Finally – I have some time to write about skins and SL makeovers! (Unfortunately I have time because our network is down for repairs, supposedly only for an hour. But I have things to do and I forgot (whine, whine) that the network was scheduled to be down. I’d just hit SEND when – wham – no connectivity. Bummer…..
First – to all my new and very very dear SL friends – do NOT take this the wrong way!!!! Try to remember when you were new and green and fresh off the farm! I positively LOVE that you are all helping me with makeovers and tweaking my appearance and all the other delicious and fun things you are teaching me. Please please don’t stop!!!
But….. and I’m literally smiling a big smile as I type this….. very few people in RL would say to me what I’ve heard the last 4 weeks. LOL – let me restate that – I HOPE that very few people would say (or want to say) to me what I’ve heard.
If you are reading this, then you probably saw the pictures I uploaded of myself in SL. (By the way – have you noticed that I’ve stopped drawing a distinction between “me” and Ahuva?? I have come across some very interesting discussions on self and avatar on other blogs, notably Botgirl Questi’s blog and Sohprosyne Stenvaag’s blog, specifically this one. Check them out.) If you saw my pictures and blog, you know that I thought I looked pretty darn good!!! Hot, even. You may have figured out that my RL appearance is not the same as my SL appearance. More than that about the differences I’m not prepared to say. It’s fun to change appearance. Especially to change appearance so easily!
I feel good about how I look. So WHY does everyone feel compelled to offer to make me over, change my hair, change my skin, change my clothes, change my walk?? LOL. Sometimes I feel like a Barbie doll. 🙂 People give me clothes, objects and animation overrides so fast I can barely get them into inventory!!!! People are always saying – Oh you should talk to X, X is great at make-overs. LOL. Um, what was so WRONG about my appearance??? Besides no eyelashes. My favorite was my male friend who pointed out that my eyebrows were WAY too large. Well hey, maybe I LIKE bushy eyebrows!!!!
Okay, I DON’T like how my eyebrows look. Looked. But to tell me that??? Can you imagine if he’d said that to me in RL? I don’t think so. 🙂 That would strain our relationship for sure. But in SL I simply smile and say “yes, I agree”.
Having said that I thought I looked pretty good and I liked how I look, I have to confess that I think I look even better now! I DO like the skin tones and the makeup and the eyelashes (no, I CAN’T let that drop) and all that goes with it. Changing skins is as simple as changing clothes. I stood there with C & D Monday night as C gave me skin after skin. They have fantastic names – Gluttony, Pride, Greed, Lust. LOL. I asked if there were any named Chastity, Hope or Innocence. The closest we came was Humility. Quite honestly – Gluttony looks WAY better than Humility! So I’m wearing Gluttony. LOL. As I modeled each skin in turn, D pointed out the similarities. That’s when C said “Pride is just Lust with different makeup”. That is – the skin color and all were the same, but the eye shadow and rouge and lipstick had changed. But I’m still sure that somewhere in that comment is a great philosophical blog. I’m mulling it over – don’t be surprised one day to find it here (probably the next time the network is down for an hour).
One other observation that fascinates me. And it hearkens back to my earlier comments about choices people make in SL and how those choices reveal so much about our RL selves (if both the observed and observer could interpret correctly). Someone went past me today. The avatar was shaped like many people I see in RL. There is no way that I would want to look like that if I didn’t have to look like that. It merely proves that beauty IS in the eye of the beholder. And I’ve seen numerous avatars with humanoid shapes that look too much like RL shapes that I would think need, hmmm, work. (yeah, yeah, I’m being judgmental again. Strike work and write what I mean – need improvement.) So I am intrigued by what that says about them and what it all says about me. Because there’s no question that my reaction to such avatars is revealing tons about myself, but I’m not sure what. Or maybe I’m not sure “why”. 🙂
’m still extremely nervous about changing my appearance. Way back in the beginning I blogged about changing my appearance and getting it wrong and being gray and beige and black – all at once. And I’m still confused about my hair and why it disappears and I have to re-wear it. Some of it may be due to my connectivity issues (hey – if YOU’RE sick of hearing about it, think how *I* feel!!!) and some may be because I messed up my appearance during my first few days.
But I want to get myself into some private spot and swap skins and hair til I’ve tried on all the items in my inventory. I want to figure out if skins change the shape of my face as well as color & makeup. (hmmm – I have a friend with a nice beach house that I like to call home. LOL. Maybe I could go there to change. With only a cat to witness……). I want to try on all my outfits. I want to find a pair of jeans that actually meets the bottom of my shirt! I want to find the beautiful necklace C gave me that seems to have vanished from my inventory (can’t trust the inventory anymore – that’s one of the bad connectivity symptoms). I want to take pics of myself in Greed and Pride. I want to change my hair. In other words – I want to play!
And now I know why everyone in SL is always offering to help me with a make-over – because it’s so much fun!
So I was playing cowgirl and riding my rocking horse when I began chatting with Dale. Dale is rarely idle, preferring to script, build or meander about. This time the work to hand was building a new look: new skin, new shape, new clothes. I pointed out that since Dale IS my Script Wizard, there was no reason not to come and create at my place, while I watched.
I was a bit taken aback by Dale’s new look. I’m used to having to reconfigure my pronouns depending on whether it’s g-Dale or b-Dale who comes to call. But this new look was something much different. Definitely alien. I think “stately” and “regal” capture my first impression. I liked the shade of green as well. Being the consummate back-seat-driver that I am, of course I began offering suggestions and comments. *grin* 
One of the COOLEST looks Dale achieved was the result of a viewer mishap. Maybe “mishap” is too strong a word. Probably it should be called a nuance or a foible. At one stage of the creation there was a white line on the top of the outfit. Because of how it was rezzing, the line appeared to be flickering, moving horizontally across the dress 
(think of a ticker tape running along the bottom of screen, but more as moving white dots). It was GREAT. Unfortunately, if you adjusted your camera angle at all, the flickering stopped. Of course we immediately tried to figure out how to build or script to make that line move like that all the time. Given that it was late and we were both multi-tasking, we didn’t solve that puzzle then, but it was fun spec’ing it out. 
Building in SL is such fun because you can be working hard even as you are playing. Notice that although Dale APPEARS to be riding the rocking giraffe, you can see the little dots leading from hand to prim, indicating that Serious Work Is Being Done. *grin* Alas, one of the issues with prims is often that they are not flexible, even if made flexi. Camera angles also have major impact on appearance.
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