Anyways, a few of the weekly BVNSL classes were devoted to learning how to take good photographs in Second Life. And ever since then, I have found myself attracted to well-done SL photography, like the image at the top of this blogpost by Karin Verwood (you can see the rest of her pictures on Flickr, which is home to many talented Second Life photographers).
There are so many exceptional SL photographers that it would be impossible to list all of my favourites! Some focus on landscape or home and garden photography; others do portraits or fashion shoots; some focus on telling a story with action scenes!
If you are at all interested in Second Life photography, may I recommend you follow Wurfi on Twitter, who is a friend from both Second Life and Sansar? I have learned about so many wonderful SL photographers through his tweets.
Here are just a few recent examples of work from the many talented Second Life photographers whom I follow on Flickr. (You can click on each picture to take you directly to the Flickr page for the photo; from there, you can click on the photographer’s name under the picture to see all his or her work in chronological order.)
The BVNSL also hosts an annual awards show, The Bloggies, where the public votes for bloggers and vloggers in various categories. Voting takes place from now until Oct. 19th, 2019, so don’t delay! The full list of categories and nominees and the link to the voting ballot is here.
My regular blog readers already know that one of my favourite pastimes in Second Life is to pull together an entire avatar look based on a theme, from head to toe. Sometimes, I will even take older classic avatar looks I had created many years ago, and give them a completely modern, mesh-body makeover. Some recent examples are this nun, a vampire, an elf angel, Mary Poppins, even Santa Claus! It gives me a creative outlet, and I find my quirky little hobby deeply satisfying.
Some avatars lasted only a couple of days before I deleted them; others have been with me since the very beginning of my adventures in Second Life. Witches and wizards and wolves, pirates and painters, sergeants and satyrs, barbarians and ballerinas, harlequins and hippies, gladiators and geishas… my hobby has given me endless hours of pleasure and escape. Some were exclusively for role-play purposes; others were just a means to live inside somebody else’s skin for an hour while strolling the grid. Others were created specifically to evoke reactions from passers-by. I could be whatever I wanted, and I was: an angel, a fairy, a goth girl, Elvis, Queen Elizabeth the First, Lady Gaga, Santa Claus, a supermodel, a hobo, a spaceman, a Na’vi from the movie Avatar, a medieval minstrel.
Sometimes, a single article of clothing in Second Life will send me off on a wild goose chase across the grid, to search out and find individual items and use them to pull together an entire outfit. And today, my starting point was this free Jessica Rabbit dress from COCO Designs!
So I decided to build a whole look for my main avatar (and Second Life supermodel 😉 ) Vanity Fair avatar based on that dress!
It was so such fun to play with the body adjustment sliders on my Maitreya Lara body to see how close I get it to resemble Jessica Rabbit’s curvy figure! I think I came pretty close, although I couldn’t make her waist any smaller, without making the entire avatar look too thin overall. Please note that this is not Vanity’s usual shape; normally she has much more realistic proportions. Remember, I was going for a cartoon look here.
And I was very pleased with the results!
Vanity Fair is wearing:
Dress: Jessica Rabbit gown (free group gift by COCO Designs; the group is free to join)
Gloves: Formal gloves applier by my friend Jasmine Moonflower Gardner of Sweet Tea Couture (L$199 for an eight-colour HUD); Unfortunately, this particular gloves applier does not come in purple like Jessica Rabbit wore in the movie, but fuchsia is close enough, and it looks great too!
Shoes: Gigi pumps in crimson by Garbaggio (my favourite shoe!)
Daria skin by The Skinnery (which has a red brows option to match the Jessica hairstyle; normally Vanity wears brown)
and my favourite forest green Darcey eyes by Suicidal Unborn
UPDATE Oct. 15th: I noticed after I took the pictures I posted above that Jasmine Moonflower Gardner does indeed sell a purple pair and a lilac pair of Bento mesh formal gloves at her store Sweet Tea Couture for L$199 for each single colour. The mesh gloves have an auto-hide for Maitreya so you don’t need to alpha anything out! You could also use the free group gift of purple gloves from COCO Designs’ gift wall, but those gloves do not support Bento hands, and you will have to alpha out your hands completely if you decide to use those instead. Lots of options here!
Here’s another shot taken at Sweet Tea Couture, next to the mesh gloves display. I am wearing the lilac gloves (the purple ones looked a little too dark):
In my opinion, Jasmine makes the best gloves on the grid, whether they be mesh or appliers! She also sells some seriously cute stockings, socks, shoes and dresses. Be sure to check out her store! She just recently returned to Second Life after an absence due to her job, and she has a number of brand new items for sale. The texture work is superb! Everything is very high quality and I recommend Sweet Tea Couture highly.
