It was around 5 years ago that during one of my webcam session (which I offered on the Lair at that time) that Tom Mustaine, one of the founders of the video game company Ritual Entertainment as well as a fan of my site, saw me playing the popular video game Tomb Raider. He contacted me by email to offer me two copies of the game Heavy Metal Fakk2, which was designed and produced by his company. I was thrilled to discover that the game’s heroine was none other than my favourite model, Julie Strain ! Also, the entire Ritual team had autographed the boxes; I was really flattered.

As time passed Tom and I remained close friends through emails although we were both busy with various projects. And so in 2005, after hearing Martin repeatedly say how much he wanted to attend the world’s largest video game convention, E3, I decided to contact Tom to beg him to find a way for me to get 2 passes, as E3 is not open to the public. With all of Tom’s efforts we were able to help make Martin extremely happy as he admired all the games with childlike wonder. It also gave us the chance to meet Tom in person and to dream of working on something together some day in the future.

Well, that day finally arrived. A month ago Tom contacted us to talk to us about the new game being launched by Ritual: Sin Episodes, emergence (The sequel to Sin, a game from 1998!) This time around, like the title says, the story consists of a number of episodes that will be revealed over a certain period of time. There will be a total of 9 episodes released over the course of 3 years. In order to promote the game, Tom wanted to hire us to create a shoot inspired by the characters from the first episode. At first he thought I would play the role of Jessica Cannon, the game’s heroine. However, after looking at her picture I didn’t see a resemblance aside from the red hair and the idea of playing her didn’t really inspire me. Also, I found that Jessica was the spitting image of my friend Cindy Synnett, with whom I shot the catalogue for Polymorphe in 2005, and whom now works as a journalist for the web TV show Branchez-vous. Like Jessica, Cindy has short red hair and a mischievous face, along with an athletic body without exaggerated curves. So Tom proposed another character for me : the game’s villain who never dies and who starred in the first Sin game: Elexis Sinclaire, president of the Sintek company, which is researching the secret to physical perfection. Evidently the potion that Elexis injects her patients with is evil and turns them into mutants. Now I was inspired! First off, I love villains! We also have almost the same body, with lots of curves and sarcastic eyebrows. The only thing I was missing was black hair. It’s a good thing wigs today are good quality!

And for the costumes? Latex of course! Tom went ahead and called Vex clothing, an excellent American latex company that specializes in detail and refinement. And that is how Vex, Cindy, Martin, and I (Along with the help of Mario from Polymorphe who not only lent us his studio but also created Jessica’s boots and leg armor) came to reproduce these 2 sexy enemies in a shoot. If you want to know more about the topic, I invite you to read the posts on my forum.

In short, after the shoot and its success, Tom asked the three of us to come attend E3 2006 to promote the game, and for Cindy and I to personify Jessica and Elexis at the Ritual booth. A trip to L.A, hurray!! Two or three dresses, one pair of jeans, my toothbrush, and my new Elexis suit…E3, here we come!

Why do flights always leave early in the morning? 9 a.m., so the alarm goes off at 5 a.m.! Ouch! I hate waking up early! I am really not functional! But oh well, L.A is waiting. At least, for once, the American customs officer was nice to us. It helped that he is a photographer in his spare time and that Martin had his Nikon in hand. After that there isn’t much to say except that I hate Air Canada. They’re really cheap! You have to pay 5$ for a sandwich that isn’t even edible! But anyhow, I had to feed myself, even if it was with wet bread with tomatoes. Of course King Kong was the movie that was playing; the movie I saw in theatre but left before the end because I thought it was too sad. I don’t like the idea of Kink Kong getting killed by stupid humans. In short, the flight was 6 hours long but at least I was able to sleep a bit…

Our hotel, the Mariott, is 30 minutes away on foot from the L.A Convention Center where E3 is being held. After dropping our luggage off in our rooms, we head out to see the location. Since the convention only started the next day, the booths were still under construction and a palpable feeling of stress and frantic energy dominated the room. We decided not to stay too long and went back to the hotel for a drink and to get ready for dinner with Tom and his team. All in all a tiring day that also had its good moments. However, nothing sexy or exciting to say. Stay tuned…

Six hours of sleep is never good way to prevent bags under the eyes. Long live foundation! Only 7 a.m. and already it is time for hair and make-up. The make-up is fine but the hair! Styling a wig isn’t as easy as you might think. It’s as though there is just too much hair. Also, I had sprayed non-permanent hair colour on my temples and while brushing the wig a bunch of paint debris fell all over my face, ears, and neck! Shit!! I almost had a heart attack, seeing as how this happened 10 minutes before we had to leave! But thanks to Martin’s patience we were able to clean it all up in time. However, I still spent the most of the day with black here and there on my ears and forehead. Grrr!

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For those who aren’t familiar with E3, imagine two stadiums side by side and filled with video game kiosks, giant televisions and screens, deafening music, electronic gadgets, etc. Each video game company displays their latest game with demos and screens on which to play it. In all there are 400 exhibitors including Ritual, Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft, Ubisoft, Konami, Capcom, etc. and 60 000 visitors from around the world attended for 3 days. Simply put, tons of people! And us two, dressed from head to toe in latex and high heels! What a display, I must say! And all these people who took pictures of us; like starving sharks! In all we spent 2 and a half hours at the kiosk, but spread out between 11 a.m. and 4 p.m. It was pretty hard on my feet, but luckily I was able to take off my shoes during breaks. We were also interviewed by a bunch of web TV stations like Maxim and G4. My English is pretty rusty but I got through it alright anyway. When we got back to the hotel we checked the G4 website and found that we were in a booth babe competition. People go on and vote for their favourite babes. I hope we win!

After that, no time to relax at the hotel. A quick shower and then make-up and hair once more, only this time with my natural hair. We were both dead tired, and so was Martin, but we weren’t going to miss that night at the Blues House for anything in the world. Tom suggested we wear our latex outfits again, but it wasn’t too hard to convince me because I love it. With hair curled and latex slipped into, we jumped into a cab and got to the club around 9:30 p.m. There were already people waiting in line!!! And there were police and security guards everywhere! Luckily, we had VIP passes and were able to avoid the line-up! But to our surprise, in order to enter the club we had to first walk a red carpet and parade ourselves in front of hordes of paparazzi It was just like I was a celebrity like Paris Hilton, who it seems was also at the club that night. But there were so many different rooms that we didn’t see her. And there were tons of reporters who wanted to interview us not only on the red carpet, but also inside the club! It’s pretty crazy what latex will do on two pretty girls, hey hey! The 2 martinis I had were pretty good! And strong too! It was almost like drinking vodka straight from the bottle and since it had not had anything to drink for a month in order to clean my kidneys, liver, and intestines, I was feeling happily inebriated. And Cindy too! She was nervous about posing for a horde of photographers and doing interviews, but she did pretty well! There were tons of people and lots of pretty girls, but just us two in latex. But nonetheless, the girls are sexy in L.A.!

Like Cinderella, we left close to midnight. Our taxi driver tried to charge us double the fare so we got out without paying him right in front of a Burger King so I could eat a 2$ burger instead of a 25$ one at the hotel! Grrr! It is crazy how that night, despite my being tired and my day of travelling, will remain etched in my memory. Me, the starlet in front of the paparazzi! Giggle!