Sansar Store Spotlight: Hellen Custom Avatar by eunicorn

There is something deeply satisfying about getting dressed in Sansar. I mean, who hasn’t tugged and pulled on their jeans in exactly the same way in real life? (Mind you, your real-life jeans might not be as stretchy!)

The jeans I am adjusting in the video above are called jeggings (jeans leggings), and they are sold by Debi Baskerville in her store, in five different colours, for only 50 Sansar dollars each:

There’s also a brand new, curvier custom Avatar 2.0-compatible female avatar for sale on the store by eunicorn, called Hellen for only 150 Sansar dollars (I found out about this via Sansar and Second Life blogger Chic Aeon’s blogpost):

Now, this is a custom avatar, which means that you cannot adjust any of the facial features as you can with the new default Avatar 2.0 avatars, or change the eye colour. But Hellen works with any female Avatar 2.0 hairstyles, so I picked the long ponytail, a pair of Debi’s jeggings (which fit perfectly after some gentle tugging for a minute in Lookbook), the default tan Nexus boots, and the lovely blue Infused Nexus Shirt, a free reward you get after completing the first couple of quests in the Nexus.

Here are a few pictures I took in my own experience (I mean, world…you’ll have to forgive me; this recent change in terminology is going to take me some time to get used to!).

(All pictures were taken in my own world, Ryan’s Garden. You are welcome to come visit and explore my green little world anytime!)

Between Daisy Winthorpe’s shapewear, Ravioli’s rigged attachments, and new custom avatars like this one by eunicorn, I am now completely satisfied with my female avatar options in Sansar. All of these, of course, are interim solutions until Linden Lab releases body deformation for Avatar 2.0 avatars, something Landon Linden (a.k.a Landon McDowell, Linden Labโ€™s Chief Product Officer, and the person most directly in charge of Sansarโ€™s development) told us was coming within the next 4 to 6 months. Based on the amazing flexibility of the new facial deformation features, I am very much looking forward to this!

I can honestly say that this is the first female avatar that I feel truly comfortable exploring Sansar worlds in! Here’s a picture of Vanity Fair at the Nexus, which I think is the best work that Sansar Studios has done yet in terms of world creation:

Happy shopping and exploring!

Sansar Users!!! Are You Unhappy with the New, Default Avatar 2.0 Female Avatar? Market Forces to the Rescue!

Photo by Karine Germain on Unsplash

One of the things that I have noticed about virtual worlds with an in-world marketplace is that, quite often, market forces will solve a problem that has been created, or address an issue that is causing concern, without the company that made the platform having to do anything to fix it! The customers solve the problem themselves!

This has been demonstrated over and over again in Second Life. Creative content makers have, time and again, stepped up to the plate to fix a perceived problem, and reap some profits from their ingenuity. For example: do you hate the default duck walk on your Second Life avatar? Et voilร ! Animation overrides were created, and they sell like hotcakes for literally dozens of animation vendors. (I’m still waiting for them to come to Sansar.)

Dislike the default Second Life system avatar? Crafty creators like Onyx LeShelle (who designed the ever-popular Maitreya Lara body) made a completely mesh body, mesh bodies become the new avatar standard, and Onyx and other mesh body creators take home money by the wheelbarrow! Witness market forces at work.

So, when Sansar released stylized, rather emaciated-looking default human avatars with their Avatar 2.0 rollout, many people (including me) complained. But Daisy Winthorpe, bless her heart, saw a business opportunity!

Daisy has just released new shapewear for the Avatar 2.0 female avatar (top and bottom) that you can add to your avatar before you put on clothes, to give you the Kim Kardashian shape of your dreams! Here’s Sansar Store links to the top and the bottom (they’re only S$25 each!):

How they work is simple but brilliant. You add the shapewear first, and adjust it as you like using the simulate button (they are made using Marvelous Designer so they are completely adjustable like any MD clothing). Then you freeze the simulation for the shapewear, then add the clothing you want to wear over top and simulate just that, then freeze your outfit and remove the shapewear! The curves remain!!!

Here’s a before-and-after demonstration. BEFORE (please click on each individual image to see it in a larger size):

And AFTER (again, just click on the image to see a larger size):

Here’s another comparison shot, before and after:

Not only has the shapewear made for a shapelier, “thicc” body, it’s also made the dress seem fuller and longer overall! (UPDATE: Whoops! I just realized that it’s not the shapewear that makes the dress look bigger; the dress looks bigger because I actually made it bigger using the new Transform Item button on the Worn Items window! You can now resize clothing to fit your personal style! Try doing that in Second Life!)

Yes, I will admit it’s a bit of a matronly look with this particular style of dress I chose, but at least I was able to get rid of that starving, hangry supermodel Barbie look! I absolutely freaking love it! Thank you, Daisy!

Now, if you do find that this is perhaps a little too shapely for your tastes, fear not! Daisy has made less Kardashian-curvy models of shapewear to please just about everybody! Hurray!

Here’s her store. Now, go and give her all your money!!!

Market forces strike again!!!

Sansar Pick of the Day/Sansar Outfit Outlay: Scorpion’s Lair

Scorpion has created a wonderfully evocative sci-fi experience in Sansar called Scorpion’s Lair. We visited it today on episode 85 (already?!) of Atlas Hopping with Drax and Solas, and it is so wonderful that I decided to make it my Sansar Pick of the Day. The major build is a dimly-lit cathedral-like space with a huge wind turbine where the altar would be found, all located in a fantasy landscape sharply lit from the horizon by a distant sun. Scorpion did a fantastic job creating this space!

I am also going to show off my brand new custom avatar, created by Medhue using his FullSpectrum avatar kit add-on for Blender:

My avatar is wearing:

Custom Avatar: Tyrone by Medhue (S$899 on the Sansar Store and worth every penny, in my opinion)

Dreads Hairstyle: Tentacion dreads by Fabeeo Breen (S$200 on the Sansar Store)

Shirt: black men’s relaxed button shirt by Debi Baskerville (S$50 on the Sansar Store)

Pants: striped charcoal grey slacks by Whystler (only S$5 on the Sansar Store!)

Shoes: male club shoes (which I believe are part of the default avatar clothing inventory in Lookbook)

TOTAL COST FOR THIS AVATAR: S$1,154 (about US$11.50 or CDN$15.40)

Sansar Outfit Outlay: Chisaki

You know, when I first heard that the Sansar development team at Linden Lab was focusing on dressing custom avatars, my first thought was “meh, I’d rather have custom skins first“. But now that I can see all the creative possibilities, I think this is a brilliant move. Dozens of new human custom avatars have appeared on the Sansar Store, and over the weekend I signed in as my alt, Vanity Fair, Sansar supermodel ๐Ÿ˜‰ and picked out a new custom avatar to style.

The Chisaki Asian female avatar is a custom avatar created by KandyBrainz, for sale for S$500 (about US$5.00):

Also available from KandyBrainz is the futuristic top-bun hairstyle, for S$250 (about US$2.50):

As with any custom avatar (well, within reason), you can dress this avatar using any clothing created using Marvelous Designer (and any shoes you buy from the Sansar Store should work with it as well).

Vanity Fair is wearing:

  • the Chisaki custom Asian female avatar (there is also a second version with makeup available);
  • the top-bun hairstyle;
  • a black tracksuit jacket, one of the new items of clothing available for free in your avatar’s Lookbook inventory;
  • a pair of black matte sports pants, which I picked up for free quite some time ago, and which I cannot for the life of me find again on the Sansar Store (I think they were these ones by Tremaine, but I’m not sure);
  • and a pair of black old kicks sneakers by Wow (S$99 on the Sansar Store).

TOTAL COST FOR THIS AVATAR: S$849 (about US$8.50 or CDN$11.30)

By the way, I have tested and I can confirm that custom avatars can wear Marvelous Designer-created clothing originally intended for both male and female avatars. You might have to do quite a bit of tugging and adjusting in Lookbook, though.