail [why yes *squint squint*, those are little buckles sculpted on the garter belts!] really finishes off the set so that it stands up to long shots and super closeups.

Overall, the superbly sculpted mesh behaves more like an actual piece of clothing than most digital outfits. I can crunch it through Wardrobe Wizard and Daz’ Autofit so that I can put it on my G2F-based characters without undue crimping, warping, distortion or fall-off zone problems. The bodice, though designed for a character with breasts, even behaves pretty well on Jareth, who does not have breasts. Not bad for an outfit at least 7 years old!

Two more things really please me about this outfit. First, the skirt of the dress and the apron contain many built-in morphs to accommodate various leg poses, including squats and sits. Since many commercially available dresses and skirts can’t be arsed to accommodate sitting poses, even today, the presence of this capacity in this old freebie outfit just makes it that much better.

Finally, the great setup of the material zones allows for custom shading opportunities. For example, take a look at the gloves. Besides having sculpted seams, they also have about 4 material zones: the main gloves, the between-fingers part, the wristbands and the wrist trim. It would have been really easy just to leave the gloves as a single material zone and execute any sort of banding or lace effects with the texture map alone, but nope — we’ve got easy-to-use material zones to play with!

The digital market burgeons with maid outfits, particularly on the fetishy end of the spectrum, and most of them stink. Room Service and Sexy Maid, both at the Daz store for G2F, both feature insufficient froofiness. Hot Uniforms Maid for V4 is acceptable, as is Gothic [?!] Housemaid for V4, while The Maid for A3 comes the closest to being appropriately froofy, starchy and stylized. Over at Renderosity, French Maid Uniform for V4 has a totally unnecessary vest and not enough frills!! Darkland Clothing for V4 is unexceptional and a bit too simple, as is Maid Set for V4. Power Maid Set for V4 is disqualified on account of long sleeves [why?!], although I must admit that I haven’t seen a room service cart like that anywhere else. MaidBabe Sandy’s outfit for V3 loses points for being too simple, too blue [though this is easily fixed] and, for some reason, possessed of a divided skirt. As far as I’m concerned, ISOP’s comparatively ancient freeeeeeeeeeeee outfit outshines all of these commercial products.

Sources: Usual for Jareth’s morph and glasses, new usual for texture [V5 Bree for all except brows, which come from V5 Elite Valerie. and eyes, ported over from RBSD V4 Merchantbase by rebelmommy and shellyw] and makeup [DraagonStorm’s Instant Makeup for V5 UV Sets]. …Except for lipstick, which is a rubber shader from SickleYield and Fuseling’s Latex and Rubber Shaders for DS, which probably needs its own special abbreviation in this blog, given how frequently I use it.

Hair: AprilYSH’s Tandy, custom colored by me. Collar: Choker from DemonicaEvilius and Silver’s Asobi Outfit. Boots: nikisatez’ Nixtreme Boots 4, which are like the Platonic Form of platform stilettos. Everything else: ISOP’s MDDress/Maid Dress for V3. Shaders: SF LR [SickleFuse Latex/Rubber], along with Wilmap’s Lace Designs 3. Pose: mainly a full-body one from Schlabber and cascarda’s Xpression for V3 set, with hand poses from katastrophe’s Hand Jive for Genesis, all tweaked by me. Expression: me. Room: GreyCloudDesign’s beautiful Montespan Interior Scene. Lights: me.
 

This entry was originally posted at http://modernwizard.dreamwidth.org/1650185.html. You can comment here, but I’d prefer it if you’d comment on my DW using OpenID.

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