Does you av look like the RL you?

LMFAO!!

Some people say they see the similarities between my AV and my RL pic in my profile, I personally do not, it is what I aimed for tho, so I guess I might be a TAD like my av, although I am top heavy like my av

My av has varied a bit lately, but certainly when it began it looked nothing at all like me. However, I did change it at one point so that it bore a resemblance to how I looked in rl about twenty years ago. But everybody kept telling me how ugly it was, so I had to change it again.

When I first started SecondLife I had a very crashy PC.

I tried to make my av look like me, on orientation island, but I kept crashing not too long after being in appearance mode, so not that many changes were made.

After I left orientation island, the only thing I changed since (in over a year now) is my hair, once, and my eye colour

(but it still doens't really look like the RL me)

Mine is somewhat like the RL me. I haven't been able to get the hair very close, but actually had purple hair for a while during college.

I am a lanky scrawny boy though.

I dress the same as my AV quite often... in fact, a lot of my clothes in SL were photo'd from my RL wardrobe by Jenn.

Fortunately, in SL, I don't have the problem of my pants shrinking in the closet!

-Flip

Well, when I am not being my Arctic Fox av ...
for the most part my av has similar facial bone structure.
I am not bald in RL and in fact have a very thick/full head of hair.
I am generally not skinny in RL, but of an average build - more muscular then other women I think - Thats why my av tends to have big shoulders/frame.
I have been referred to as android-like - not sure what that means.
I am older in RL - somehow adding the 'sl wrinkles' just isn't easy to do...

LOL it's the same for me (yeah, sure... ).

Actually i used the same body mass, i simply rearranged it...

Being serious, i didn't even think of the possibility to try to make my avi look like me, I never played Sims or There, so i had no idea of what this place could be. I decided what shape and facial traits i wanted for my avi, and now i won't change them. Unless i wear a costume.

Even if my RL look is different, my avi is something coming out of me, so it's me in some way. It's way to express myself.

There is some contradiction in these boards...
About 5 minutes ago i read a thread about AV sex and not to judge it as there is lots of ill, housebound, lonely people in this game wich have to cope with that surrogate...
Now i have here how many posts saying: i look like my AV!
If you all really look like your avatar or my avatar or whatever, stop waisting your time in this game, there is a whole real world out there that is way more fun.

I think looks and age are the things most lied about online, and thats no harm, as it gives the ones who didnt get the best looks or measurements or talents in life the chance to feel wanted or loved even if its based on an illusion.

I don't look like my AV, thank god, i would kill myself if i had toe nails like that

I agree with you, Leyla (only I think that if people want to play SL with an AVI looking the same as they look in RL, they are free to do it...).

Looks and age are often lied about, or at least simply hidden. i prefer the second way: lies too often bring drama, while hiding info is well understood and accepted by other people.

Anyway, what i learned here in SL, if not earlier during the many years i spent on the net, is that your true self can't be hidden on the long time. You can have a better look online, but if you show any talent, then you have it. There are ways to tell who you are meeting, even if you can't see RL look.

Edit: Btw, there are contraddictions on these boards. Did you need so much time to see it?

I do not look like my av at all LOL im a SL furry and i dont have fur in RL haha it would be weird if I did..the only thing on my av that is kinda like me..is the green eyes

Yeah... it's funny... I've never seen someone who didn't know how to program IRL "roleplay" as a scripter on SL. Goes to show.

I have come to embrace the contradictions...

Many people, many reasons, many personal truths -- all found in one place called Second Life.

I tried to make my AV look like me, but it didn't work out so great. I got tired of fiddling with the knobs, and the short hair seemed kind of hopeless. I guess people do custom AVs, maybe I should just pay for someone to do it. As it is, my AV looks like an average white male, and so do I

When I first came to sl. I had no clue what I should look like. So I started by modeling my avatar after my rl self. I'm a really available model. Plus I know what looks good on me in rl. I even used my skin to try to learn how to do skinning. But skinning was a bust.

why would I do such a stupid thing, as modeling my avatar after my rl self? I don't feel a need to escape my rl self, and I have never had a bad experienced revealing my self to people online. I'm just here to socialize. In the book snow crash, by Neal Stephenson, a leading author in the field of cyber punk fiction, modeling the avatar after the rl self was consider to be a form of elite status, and was a way to recognize skilled users.
Because there is no one who knows your own body better then your self. Being one self worst critic, it was a form of zen meditation. Reveling your own personal views of self, and a chance to challenge and question those beliefs.
Plus in a world where you could be any thing. Looking like your self requires one to be act as they would in rl and be accountable for their actions as they would in rl. After all some one you meet online, could recognize who you are in rl.
Plus rl friend wouldn't have to memories my avatars name.

so it was my way of saluting one of the best cyber punk books ever written.

back to sl, Every where i went, Ever one else was taller, skinner, with chiseled jaws and pecks like slices of hams. Now the only thing that look like me in my avatar is his eyes. They happen to be a picture of my right eye ball. ewww gross ^.^ Why sl uses the same texture for both eyes, and doesn't use mirroring, I don't know. Now I use a model made by lash. I figure if a girl know what she likes a man to look like. Let them make the model. I'll buy it. It leaves me more time to code.
\

Generally speaking yes Shadow looks simlar to me when I was in my late 20's. Facially we are still simlar but I am tweaking Shadow slowly away from the orginal that was me.

However, considering the Avatars are anotomically incorrect thats where the simlarities end.

Shadow

Mmmm sorta. Just compare to my 1st life pic I guess. (The face at least). The SL av face is a bit more angular and things. I don't have black hair anymore, and haven't done the mohawk thing for a while Other than that, pretty close. I'm tall - 6'4", and in pretty good shape. Which incidentally was somewhat inspired by my SL av in the first place, having lost 50+ pounds in the last year alone. Of course, being addicted to SL helped cut down on nuisance things like say, eating.

Nope, I look better than my Avi

I would say my AV looks alot like me, but is it totally accurate? No. It's not far off though. The differences are that she is a bit top heavy, while I am average... her body is more toned, as I used to be(and wish I was again). The height is the same, her hair is a little lighter, and she has a younger looking face (that wrinkle slider is a hard one to move, LOL). I also have a RL pic on my profile. For me, I wanted my AV to be me with slight improvements.

Maxx you give me hope!!! I really need to lose weight
I was born in SL at the beginning of september, let's see what will be after 1 year...
Btw, i also felt the need to improve my physic shape and look, inspired by SL. I found myself working to improve my avi, and then i realized that i wasn't doing the same in RL. That seemed insane to me, so i decided to fix it. I will never be able to make my RL person look similar to my SL AVI (facial traits are different, i maxed height and muscles sliders and i should lose maybe too much weight), but i am not going to spend more effort on my AVI than on my person.

The sideburns and hair color are about all I have in common with Milo.

My AVs face is similar to mine, down to the freckles and slight overbite, the AV however is more like I was in my early 20's which means thinner. Of course I made her as tall as possible, all legs (cause I am not) and jet black hair (to compensate for all this blondness ) - The pointy ears and changling eyes are all part of the fantasy, oh and I change my tatoos here

does my av look like me? well, in a word, no.

Hmmm, I've thought about this topic often, and did get really hung up on it when I first arrived here. I can understand both situations of people conforming to their RL appearance or otherwise. There can be many, many reasons for the latter.

None of my appearances are actually *visually* like my RL self - most especially the ones with fur or feathers

However, whatever I choose to project is a deliberately expressed part of my psyche, my core spiritual being if you will.

I enjoy that freedom of being able to define my own physical form, and that's totally intriguing for me.

For my own part I don't want to simply duplicate my RL self, not that I am unhappy with that self - it's just that out of my own particular set of motivations for being in SL, one of the key reasons is self-exploration, and freeing my mind to inhabit the appearance it feels most comfortable in at any given time aids that greatly, and makes me happy.

So in that sense my avi is *me* in a genuine and truthful way. In my own case, I don't feel a 'mini-RL-me' to be necessarily useful or relevant as far as my life on the Linden continent is concerned. I get plenty of time as the RL me in RL !

Although, staring myself in the face through the monitor the other day I recognised myself looking back - there's something inescapable there - the product of self expression I think.

As this post shows, the urge to waffle boringly is inescapable too

Flipping my viewpoint around, I simply accept and respect everyone I meet here as whatever they happen to be presenting to me at the time - as that is their choice of self expression.

I would think my avatar looks a bit like me - but this was totally done subconsiously. A major thing I have learned and have seen in action in actual day-to-day activities is that people tend to find others and traits who are similar to them more attractive. Call it concieted or becoming accustomed to your own looks since you're around yourself more-so than any other creature. A few psychology classes and my own observations have cemented this for me personally. Of course there are things I have changed, as we aren't perfect nor is Secondlife's graphic capabilities.
I personally find myself disliking games that only allow you to play a male - I enjoy being able to choose something that I identify with. It makes everything much more entertaining for me personally. The point of playing games for me is being able to do something that I otherwise could not do. Afterall, there are restrictions in real life that would prevent me from ever completing the things I do in game. I do not have the money to make my own clothing, make-up, jewelry, build my own house, own land. I don't have the capacity to fly, fight, and such. It makes me happy to do things I otherwise couldn't do - rather than look a way that is not me (of course this could be fueled by my personally dislike of real life plastic surgery). I even choose to act the way I do in real life rather than poorly - or deviously just because I can. If you are a liar online, then you are a liar in every other aspect of your life. I can tell (with some time) when someone has a masculine, feminine, androgynous, or undifferentiated personality as well. You always bring your true personality in games or at least a part of you is exposed to some degree.

There are people who have a taste for the fantastic or different, which I do indulge myself in with alternate "costume/av sets". There are also people who have psychological issues that cause them to deviate for other reasons. But I prefer the like for something amazing and new theory.

Overall: My avs facial features are similar to mine in many ways, but also a bit exaggarated. Lips are a little larger and so are the eyes than the real me. It's hard to make lips smaller yet still look somewhat full with the capacities of the sliders anyway. The hair isn't exactly the same - length and styles are similar, but the color is something I am working to achieve in real world - perhaps a bit more natural orange - but orange, red, blonde streaked none-the-less. Eyecolor changes often on my av, but green has been my preference as it is my real eye color. The figure of my avatar is the same as mine - although I do have more of a stomach at the moment. ( ah, winter - the cold initiates natural bad eating habits on my part. ) The height is exact and short - how I prefer it on myself. Small hands and small feet, just like me.
I love topics like these, they tend to make you think. A lot of people who choose something different from their real life self prefer to keep that to themselves, so we will only see one side of the coin. Plus, the subject was directed to those of us who choose to look similar to our avatars. This thread in general does not account for every one in SL. We do contradict each other because we are different!

My avi looks nothing like me in Real life..i created my avi to look like what i dreamed of looking like

Many similarities between Lecktor and me. I am scheduled in RL to have my ears trimmed next week.