Sophia Harlow has thrown down the gauntlet.  No, we will not be drawing guns at high noon…I’ll still be drawing little hearts around her face at that hour. Rather, she has challenged all SL bloggers to take a walk down memory lane and post photos of how our avatars have changed over time.

A looooong time ago, when I was actually able to keep my inventory halfway organized, I used to make folders for individual looks. Each folder included shapes, skin, eyes, AO’s, shoes…the whole nine yards.  I reached into my now-rarely used Complete Outfits folder and came out with the look on the left, circa November 2007.  And on the right is Gabby circa 20 minutes ago.

Now, it’s your turn to take a trip in the time machine.  How have YOU changed?

On December 26, Samara Barzane issued a challenge: Share the three things in our inventory we couldn’t bear to part with.  I’ve been thinking about it since, and I think I’ve finally come up with my three…sort of.  So, without further ado…

1. Vetro Eyes by Exodi
Specifically, Vetro in Blue, Large with Veins.  I’ve always loved Ryker Beck’s eyes, going all the way back to her Genesis line, but these are the ones I consider to be “my” eyes. I may wear them in different colors periodically, but I almost always come back to blue, and I always come back to Vetro.

2. Truth Hair
I’m cheating a little bit and not selecting a single hairstyle, because I love everything Truth Hawks has made, particularly his most recent releases.  Full disclosure time. I haven’t always been a die-hard Truth fan. I spent my first several months in SL as a blonde and I just couldn’t find the blonde shade that I loved at Truth. But I kept trying because I liked the styles so much.  Eventually, I gave in to Truth’s yummy brunette shades and I’ve never looked back. Ironically, though, it is Truth, with his new textures, that has led me back to my blonde roots. There are other hair designers whom I love: Lamb Bellic, Autumn Hykova, and Aemilia Case are at the top of the list, but I would indeed be lost without my collection of Truth.

3. FilterCam HUD by Mechanized Life
In my inventory, you will find every incarnation of FilterCam ever created by CodeBastard Redgrave. Every. Single. One. And I still have the first photograph I took using the very first MachinimaCam Filter 0.11 on October 1, 2008.  Since then, I’ve watched Codie shape the FilterCam from concept to release, through upgrade after upgrade, and there is no other single item in my inventory that gets as much screen time as the FilterCam.  There are so many frames and effects to choose from, I rarely open Photoshop for anything more than a quick crop…and to make new masks! This is one gadget that you will have to pry from my cold, dead pixels.

There you have it, my Three Little Things. What’s on your list?

This evening I had the pleasure of attending (yes, in all my fruity glory) the Pre-Launch party for the Fashion Designer’s Challenge.  This event, the brainchild of Samsara Nishi, features 35 of Second Life’s most talented designers and requires them to work collaboratively to create clothing, skin, hair and shoes that are, perhaps, outside their usual style.  The event opens to the public on May 5 with a fashion show of all of the designs.  Make your plans to attend now, you don’t want to miss this.

“For a long time I’ve wishing to explore more deeply the collaboration aspect of SL, and I was also so curious about how it would be to organize such a thing… Finally I found a funny way to do it: usualy fashion designers, including me, work alone, all by themselves… well… what if they could influence each other to create? So I decided to invite other fashion designers to join me to be challenging each other to explore our creative minds by practicing our design abilities on the fly!” says Samsara Nishi.

I was blown away by the creativity and unique styles created by these uber-talented designers, so without further ado, let me share with you some of my favorites…and truth be told, it was incredibly hard to choose, there were so many, many well crafted, well thought out designs. Read the rest of this entry »

Isle Lunesea posted on her blog about how we can all do our part to reduce lag at crowded events, hunts and expos by choosing wearables that contribute to a low ARC or Avatar Rendering Cost.  So she challenged bloggers to come up with attractive, low-ARC outfits…under 100 ARC to be exact.  I really pushed the limit…and, okay, I might have dipped my toe over the line a little bit…but I came up with two looks that I think fit the spirit of the challenge.

There are those who will argue that ARC is a myth.  Personally, I will admit to being completely non-techy, so I don’t even pretend to understand all of the arguments for or against the legitimacy of ARC and its effect on sim lag.  In fact, just this week I discussed this with Codie and she tells me that, other than the sim build itself, skin is actually the largest contributor to lag at crowded events.  She made sense, but skin only has an ARC value of one.  So, how does that compute in the swirl of rationales debated by those for and against ARC as a lag measure?  But I digress.  This post is about the spirit of the challenge so lets get to the pictures, shall we?

Read the rest of this entry »

Ana Lutetia suggested this fantastic challenge on her blog, and I’ve been shopping for a couple of weeks to pull everything together for the looks I wanted to create.  Needless to say, each shopping excursion ended up changing my focus a little bit.  I knew, however, that if I procrastinated any longer, I’d never get started on this challenge.  So lets go over the rules, shall we?  From Ana’s blog:

So, the armoire diversity challenge is: dress your female avie with male clothing and accessorize it accordingly with the gender or vice-versa (dress your male avie with female clothing). And… show us the looks you have created. I am really looking forward to see the stuff everyone will come up with.

And here is my look:

I started with a great military-style jacket that I just happened to spy when my camera went crazy while I was cruising hair at Gritty Kitty.  To make it work on my shape required some editing, the prim work on the front of the jacket alone had to be adjusted prim by prim in order to make it curve around my tatas.  But if there is one thing I’ve learned, its to not be afraid of modifying a piece of clothing or hair, as long as its copyable that is.  Just make a copy of the item in your inventory before you begin, so you’ll always have the original if you make a mistake.  The boots were a L$1 buy I found at Katat0nik some time ago and came in both men’s and women’s sizes, and I picked up the jeans and hair from ShopArmidi.com.   My skin, of course, is Fleur Biba again.  I swear I obsess over each new makeup Roslin adds to the Allure line. *gets on my knees and begs her to bring Feline into the Allure family soon*

I have another look all cooked up and ready to go, but it will have to wait.  In the meantime, any suggestions as to what you’d like to see me in?

Style Sheet:
Jacket – Gritty Kitty Parade Coat
Boots – Katat0nik Axis Mundi Sculpted Boot
Jeans – Armidi Limited – (M) Lowrise Jeans Bleach/Torn [Jet]
Hair – Armidi Hair – The Emo One – Midnight I
Skin – Fleur Allure Truffle Biba 1
Eyes – :: Genesis :: SnowLight Eyes (Special Edition)
Poses – AnaLu Fresh Poses (male series)