After spending the past weekend wearing very tomboyish jeans and cowboy hats, I decided to be a little more girly this week. And what better way than to pull out a couple of very cute little red summer dresses.
My first outfit starts with Cameron, a great little dress by Ginny Talamasca of Last Call. The top of this dress is a gorgeous satin and lace material, with the bottom a nice short flexi prim skirt. The lace detail is great - it almost feels like I'm wearing a lace teddy with a skirt. Very girly.
The rest of the outfit includes a pair of satin bow tied shoes by Fallingwater Cellador of Shinny Things. I just cannot get enough of her shoes. I think I have most styles in multiple colors. The necklace is also from Shinny Things and is called Zeyla.
Completing the outfit is Daisy hair from Calla and Vintage Alina skin by Lost Thereian of Naughty.
My second outfit begins with Slither, a very short and sexy dress from Stellar Designs. This is such a playful dress, and is great for the warm months of summer. The top also goes very well as a mix and match piece - paired with everything from jeans to leather pants.
I've paired it here with some of my favorite hair from Gurl 6 called babe 3. I think I have ever color of this style. I love the little wisps of flexi hair that hang from the sides and back. Too cute.
Another pair of shoes from Shinny Things, Hayley skin by Ambyance2 Anubis, and a bracelet, anklet, chocker and pendant from Tomboy round out the outfit. The bracelet, anklet and chocker allow you to set the lettering on the beads, creating custom messages.
As I wrote a couple of weeks ago, SL appearance is very much set by the skin you wear. In order to further illustrate my point, I'm posting a couple of picture collages here that show a close-up of my face with a number of different skins.
Vint's SL Election Coverage
As a side note: for interesting lighting effects, try changing the texture color.
If you need a quite place to shoot your portfolio, feel free to stop by my studio and use my Photosphere.
RedDawn's Studio
During a momentary lapse of sanity last week, I went to the Linden land store and bought an island.
It's not like my current land wasn't big enough. It's just that I was getting no response from my estate owners on a simple terraforming request. My crazy solution to that problem was to set up my own island to do with as I please.
Well, after waiting a week my island showed up yesterday. I've been working like mad to get it ready and start setting up home.
So what's a girl going to do with an island.
Good question - I'll let you know when I figure it out.
At some point I'd like to find a way working with my friends to have a place for modeling and photography (I've already set up a basic studio - location is in my profile). I may also sell or lease off some portion to reduce my tier payments (I'm so not looking forward to my first one next month).
I'm sure I'll have much more to share in the coming days.
First Look Download
WindLight JIRA Issues
What follows is my personal advice on how to find the right skin for you, based on my experience, lots of mistakes, and advice from friends. I'll also show some of my skins and give you my quick impressions. My hope is that this will help you avoid some of the mistakes I made, and save you some Linden as well!
Before I go any further, I want to say that how you choose to look is your business. There are a lot of strong opinions out there as to what makes a good skin. What looks good to someone else may not look good to you. Put some thought into the look you're trying to achieve as well as how you plan to spend your time in Second Life. If you're heavy into Gothic and role play, you may have very different skin needs than someone looking to be a dancer or escort.
Now that we've determined how we want to look, let's get started.
My first suggestion is to do a little research (not much - just enough to get you pointed in the right direction). Start by asking your friends about their skins (assuming you like their looks). Have them show you their older skins, including skins they don't like. See if they will model their skins using your shape.
Other good resources to check include many of the Second Life fashion sites and blogs (I'll try to add links later). You can also ask people you meet in Second Life about their skin (be polite and most will give you an answer). The point here is to try and identify a number of possible skins while hopefully eliminating a few as well.
Armed with your list of possibilities in-hand, go hit the stores for demos. Don't buy anything yet, don't even try the skin on in the store. Just find the demos you want and take them with you. Make sure to get a couple of different skin tones and makeups if possible.
This will be very time consuming and you may just want to just get it over and buy something, but trust me on this one, spending the time now will save you Lindens in the long run.
Go find somewhere nice and quiet. Try on each skin and look closely at the details. See if there are any strange colorings, shading issues, or seams showing. Change the lighting and check again. Try on different outfits and hair. If the skin is modifiable, try adjusting the color and tone. Look and see if the skin and shape work well together. If not, don't give up yet. Try making adjustments to your shape. The lips usually need adjustments to match up well with new skins.
Now comes the hard part, making a final decision. This one is your call. Just remember it is your Second Life, pick something that makes you happy.
What are you waiting for, go get that skin and have fun!
To view my skins, follow the link to Flickr.
Flickr Skin Photo Set
Second Skin Labs
I'm standing on the lawn at D2K frantically trying to organize my runway outfits for my first fashion show. My inventory is giving me fits, and I'm cursing myself for having bought a bunch of "no copy" accessories. I've got less than an hour before the show starts, and I'm not even close to being ready to walk the runway.
I've also just realized my AO isn't working, and nothing I do seems to be able to bring it back to life. The backup walk I loaded to my shoes is not working either. Oh, and to top it off the region just got hit with another restart. It must be my fifth relog in the past hour. I'm close to tears. How in the world did I get myself into this situation?
Flashback thirty days. I start Second Life with no clue as to what I'm getting myself into. I skip most of Orientation Island and jump right in, figuring how hard can it be. Big mistake.
I'm quickly overwhelmed. I can't walk without bumping into everybody. I keep putting boxes on my head. On top of this, I look like a refugee from an ugly parallel virtual world - and no amount of slider adjustment seems to help.
Out of desperation, I spend an entire week attending every class I can find. No matter what the subject, I go. Somehow in my marathon of classes, I stumble across the Moda Modeling School. On a lark, I decide to take the first class while secretly laughing at the thought of me being a model. However, I need something 'fun' to do after a long day of building and scripting class.
Surprise of surprises, I get hooked and start to picture myself standing at the end of a runway in a glamorous evening gown as camera flashes go off all around me. I quickly sign up for the rest of the sessions, and over the next several weeks, learn how to walk, how to uses poses, and how to shoot and build my own portfolio. I get a significant makeover.
Even better, I meet a lot of really great people in my class. We're lead by our instructor and mentor, Jujudoll Dancer, who gives us just the right mix of constructive criticism and positive feedback. Juju is great at pushing us to learn and do things for ourselves, even giving us "homework" assignments to reinforce her lessons. We get so carried away at learning to be models, we lose track of time and work on our assignments well into the night on many occasions.
After a quick relog, I'm back at the D2K runway with the rest of my class. My emotions are running high, though the encouraging words of my teammates quickly pull me back from the edge. I get focused and somehow manage to rig an AO to handle my walk. I find a coupe of poses and pull them out to use manually. I'm ready to walk.
The show starts. Lag hits. I make my first turn on the runway. Confusion and chaos reign backstage. Changes to walking orders, wardrobe challenges, even a few crashes. We adapt, we deal, we survive, we conquer.
Afterwards, I'm physically and emotionally drained yet ecstatic at having completed my first fashion show. It's been a long and challenging day, and one that I never would have thought possible when I joined Second Life.
