Bone Mosten - Sexiest Male Avatar 2008

Hip, hip, hooray! Bone Mosten overwhelmingly won the Sexiest Male SL Avatar of 2008 as voted by the community on the New World Notes Blog and organized by Iris Ophelia.

I'm very pleased for two reasons - the first and least because Boner is a friend of mine, the second and most important is because Bone is one of the funniest and nicest and most talented folks you'll ever meet in SL. The fact that he came into SL and created a non-stereotypical avatar, and infused much of his own taste and personality into creating his persona, and has the sense of humor and intact ego that he can play games with his appearance and not feel threatened in the least by it, is much of what makes him, in my mind anyway, an awesome addition to the world.

WTG Bone!

NWN Hottest Avatars 2008 - Vote Now

Iris Ophelia brings us New World Notes Hottest Avatar 2008. Pop in and vote for your fave. This has been going on for several weeks (months?) now, and the originally nominated list of thirty is down to the last ten! The pressure is on now!

I always love Iris' writing, on NWN or on her own blog Ophelia Drowns. She's chosen an eclectic group of avatars to vote for. Not a single blinging SL uberbouncer in the whole group.

Oh, and go Bone!

Calling all animators

If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it must be a default Second Life avatar, right? Linden Labs is seeking a contract animator to replace the "broomstick up the butt" default avatar walk that causes everyone on the grid to get an animation overrider that then cause all that lag that we love so much! You know, the ones that make the official greeting of SL become "AO off".

So, if you are such an animator, or you just play one in SL, drop a notecard with your name, preferred method of contact, and any links to your work on Bucket Linden's profile in SL. That's Bucket, rhymes with Bucket, Linden.

And good luck!

Avatar as Mask

Robbie Dingo explores the use of avatar faces as masks behind which we experience SL and each other. Avatars simultaneously hide and reveal our selves to the greater world. The video highlights our differences as well as our similarities. Enjoy!

Fun with Avatars

Lust by Grendel's Children

One of the things I enjoy so much about SL is the freedom to change your avatar. There is so much fluidity to the human sliders on the basic avatar, and then there are the creative artists that make prim attachments and costumes and hair and shapes and skins so that we can appear to be almost anything, any size, any era, any gender, ad infinitum. Some of the tools in SL are so easy to use that basic costumes are a snap. And then you have the creative geniuses at places like Grendel's Children or DarkDharma or Psyra Extraordinaire and Seven's Selections and many many other content creators in SL! Here's a few of my favorite recent playthings!

Tiny fairy avatar by Seven's Selections in Flotsam Beach - compare to the lovely and talented Whitney for tiny size comparison!

An amazing Raven avatar by the talented Psyra Extraordinaire, who now has a Birdworx section all her own at Grendel's Children.

Fantastic dragons abound at Grendel's Children, this one comes with a riding attachment, that is sold separately. Trainable dragons! Who knew?

LILcat

in ur mailbox leaving u a surprise

Mermaids

I'm having fun playing with the mermaid themes - I found some lovely animations by Shanna Sungsoo of Starfish at Siren's Grotto in Shamrock.

It puts the lotion on its skin....

..... and puts it in the basket.

Study in Wireframe

I like to putter around with some of the lesser known tools - and play with the camera in SL.

One of the rendering options in the Client menu (formerly the Debug menu) is to view your surroundings in wireframe. You can get some interesting effects this way.

If your Client/Debug menu isn't visible in your options, click Ctrl-Alt-D in Windows (sorry, maybe someone can comment on the Mac command!) and it should appear along with the Server menu. Happy debugging! ;)

Ruthed .....

.... is the new black.

Grendel's Children

After seeing Mat's Deep Sea Siren avatar the other day, I decided that I just had to have one. I set off in search of Grendel's Children, which is the name of the shop where he found it, and I have to say, the place is amazing, but also amazingly hard to find! The Deep Sea Siren is only 90L$ if you can believe it. It's by Flea Bussy, and comes in purple, blue, green, yellow, red, pink, orange, and teal, including everything you see here plus an AO. I just love its lithe flexi movements.

The shop itself is lovely, and sells a variety of avatars and accessories, by multiple artists, including the illustrious Psyra Extraordinaire. Many of the avatars are quite affordable by recent SL standards.

This scorpion is extremely well done, it's made by Memnoch Matzerath and I am not making this up, it costs only 5L$. That's not a typo, that's FIVE. Multiple colors, many of them using shiny to great advantage. I almost look forward to getting backed into a corner now.

The selection is amazing. Do visit.

Grendel's Children is in Avaria (46,173,249)

Gone Fishin'

The most interesting avatars wash up on the shores of Mowry Bay. I just loved Mat's new Deep Sea Siren from Grendel's Children, I am so going to have to pay a visit!!!

Avatars and Identity

Interesting article on Clickable Culture today, on this week's South by Southwest conference lecture "The Imago Effect: Avatar Psychology" given by Harvey Smith of Midway Games in Texas.

Why do folks choose the avatars they choose to represent themselves? In an environment such as SL, where the customization of one's avatar is almost unlimited, how do you decide what is "me" and what is "not me"?

Masks and archetypes and self, oh my!

The eternal noob

Not everything works the way you expect in SL!


Another skin experiment that turned out well. Rowr!!


Meditating or plotting trouble - it's so hard to tell the difference.


Sometimes you just have to let your inner child out.


I like to make things that are useful. This asshat comes in handy.


Puff likes to sail with me.


You just can't take everything so seriously.


One of my favorite profile pics.


Occasionally I am a blonde, but not very often. Someone I can't stand told me once I make a good looking blonde, so I tend to stay auburn or brunette. :P


My very first homemade avatar. She has a baaaad attitude.
And she smokes. Naughty faerie!

Enjoying Loth's particles in Mocha.

One of the very first pics of Lillie in SL.