Tag: Modeling

Second Life Supermodel Vanity Fair Gets a Second Life on Real-Life Runways via the Reface App!

PLEASE NOTE: My blog is still on indefinite hiatus; I made a single exception for this blogpost. After this, I will be going back on my self-imposed break from blogging.

I jokingly refer to my main Second Life avatar, Vanity Fair, as a “Second Life supermodel”, because she appears so often on this blog, as my go-to model when I am showing you the latest fashionista freebies and bargains across the SL grid.

Second Life supermodel Vanity Fair 😉

Well, this afternoon, I discovered a new-to-me mobile app called Reface, which uses AI (artificial intelligence) techniques to allow you to magically insert your avatar’s face into still images, animated GIFs, and movie clips! As you will see, you can do some truly amazing things with this app that you can’t do with the WOMBO app I wrote about on this blog, starting from March 10th, 2021, a blogpost I have since updated several times.

Here’s an example, using as my starting point the following selfie (the ONLY image which is used to generate ALL of the still images, animated GIFs, and videos you see below):

Vanity Fair: my starting image

And here is Vanity Fair as the Mona Lisa:

Here’s ten more famous paintings and statues with Vanity Fair’s face superimposed upon the original (please click on each one to see it in full size):

But wait, there’s more!

Here’s Vanity in an animated GIF as Marilyn Monroe (there’s no sound). Isn’t this amazing?!??

Vanity Fair as Marilyn Monroe

Well, the rest of my Sunday just went entirely out the window, as I began slapping Vanity’s face on as many supermodel movies and animated GIFs as I could find using the Reface app! (They have a keyword search feature that easily pulls up dozens of GIFs and movies for just about any occasion.) After 13 years, Vanity Fair gets to escape the confines of Second Life and go stomping down some real-life runways!

Here’s some of my favourite results so far (some are MP4 movies with sound, while others are just animated GIFs with no sound):

But Reface can be used on more than just runway modeling!

Here, Vanity plays all five singers of the Spice Girls!

And below, Vanity Fair is the new star of the wonderful 2001 French movie Amélie:

Reface allows you a decent handful of face swaps before it imposes a 30-minute timer to slow down your use of the free version of the app. I signed up for the Pro version, which costs US$2.49 weekly, or US$24.99 annually (I signed up for the weekly rate just to put it through its paces, but I might upgrade to the annual rate).

So, as you can plainly see, Reface is giving Second Life supermodel Vanity Fair a second life! (See what I just did there?) The app is available for both iOS and Android mobile devices, so why don’t you take it on a free test drive? It’s great fun!

UPDATE March 23rd, 2021: Here I used a selfie from another one of my supermodel avatars in Second Life, Moesha Heartsong…

Moesha Heartsong

…and pasted her face onto a succession of Victoria’s Secret fashion model videos!

UPDATE March 30th, 2021: My new crazy stupid thing to do today is to paste Vanity Fair’s face on Marlene Dietrich’s body! I have always been a fan of Dietrich, and I love how well these turned out. Once again, here is my starting picture…

…and here are the resulting animated GIFs!

UPDATE April 2nd, 2021: Today we have several animated GIFs with Vanity Fair’s face on Greta Garbo’s body!

UPDATED! Fashion Models in Second Life: A Fad That Has Come and Gone?

Images taken from the Beauty of Rehana blog…quick, somebody get this model a sandwich, she must be starving! She looks hangry 😉

At one time, there were literally hundreds of avatar fashion models in Second Life, who would be hired to perform in virtual fashion shows for designers, and even work as mannequins in stores. In fact, Vanity Fair worked for a couple of years as a mannequin/model for the avatar fashion designers Lemania Indigo and Lestat Reuven, back in ye olde pre-mesh clothing days. She got free outfits in exchange for standing in the store for a shift, showing off the latest fashions and occasionally answering a question from a shopper.

Nowadays, it would appear that there are more modeling schools and agencies in Second Life than actual modeling jobs! There’s even a blog to keep track of them all. Most modeling schools will charge you a pretty penny to teach you everything there is to know about modeling in SL, but I have found that if you just spend enough time in Second Life, you can learn most of what you need to know for free. Who needs a school, especially when there are so few jobs for the people who graduate? There are pageants you can enter, but these all seem to be run by the modeling schools, which seems to me to be a sort of vicious circle.

Is the era of SL modeling over? I would argue that it is. Most vendors are creating alts to use as mannequins and to illustrate their products in stores, rather than going through the fuss and bother to find and hire (and pay) fashion models. Bloggers tend to use their main or alt avatars to illustrate their blogs (like Rehana, above). And I can’t remember the last time I heard about a fashion show in Second Life, or a store that was actually hiring models. Most of the buzz now is about monthly events like Uber and FaMESHed. (By the way, the current anniversary round of Uber runs until August 22nd, so be sure to get down there and grab all the free gifts!)

What do you think? Is Second Life modeling dead? Feel free to sound off in the comments, or better yet, join the RyanSchultz.com Discord and take part in the discussions and debates taking place there!

UPDATE Aug. 7, 2019: Amanda Magick of the Second Life blog Magick Thoughts SL has also written about this topic. So has Monica Querrien, a Second Life model and blogger, on her blog Moni’s World. They both add a lot to the discussion, so I would encourage you to go over and read their blogposts.

Thanks for the tip, Amanda Magick!