Tag: Second Life Avatars

Hollanov: Take Daily As Required (and an Update on my Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov Avatars in Second Life)

I forget exactly how or when I found this piece of Heated Rivalry fan art, but I love it.

Hollanov is the name of the ship (relationship) between Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov. It’s shorthand which covers all the fan-created works inspired by the hit television series Heated Rivalry, based on the Game Changers series of gay hockey romance novels by Rachel Reid.

On December 31st, 2025, I wrote on my blog:

And so it was, that my Second Life freebie fashionista friend and partner in crime, whom I only know by their avatar name, Dreamer Pixelmaid, messaged me via Discord and asked me if I had watched Heated Rivalry yet. I had not. (Tonight I am finishing my second rewatch. I am hooked.)

…

It turns out that Dreamer and I not only have a shared interest in ferreting out fabulous Second Life freebies and bargains (something we both happen to be very good at!); we also shared an interest in same-sex romance fan fiction! Soon we were exchanging links to YouTube videos, Tumblr posts, and podcast links, all to do with the outsized reaction which a small Canadian TV show about a gay romance in the professional hockey world (actually, not one but two such romances) was causing, both among the gays and the straights.

Here is a zoom-out of all the pictures stored in the Photo Library on my iPad. Ever since Dreamer Pixelmaid told me about Heated Rivalry in late December 2025, 99.99% of my saved pictures are Hollanov fan art! I am legitimately obsessed.

Also, I now have well over 400 Heated Rivalry-inspired fanfics (fan-written fiction) bookmarked to read. I usually spend an hour or two lying on the sofa reading through recommended HR fanfics, some of which are good, and a few of which are among the best writing I’ve ever read. (I usually read lying on the sofa, to rest my neck and shoulders if they are aching. Oh, and the best place to find this fanfic is a website called Archive of Our Own, or AO3 for short. Here’s a link to get you started, of the most popular Heated Rivalry/Game Changers fanfic sorted by popularity. You’ll need to set up your own AO3 account to read some of these. Enjoy!)

In addition to fan art and fan fiction, there are many people who create fan-edited compilations of scenes from the television show. These video artists usually set their fan videos to music, but in the following example (one I love to rewatch), the fan-edit was made to a spoken-word poem by actress Helena Bonham Carter.

Source: Wild Geese by Mary Oliver (read by Helena Bonham Carter)
Fan-edit created by heated-rivalry-two-souls (posted to Tumblr)

Wild geese

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting —
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

In other words, in only eight months, Heated Rivalry has inspired people to create many, many Hollanov art, videos, and stories. I haven’t seen anything like this personally, since Brokeback Mountain sparked a similar explosion of fan fiction, almost exactly 20 years ago. (I even created some alternate-universe BBM Jack/Ennis movie posters, using my rudimentary PhotoShop skills! So you could say that Hollanov is not my first rodeo…pun intended. 😉)

As to why a gay hockey TV show has led to this level of obsession, a social psychologist tries to explain, in a more scientific way, why Heated Rivalry has had such an impact (10-minute YouTube video; she also has a whole channel diving into other aspects of the show from a social psychology perspective):

Well, as you might already know, I have been using my 19 years of experience in creating and styling avatars to create Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov avatars in the virtual world of Second Life. I wrote about an earlier version of them back in January, but since then, I have been able to obtain much better head skins for both Shane and Ilya, and I have been tinkering around with the face and body sliders a bit more, so now they look like this:

And here are some pictures and videos I have taken of them in the past few months:

The cuddle animation in this video is from the Dutchie sofa (worth every Linden dollar spent!)
This tender animation is from the menu of options on this bed from Dutchie.

My most recent Hollanov creation in SL is the following work-in-progress video (silent, 1:14), in which I show various skating animations from two different AOs. Unfortunately, I still cannot seem to find any kind of hockey jersey that fits well over these hockey pants from Meva (the only ones I could find on the entire grid and in the Second Life Marketplace). So we have a topless Ilya skating around (I’m quite sure this is a sexual fantasy of Shane’s in some Heated Rivalry fanfic I have yet to read!).

Ladies, gentlemen, and fabulus people of all genders—Ilya Rozanov on ice!

UPDATE August 14th, 2026: I found a set of static hockey poses with a hockey stick on the Second Life Marketplace, and I took some more pictures of Ilya Rozanov at the Brooks Arena within the Chamonix City Winter Sports Complex. I probably will need to recruit some more avatars to actually create a believable hockey scene with multiple players, but hey, it’s a start! POSE AND ANIMATION DESIGNERS: Season two of Heated Rivalry will be released starting April 2027. Please please please make some hockey poses and animations! There is next to nothing out there. This was the only set of hockey poses I could find on the SL Marketplace. Thanks!

I have been posting these pictures and videos to Primfeed (the Twitter of Second Life), as well as to four different Hollanov fan Discord servers of which I am a member. And I even resurrected my ancient, long-dormant Tumblr account to be able to post them to the thriving 31,000-member Hollanov community there:

Below is an example post of my Shane and Ilya Second Life pictures to the Hollanov community on Tumblr

Of course, the Hollanov fans (who call themselves “loons,” IYKYK) know next-to-nothing about Second Life, and many of the SL folks, who have not watched Heated Rivalry or read the books, are probably mystified as to why I am so often posting shots of these two fictional hockey players to my Primfeed. What can I say? My two obsessions have collided. I might need to create a very niche, very specialized 12-step group for myself… 😜

So, now you know how I have been keeping myself busy when I have been feeling anxious and overwhelmed and need an escape: enjoying Hollanov fan fiction, fan art, and fan-made music videos, and busy dressing, posing and taking pictures and videos of my Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov avatars! It’s been a blessed escape to enjoy other HR fans’ works, or to get lost in the creative flow of Second Life for an hour or two.

Thank you to Rachel Reid for writing the series of novels, and thanks to Jacob Tierney for making such a wonderful TV show from Rachel’s books. Heated Rivalry has inspired me to move forward in so many areas of my life. I’m so grateful for the push it has given me!

UPDATE 4:15 p.m. August 7th, 2026: I’ve been asked to provide the full styling credits for both the Ilya Rozanov and Shane Hollander avatars (please note that this is an update from my January blog post about them, before I bought new head skins for both):

Ilya Rozanov Styling Credits:

  • Head, Eyes, and Hairbase: LeLutka Kris head (a freebie from a previous LeLutka December event)
  • Head Skin: Ilya by Stray Dog (matches Velour’s Ivory skin tone)
  • Neck Moles: Izzie’s neck moles (medium)
  • Hair: WingsDG ER0714 brown pack (this was probably the hardest thing to find; I tested out a lot of hair at a LOT of different places before deciding this one came closest to Ilya’s shaggy, curly hair! I actually added the same hairstyle twice, and slightly rotated the second one, to get this look.) Underneath I have the BoM LeLutka EvoX hairbase 42 from the LeLutka head package.
  • Body: Meshbody Legacy Special Edition Basic (free, from the Avatar Welcome Pack)
  • Body Skin and Hair: Velour Picasso Homme fit figure body skin in Ivory skin tone (along with the chest, leg, and happy trail body hair and body moles included in the package; all body hair was tinted blond to match Ilya’s hair).
  • Arm Hair: Arm Hair 05 from Samurai (I bought this for free using free Samurai store credit from a previous Shop and Hop event; also tinted blond to match the rest of the body hair)
  • Fingernails: Purec Nature Nails Male (free group gift; group is free to join; they come with a fingernail alpha)
  • Toenails: Purec Nature Nails Male (free group gift; group is free to join; they come with a toenail alpha)
  • Shape: My own, playing with the face, head, and body sliders to match up with internet pictures of Ilya Rozanov/Connor Storrie (still somewhat a work-in-progress, although I am very happy with this result).
  • Animation Overide: Tuty’s sLIFE Free Male AO (free)
  • Shorts: Hardcore (HD003ST) Men’s Slim Fit Shorts in black (I bought this for free using free Hardcore store credit from a previous Shop and Hop event)
  • Black Underwear: Hardcore (HD013BS) Men’s Basic Briefs in black (I bought this for free using free Hardcore store credit from a previous Shop and Hop event)
  • Hockey Gear for Video: Meva’s Hockey Pants Complete (these only come in the Signature Gianni size, but with alphas they fit well). I had to create a BoM/underwear layer grey wool sock to cover some bare skin above the skates.The skates were bought from a gacha reseller, they are from the Winter Hockey gacha by Sese & PA and you’ll need to find a good ankle lock to use with them, as well as foot and fingernail alphas! There’s no skating AO that comes with them, so I am trying to cobble something together myself from other skating AOs I can find…still a work in progress! Somebody please make a hockey AO, you’ll make a killing once season two of Heated Rivalry hits!

Shane Hollander Styling Credits:

  • Head: LeLutka Gen head 4.0 (while there’s a free Gen Lite version in the Avatar Welcome pack, I bought the full-price version to use the facial animations and poses in the HUD)
  • Head Skin: Shane skin by OuterNaked (matches Velour’s Idol skin tone; includes the optional, tintable freckles shown in these pictures)
  • Eyes: Florest eyes from Alexandrite
  • Hair: Jack hairstyle by ADE (free group gift; group is free to join). Underneath I have the BoM LeLutka EvoX hairbase 49 from the LeLutka head package, tinted a darker black.
  • Body: Meshbody Legacy Special Edition Basic (free, from the Avatar Welcome Pack)
  • Body Skin: Velour Picasso Homme fit figure body skin in Idol skin tone
  • Arm. Armpit, and Leg Hair: Arm Hair 02 and Leg Hair 02 from Samurai (I bought this for free using free Samurai store credit from a previous Shop and Hop event)
  • Fingernails: Purec Nature Nails Male (free group gift; group is free to join; they come with a fingernail alpha)
  • Toenails: Purec Nature Nails Male (free group gift; group is free to join; they come with a toenail alpha)
  • Shape: My own, playing with the face, head, and body sliders to match up with internet pictures of Shane Hollander/Hudson Willaims (still a work-in-progress, but I am extremely happy with this result).
  • Animation Overide: Tuty’s sLIFE Free Male AO (free)
  • Shorts: Arcback Shorts Blue – Legacy Basic (free; I believe I picked these up at the new Avatar Shopping Island here).
  • Hockey T-Shirt: Matching Hollander and Rozanov Ottawa Senators team T-shirts. Available on the SL Marketplace for only L$60 here: https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/Tribute-T-Shirt-Heated-Hockey-Tees/27912865
  • Underwear: Hardcore (HD013BS) Men’s Basic Briefs in black or grey, depending on the picture (I bought these for free using free Hardcore store credit from a previous Shop and Hop event).

UPDATED: Crash Landing (and Showing Off My Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov Second Life Avatars)

Have you read? Heated Rivalry is Brokeback Mountain All Over Again (and How Coming Out Applies to Virtual Worlds, Social VR, and Other Forms of the Metaverse)

Six weeks ago, I wrote on this blog:

No, I will no longer be writing about Second Life, although yes, I still will be playing it.

Well, as long-time readers of my blog know by now, I am absolutely terrible at sticking to any promises I make about my blog content. Right? Right??!?

My four-week Heated Rivalry-inspired endorphin high ended when I got into a car accident last weekend (ironically, on my birthday). Both vehicles involved were damaged. I was badly shaken up, and the accident triggered some body aches, and, of course, aggravated my already-existing neck and shoulder pain. It was my first car accident in almost twenty years, and I feel like such an idiot. Now I have to fit in visits to my insurance agent, my car dealership, and a bodyshop in between visits to the physiotherapist, massage therapist, and doctors. I have been exhausted, and I have been taking some sick days to rest, relax, and recuperate. Frankly, I’ve been a bit of a mess these past few days.

To get my mind off my current troubles, and to avoid a depressive spiral, I have been doing a deep dive into the Heated Rivalry fan fiction community over at Archive Of Our Own, as well as popping in to check the latest fan art, memes, and fan fiction recommendations on both Reddit and Tumblr. And so it was, that I decided to take two of my minor male alts (i.e. alternative, non-main avatars) and transform them, as best I could, into the gay hockey players Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov of the hit Crave television series Heated Rivalry, based on the Game Changers series of novels by Nova Scotia author Rachel Reid. (Some people who are artists can draw fan art; I instead choose to use my 18+ years of Second Life avatar creation and styling know-how to create models for my own form of fan art.)

I posted the results in several successive Primfeed posts (which most people probably don’t have access to, since you need a Second Life account to access the posts, as I have my account set to private), as well as to Tumblr, where they have been favourably received (you have to agree to view potentially mature content to see my pictures, even though there’s no nudity or sex, and you might have to actually sign up to Tumblr to see this, I don’t know; all the pictures are reposted below, anyway).

So, I decided this evening to finally share some pictures of my works-in-progress, as well as include detailed styling notes for both my Shane and Ilya avatars. First some pictures (please click on each one to see it in a larger size):

Ilya Rozanov Styling Credits:

  • Head, Eyes, and Hairbase: LeLutka Kris head (a freebie from a previous LeLutka December event)
  • Head Skin: Varka by Gloom (Velour Ivory skin tone; this was a previous weekend sale item Dreamer Pixelmaid told me about)
  • Eyebrows: Nuve Charlie eyebrows (EvoX, light brown tintable; free group gift; the Nuve group costs L$350 to join, but you get dozens of EvoX eyebrow fatpacks!)
  • Facial Moles: Ellie beauty marks and moles for EvoX from Guapa (not a perfect match, but close enough for now)
  • Neck Moles: Izzie’s neck moles (medium)
  • Hair: WingsDG ER0714 brown pack (this was probably the hardest thing to find; I tested out a lot of hair at a LOT of different places before deciding this one came closest to Ilya’s shaggy, curly hair!)
  • Body: Meshbody Legacy Special Edition Basic (free, from the Avatar Welcome Pack)
  • Body Skin: Velour Picasso Homme fit figure in Ivory skin tone (along with chest, leg, and happy trail body hair and body moles included in the package).
  • Fingernails: Brown 4800B Natural Short Nails Male – Legacy/Athletic (available from the SL Marketplace here: https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/4800B-NATURAL-SHORT-NAILS-MALE-Jake-Kario-Athletic-Davis-Gianni/26241982; I used the Blushed Legacy Lite fingernail and toenail alphas available for free here)
  • Toenails: Purec Nature Nails Male (free group gift; group is free to join)
  • Shape: My own, starting from the included body and eyebrow shapes included in the Varka skin package, and playing with the face, head, and body sliders to match up with internet pictures of Ilya Rozanov/Connor Storrie (still a work-in-progress, although I am very happy with this result).
  • Animation Overide: Tuty’s sLIFE Free Male AO (free)
  • Plaid Jacket: Rowers Beck Jacket #1 Legacy/Athletic (got this for free with a Rowers store credit from a previous Shop and Hop event)
  • Shorts: Hardcore (HD003ST) Men’s Slim Fit Shorts black (I bought this for free using free Hardcore store credit from a previous Shop and Hop event)
  • Hockey T-Shirt: Matching Hollander and Rozanov Ottawa Senators team T-shirts. Available on the SL Marketplace for only L$60 here: https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/Tribute-T-Shirt-Heated-Hockey-Tees/27912865

Shane Hollander Styling Credits:

  • Head: LeLutka Eon Lite head (free, from the Avatar Welcome Pack)
  • Head Skin: Nick skin from Alexandrite (Velour Moon skin tone; this was also a weekend special deal that Dreamer Pixelmaid told me about)
  • Eyebrows: Nuve Dylan eyebrows (EvoX, black; free group gift; the Nuve group costs L$350 to join, as I said above, but you get dozens of EvoX eyebrow fatpacks!)
  • Eyes: Florest eyes from Alexandrite
  • Freckles: Voglia Freckless at 25% (a gift from a previous shopping event, which will do for now until I find the perfect Shane freckles!)
  • Hairbase: Dura black hairbase BoM EvoX (F1-01; free group gift)
  • Hair: Jack hairstyle by ADE (free group gift; group is free to join)
  • Body: Meshbody Legacy Special Edition Basic (free, from the Avatar Welcome Pack)
  • Body Skin: Velour Eros Lite for Legacy (Moon skin tone; this was a freebie from Velour from the very first LeLutka December event, six years ago)
  • Fingernails: Brown 4800B Natural Short Nails Male – Legacy/Athletic (available from the SL Marketplace here: https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/4800B-NATURAL-SHORT-NAILS-MALE-Jake-Kario-Athletic-Davis-Gianni/26241982; I used the Blushed Legacy Lite fingernail and toenail alphas available for free here).
  • Toenails: Purec Nature Nails Male (freebie)
  • Shape: My own, starting from the included Nick body and eyebrow shapes, and playing around with the face, head, and body sliders to match up with internet pictures of Shane Hollander/Hudson Williams (still a work-in-progress).
  • Animation Overide: Tuty’s sLIFE Free Male AO (free)
  • Plaid Jacket: Hardcore (HD008JK) Men’s Jacket with Hoodie R/B (I bought this for free using free Hardcore store credit froma previous Shop and Hop event)
  • Shorts: Arcback Shorts Blue – Legacy Basic (free; I believe I picked these up at the new Avatar Shopping Island here).
  • Hockey T-Shirt: Matching Hollander and Rozanov Ottawa Senators team T-shirts. Available on the SL Marketplace for only L$60 here: https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/Tribute-T-Shirt-Heated-Hockey-Tees/27912865

Other Credits:

  • Bed with built-in cuddle poses and animations: Dutchie’s gay sex bed (I had Shane and Ilya test out the in-store model to take the cuddle poses, but I’m pretty sure I am going to go back and actually buy this, because the animations are marvelous! UPDATE Feb. 1st, 2026: Yep, I bought it!)
  • All other pictures taken on my super-secret desert island where I can rezz objects like pose stands for a short period of time before they are automatically returned. And, no, I am not telling you where it is! One new place I can recommend is The Fitting Room (I wrote about it on Primfeed here, but my Primfeed is set to private, so you’ll need to set up a Primfeed account to be able to read that post).
The Fitting Room offers private change rooms and photo studios.

UPDATE Jan. 30th, 2026: Okay, I finally found a good, large, front-facing picture of Shane Hollander from the internet (thanks again to Dreamer Pixelmaid!), and I spent some more time fiddling with the head and face sliders to make my Shane Hollander avatar look a little bit more like Shane Hollander/Hudson Williams. Here’s what he looks like today:

I’ve still gotta work a bit on the head shape (or perhaps, use a different head than the LeLutka Eon one). UPDATE Feb. 17th, 2026: I have now decided to switch out the Eon LeLutka Lite head for the Gen LeLutka Lite head from the Avatar Welcome Pack, and I’m much happier with that one:

This is (as a drugged-up Shane Hollander in the famous hospital scene from episode 5 of the TV show would say), BET-TER. 👍😉

Also, based on a helpful suggestion from Graeme Strange on Primfeed, I found a modify/copy/no-transfer gay cuddles/sex mat, which can be made invisible, and therefore can be incorporated with any Second Life bed! While I still like the Dutchie’s bed I mentioned above, and I am probably gonna go back and buy it, the Devinz mat cost only L$1,499 and was therefore an instant buy for me. Thank you, Graeme!

I couldn’t find it on their SL Marketplace store, but here’s the vendor at the Devinz Designz PG & Adult Furniture Store (exact SLURL), plus a few poses of Shane and Ilya cuddling that I took yesterday evening using their gay sex mat (click on each picture to see it in a bigger size):

UPDATE Feb. 1st, 2026: Okay, I bought some more hockey equipment for Shane and Ilya. First, some more pictures (please click on each one to see it in a bigger size):

I already talked about the hockey T-shirts above in my avatar styling credits, but here’s what I added:

The hockey pants from Meva (which only come in a Gianni size) fit my avatar’s Legacy Basic body fairly well, with a few alphas required in the hips. upper leg and knee area. These come in a very complete fatpack to change the texture of multiple parts of the pants and knee guards, and are L$495 here: exact SLURL (the Meva store has a central spawn point, so use the Show on Map feature and follow the red arrow/beam to the menswear section).

The only decent black hockey ice skates I could find were part of a hockey gacha from Sese PA, which I bought for L$120 from a reseller here on the SL Marketplace: https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/11-Sese-PA-Winter-Hockey-Skates-black/26694430 (again, I needed a foot/ankle alpha and a toenail alpha for the Legacy Basic body used here).

To cover the bare skin between the skates and the kneepads, I just created a new underwear layer, using a wool fabric texture, adjusting the waist and length, and tinting it dark grey.

This last gallery of pictures was taken at Brooks Arena in the Chamonix City Winter Sports Complex.

Second Life Avatars, WOMBO, and Reface: A Tantalizing Glimpse at the Future of Avatars (OH MY GOD WHAT IS THIS EVIL SORCERY?!??)

NOTE: For more information about the Reface mobile AI app, please click here.

Okay, one more blogpost (last one, I promise). I plugged the following selfie of my main male Second Life avatar, Heath Homewood:

Into the WOMBO app (which I only discovered via Twitter today), to get THIS:

Boom Boom Boom by the Vengaboys

WHAT. IS. THIS. EVIL. SORCERY?!?? This is the most over-the-top, jaw-dropping, demented thing I have ever seen, and I absolutely want this as my next animation override, NOW! Mind. Blown.

O.K. I want the Waterfield Group (the new owners of Second Life) to DROP EVERYTHING, acquire WOMBO, and merge it with Second Life! Make it happen!

Holy shit. This just leaped past the Uncanny Valley in my opinion. This works so well it is truly scary. Heath looks like a real person!!! Try it for yourself with a facial picture of your favourite avatar, and let me know what you think!

Here are a couple more examples:

Thriller by Michael Jackson
Never Gonna Give You Up by Rick Astley

UPDATE 2:25 p.m.: I just dropped US$$29.99 (about forty dollars Canadian) on an annual Premium WOMBO subscription, and I have decided…I am just going to self-treat my chronic clinical depression today by plugging Second Life avatar selfies into WOMBO all day. I reject your reality and substitute my own!

Don’t Cha by the Pussycat Dolls
I Will Survive by Gloria Gaynor
NEW as of March 13th, 2021! We’re Not Gonna Take It, by Twisted Sister

Of course, it’s not just Second Life that you can do this with; WOMBO works with avatars you create in any social VR platform or virtual world. Here’s an avatar I created in Sansar, singing Thriller:

And, of course, it’s not just avatar pictures, it works with any face pictures. Here is Frida Kahlo (or, more accurately, her self-portrait), singing Tunak Tunak Tun, which is the mashup I never knew I needed until today!

Or, you can now get the Mona Lisa to sing the Numa Numa song:

UPDATE March 11th, 2021: Reza Zadeh just took this whole WOMBO-fying your art thing up to a whole other level! (I suspect Reza used WOMBO to animate the heads, then somehow pasted them back into the pictures. He also used some music clips that are not part of the WOMBO app, so perhaps he used different software. Either way, it’s hilarious. I just lost it at Marat coming back to life in his bathtub!)

UPDATE March 17th, 2021: I am just having so much fun throwing Second Life selfies into WOMBO! The company keeps adding new songs, too! Here are some of the latest additions (the Borat one is an exclusive for Premium members):

A little Twisted Sister, perhaps?
Perhaps some Funky Town disco?
The Borat Bing Bong song is a WOMBO Premium members exclusive!

UPDATE March 20th, 2021: And here are a couple more new songs available on the WOMBO app, as of today! I had actually asked (via the #song-suggestions channel on the official WOMBO Discord server) for Friday by Rebecca Black.

Friday by Rebecca Black
I’m Blue by Eiffel65 (a WOMBO Premium user exclusive!)

UPDATE March 21st, 2021: This afternoon I discovered a new mobile app called Reface, which allows you to insert your avatar’s face into movie clips and animated GIFs. Here’s an example, using the face of my main Second Life avatar, Vanity Fair:

Vanity Fair

Here’s Vanity Fair as Mona Lisa:

But wait, there’s more!

Here’s Vanity in thean animated GIF as Marilyn Monroe. Isn’t this amazing?!??

Vanity Fair as Marilyn Monroe

But wait, it gets even better! Witness the resulting MP4 movie clip, where Vanity Fair’s face is superimposed upon Kate Winslet’s in a succession of clips taken from the 1997 blockbuster movie Titanic:

Vanity Fair stars in the 1997 movie Titanic!

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.

Here’s my main male avatar Heath Homewood as actor Harrison Ford:

Heath Homewood
Heath Homewood as Harrison Ford

And here’s an animated GIF I created of Heath Homewood as Freddie Mercury!

In some pictures, you can even insert more than one avatar’s face. Here are Vanity Fair and Heath Homewood in the famous Grant Wood painting American Gothic:

Vanity and Heath: Second Life Gothic!

UPDATE March 22nd, 2021: Well, tonight I am howling with laughter as I put my normally sedate Second Life supermodel, Vanity Fair, through WOMBO to sing some Taylor Swift, interspersed with some very well-timed goat screaming! Tonight, this my new favourite thing!!!

And then, I got really creative and starting combing the AI tools!

I pasted Vanity Fair’s face on Kylie Jenner’s body using Reface, then put a screen capture from the resulting animated GIF through WOMBO, et voilà! Here is the result! I am having way, waaay too much fun with this!

And Heath Homewood will sing you out with yet another exclusive song clip for Premium WOMBO users…

UPDATE April 5th, 2021: Three more musical clips from the fevered minds at WOMBO!

Despacito by Luis Fonsi
My Way by Frank Sinatra
Cotton Eyed Joe by Rednex

UPDATE April 6th, 2021: Here are a couple more tunes—enjoy!

Shake It Off by Taylor Swift
It’s Raining Men by The Weather Girls