Fantasy and Reality @ Husky GFX

March 23rd, 2008 at 11:37pm Mr. Oh

Two questions for you: (1) Do you love sword & sorcery role-playing in Second Life? (2) Do you collect memorabilia from the Lord of the Rings films?

OK, yeah, me neither.

So why am I standing here in front of a map of ‘Middle Earth’ wearing clothes with names that are spelled a little like Welsh railway stations? If you have to ask, you clearly haven’t clicked the photos to enlarge them. These are beautiful beautiful clothes, detailed and rich and luxurious. I’m telling you, the role-players are better dressed than you.

This first outfit owes more than a little to Mssrs Tolkien and Jackson. Called Thranduil, it’s a good example of the work of Husky GFX’s main creator, Karigan Ducatillon. There is layer upon layer of perfectly splendid garments which are in turn covered and adorned by earthy and richly detailed prim attachments. In the photos, I’ve highlighted the leather-tooled motifs on the prim leather cuffs and belt but also the magnificent elvish ivy-leaf brooch fastened to the woolen cloak.

One of the things I like best about Husky’s sets is that they’re beautiful from any distance. I don’t know whether they’re more striking and bold from a distance or up close and magnified.

Thranduil is a medium-sized set for Husky. It costs 599L$ and includes 3 garments: suede trousers, a suede waistcoat/jacket and the silver shirt. Then there are also five prim articles as well. There is the marvelous woolen cloak with brooch, the two leather cuffs and then two versions of the leather belt: one with skirt-like leather flexi-prims and one that’s just the belt on its own. I should say at the outset that all these clothes mix and match very well; I’ve kept outfits together for review purposes, but these trousers, say, are a wonderful complement to other fantasy or modern outfits.

Footgear, by the way, is optional at extra cost. I’m wearing Telperion boots, delicious sculpted boots made specifically as an optional (490L$) accompaniment to this next Tolkien-esque outfit, also called Telperion (Strider). As you can see, there’s little question that you could buy a cleaner, more well-pressed suit of clothes from an establishment like Blaze and for less money. But, like the character of Aragorn, Telperion has a magnificence of its own, a handsomeness reached not despite the raggedness but because of it.

Telperion is typical of Husky’s current offerings. It costs 999L$ but you get a lot of pieces and a lot of flexibility. The beat-up trousers and old linen shirt form the base layer. As beautifully crafted as they are, you’ll barely see anything of them when you don some of the other pieces. There is an armlet to tie to one upper arm as a complement to a pair of the most amazing gloves you’ll ever see in Middle or any other Earth. A fingerless glove garment layer is extended up the arms by use of prim attachments. These are all leather and buckles and, again, tooled motifs reminiscent of the elvish work we’ve seen in Thranduil.

Telperion’s jacket, similarly, is part garment, part prim — two garments, actually — you can choose either a shortsleeve or longsleeve version, both are included. And again there is a prim combination of belt and leather flexis for the jacket bottom. You can see from the photo, perhaps, it’s wonderfully weatherworn.

Like Thranduil, there is also a woolen cloak with elvish brooch. It’s not just the identical cloak thrown into another package. They could have done that, Thranduil’s matches the look well enough. Instead, though, this one is rougher and darker. And as well as the cloak, there is a prim leather coat that hangs from the shoulders. You can wear either the prim cloak or the prim coat or Husky provides you with a combined primset so that they hang together well.

As well as the colour I’m wearing, there is a ‘dark’ version with a red shirt.

But Mr & Mrs Ducatillon do more than Tolkien. I daresay that fantasy is their bread and butter and they’re great at it. But if you look around their store, you’ll find some more modern outfits as well. Here’s one that follows a familiar pattern:

Take a magnificently beat-up, moth-eaten and ripped to shreds trousers and shirt. Over that comes jacket/waistcoat garment, but this time with brass-coloured zips all over the place. And on top of that, add a ton of metal and leather additions.

As well as the garments in this package — called Roy (899L$ available in ‘brass’ as here, or in brown) — you get 10 attachments — or actually 20, since all of them have been made available to you in small and large sizes.

There are gauntlets and shoulder armour pieces — ancient in style, future in composition. There are brass knuckles, shoulderbags and utility belts bristling with sculpty prim details. There are long leathery cords snaking out in various directions.

Honestly, you can actually feel your inventory getting bulkier and heavier.

The overall effect is both overwhelming and stunning; it looks like the Big One has come and gone and you’ve survived somehow.

Now here’s something a little more cultured, a little less apocalyptic. This outfit of beautiful soft white shirt and red leather trousers is Iwan (490L$; the matching Iwan boots in black are another 490L$). The shirt has a lovely grey pattern woven into it that’s Celtic rather than elvish origin; you see the pattern high on the chest on the front of the shirt and another pattern low on the back. Those are also a celtic knot pattern circling the trouser legs above the knee. Again, needless to say, that shirt could crown a hundred outfits you already own. But look what else Husky gives you with Iwan. Not just this cross necklace, but a black leather jacket totally unlike any black leather jacket you’ve ever owned. It’s sleeveless and those are prim attachments forming little wing-like pads on the shoulders and another prim for the stand-up collar. Celtic embellishments are subtly engraved into the leather of the jacket-layer garment and the prim-attached jacket bottom (without which the jacket can be worn as a simple waistcoat), and elements of the patterns are gently highlighted in a red suggestive of the leather of the trousers.

Again, you receive two versions of the shoulders and belted jacket bottom, small and large. This may be a good time to warn you though, if you’re as scrawny as I am, even the small size leaves some room, and although you have permission to adjust it, it won’t go any smaller as a linked whole. I have found this with most belts in the Husky’s range, though the small size is close enough that I don’t mind.

There are some simpler and less expensive outfits at the Husky GFX shop, though when I spoke to him, manager Thorsten Ducatillon, husband of Karigan, wanted to play them down. Huskys now want to be known as the place for high-quality, ultra-detailed with integral sculpty-prim attachments. But for most Second Man readers, what will attract you to all these clothes is a sense of style and an eye for colour and detail. And that is present in even their earliest, garment-only, pieces.

Look, for instance, at Uroloki in green (230L$; also available in blue, red and brown/gold). No prims are included, just trousers, shirt and jacket. But look at the colour green in that shirt. Look at the subtlety of the green highlights on the trousers and jacket. Can you believe how much of that beautiful shirt the jacket hides completely — how extravagant!

And here, similarly, is Ancalagon in orange (230L$; also available in red and blue) The trousers are more complicated with their texture-based laced-up thighs and knee pads and the jacket comes with a prim collar, but otherwise my comments are much the same. Look at the colours in that shirt! It’s like wearing fire!

And one last ‘big outfit’ before I go. Huskys also have a Roman gladiator outfit, called Lucius (849L$; note that no sword is included. I’m holding one I picked up as a freebie somewhere). The garments — top, skirt and glitch pants – come in this sand colour and also in a light blue. The prim attachments are just great and fit right in. And there’s also a layer of dirt and blood that you put onto your skin as underwear. Finally, the cloak for Lucius is a magnificent affair, topped at the shoulders with some black fur. Be the best-dressed barbarian at your next party.

You won’t believe how many more outfits are available at Husky’s. Fortuntely, their sales posters are as meticulously crafted as their outfits, modeling lots of the possible combinations of the outfit inside as well as detailing in words what is and is not included. You can also buy husky dogs, curled up and sleeping, and a variety of other useful items. Husky’s main store is in Tarnotopia (159, 128, 26).

Photos were taken in and around and under the wonderful City of Osgiliath — Romenna 2 (102, 32, 22).

Disclosure: Seen in World: Yes | Review Copy: Yes | Friends List: No

Notes: On Mr. Oh: Nora Entice - Hunter Almond by Sezmra Svarog (Nora BodySkins & Fashion). "Rei" hair in silver by Orange Meili (Discord).

Entry Filed under: Accessories, Boots, Coats, Costumes, Fantasy, Gloves, Goth, Grunge, Husky GFX, Jackets, Novelty, Outfits, Pants, Period, Robes, Shirts