Shishen Guardians at the Shanghai Pagoda

I always have some Steelhead-related project going on like the manholes, for instance. If you stroll around Steelhead, you can see two different versions of them: leaping trout throughout most of Steelhead's sims and for Shanghai, it moon bridges.

Lunar asked me to do another project for Shanghai: A shishen/si shou guardian compass in the pagoda. If you visit the pagoda, which you can't miss, you can find it. The Chinese characters for "Shanghai" mark the very center of the sim. The shi shen are as follows: the "Black Warrior of the North" (which is a tortoise fighting with a snake), the Green Dragon of the East, the Red Bird of the South and the White Tiger of the West. I based them upon ancient tomb markers and created them with the "woodcut" look like the manholes. Go see it for yourself!

Empress Elle

Sometimes I feel like getting all dressed up just for the heck of it and went through my large collection of cultural and international clothing. SL makes it very easy to find traditional and historic clothing from around the world. Tonight, I thought I'd take a picture at the Shanghai Pagoda wearing my new ensemble from Legends of China. I am dressed as Tang Dynasty Empress Wu Xetian, China's only female emperor who ruled the country for almost 50 years. Was she ruthless in her acquisition of power? Perhaps. Did she successfully and peacefully rule? Definitely.As I am usually in 19th c. clothing, I totally enjoy wearing things that are beautiful and fantastic such as this...