So what kind of look are you going for?

(Sort of a spin-off from my last entry.)

How did you decide what your avatar would look like? Did you want it as close to the real you as possible? An idealized version of you? A combination of the real and ideal? Something totally unlike the real you? And if so, why?

Post away, and reveal all here!

When I first arrived, I did exactly what they told me NOT to do. I sat there for 30 minutes dinking around with my avatar. My figuring was, the world isn't going anywhere -- and darnit, I want to look good when I meet it!

The appearence of my avatar tends to change on a daily basis. I like to tweak and experiment with the various settings, come up with crazy stuff and enjoy the ability to fully customize the way my 'character' looks; this is a first for me, and there is nothing so annoying in the other MMOGs I have played as running into my 'twin'.. oh wait, make that 'triplet'.. no wait.... You get the idea.

Contests involving AV creation interest me a great deal, so that's another way I've been toying around. I'm just now (after three weeks) understanding alpha channels and trying new ideas out.

My avatar really looks nothing like me, unless you count her current hair & eye color. I have tried to re-create myself, and it was most definitely a "self-image quiz." The results amused me, but it was by no means something I wanted to stick with. I see that person every day, and it's good to have a change. <grins>

I think what I like best about this capability is that, if you aren't into scripting, or building.. you have the oppurtiny to spend your time on another means of creation. And from what I have seen so far, some people certainly enjoy it.

Well, if you go over to the Name Game thread in the General Discussion forum, you will see that Alexis is a character from a story I am writing, so I tried to pattern my av look close to what I imagine the character to look like... it isn't completely exact, but it's close.

Bye bye for now,
Alexis

My first avatar was purely a reaction to the environment. I have been playing one form of online rpg or another for about 10 years, the one common thread among them is the sword and sorcery aspect, so my immediate reaction to this new environment was to put on a skin that I knew. Hence my jet-black, neon spiky haired itty bitty demon. LindenWorld(soon to be known as SecondLife) was a strange world, where anything could be done, which was a bit over powering, and i needed something to ground me, kind of ironic that it was a bit of a fantasy world that did it.

Now, for me, it isn't so much about creating an avatar that looks like i do in RL, (if i wanted that, i would just post a picture of myself on a giant block, and wander around with it attached to my head), but about letting people know what kind of a mood i am in, since all the body language we use to communicate out in RL doesn't exist in SL(yet). So along those lines, i have an angry av, a silly av, a mature av, stoic av, and a couple a just fun avs. Like i said, i try to use them to convey what is going on in my head at that very moment, although they all basically mean the same thing, except the angry av, , since i am just generally happy.

I chose my SL name from litrature (Neil Gaiman's excellent "American Gods", and tried to make my avatar look like my image of his namesake (and yes, spent most of my first day playing with the apperance sliders too). Rather than radical changes or having many different avatars, I go through small tweaks. If my look is converging towards some final version, or if I am just randomly mutating, I'm not sure.

When i first heard about this game and signed up I had already decided what my avatar was going to be like. I named myself Hikaru because I wanted to look like Hikaru off of Angelic Layer. So when i finally got into the game the fist thing i did was go underwater somewhere and start changing my avatar. When i got into the real SL world I started creating objects and figuring out how to attach them. In about 3 days i was able to look pretty much like the way i wanted it. In 5 days i was at where i wanted it. Later i changed into the Fight Card from Cardcaptor Sakura, but i think it looks more like an ice princess. Right now i'm working on changing it again to a different anime character.

I didn't create what i looked like, until the very end of the little tutorial thingie. And then i spent almost an hour and half, just doing my face lol. I've played alot of roleplaying games in the past (in fact i lost my addiction for my last one cause of SL...woohoo ;p). And so the character that i've always had in my head of what 'Aurelie' looked like, was finally able to be recreated in something i could see visually. I"ve tweaked her a bit since then, mostly just the color of her hair, but thats about it. I wuv her!!

Second Life is my very first on-line experience. I read a brief description in a magazine, thought it sounded fantastic, signed up, and for some unknown reason I got selected. Like I said, this being my first game I had no idea what to expect, there was no “Prelude” at that time, just the short introductory walkthrough. For the first day I used mostly the default avatar, flew around the World in awe of everything I saw, and didn’t meet a single other person! I decided to play with all the controls and task bars, besides being noisy, I was getting bored.

Oh look, I can change myself to look like just about anything I want! But not having seen anyone else at this point, it never even dawned on me to look something other than what I look like in real life, so I tried to get as close as I could. I spent 3 days trying to get the face “just right”, which it still isn’t, but I finally gave up. I did take a little liberty with a certain part of my anatomy, always wondered what I would look like with bigger……oh never mind, however I have since scaled back to “close” to normal.

I like my little munchkin look, even if my feet don’t touch the ground, so for other than a special event, I will stay with what I have.

And that, is my story.

-TK

I almost never have any goal in mind when creating a new look. I just make up a folder in my inventory of all new body parts and clothes, and start tweaking. Once I tried making an av that looks like me, but until we can make truley curly hair, its just not going to happen.

Its pretty interesting though - if you watch people they will eventually get to an avatar they are "used to." There might be minor cosmetic changes here and there, but everyone always seems to eventually find a look that they just end up keeping.

I've been playing for a while now - I started with changing to a new avatar every 2 weeks or so. When we went beta, a lot of users were a bit confused when they met me, because I might be a green alien, shoalin monk, busty blond girl, or totally weird chick with fish for breasts. However, I have pretty much settled down into my big blue guy av. (people complain when I try to swtich of of him) Every once in a while, I still make a new Av - but they are "temp" - like my girl for the genderbender party, or the latest old asian guy i've been using for the cyberpunk town.

oh, and I make custom avs for $$ Dave Zeemans Neo shape and Bel Muse's Av are my work.

bbc

First let me say BBCs big blue guy is one of my favorite avs.

Like he said I have a main av I stick with. My av is meant more to
convey the real me than look like the real me. There are similarities but thats about it. I have tweeked it a little here & there over time, mostly playing with the hairstyles and decreasing the muscles til I find a place where people dont think I'm a man.

I have several other avs I have made for various reasons, usually events. I made Thing from the Fantastic 4, James Dean, and who
hasn't made an alien.

I also have a male av that is a preferred alter ego that I use to model clothes I have made.

I really enjoy this part of SL and play with the av sliders pretty regularly. I may make more celebrities and sell them at some point but right now that's not a focus for me.

Like Lyra said, that's about what i ended up doing. It was the first thing i had control over in the game, so I went to work on something that i thought would look good to me. But as I fiddled around with my appearance, it started dawning on me that the possibilities were far and beyond what any MMORPG type game has given me before. I kept messing with it until I reached the point were I understood how weird i could get myself to look without having to resort to created objects attached to me that would have to be scripted in some way to give the overall effect some justice.
Right now i'm in my StarTrek TOS mode and find that i can get some pleasing results since most of the alien races were pretty much humanoid.

Zeb

My AV is an in-world representation of my idealized personality: A wise old sage.

A wizard, but not the kind that just plays fancy little tricks, the kind of wizard who has been there and done that and knows why it all happened kind of person. The kind who does everything with a puporse.

And of course I'm a bit relaxed about it as my blue jeans, t-shirt and sneakers show. I gotta be comfortable . Although I would wear a robe if I had a decent one in game.

I do not think I would ever attempt to make an AV that actually looked like me.

I saw SL as a way to create a representation of what I wished others to see me as. And that turned out to be a wise old sage, with blue plasma for eyes. Kinda weird for a 23 year old eh?

Hmm I need to spend more time with my av.

I have spent a limited amount on my appearance but my goal is to make my av look like me (At least as practice). Right now its pretty close.

However, SL av customization is trully great. I wish all other MMPOGs had thier customization at this level. I believe most of the Next gen MMPOGs will so it is definitely good.

I tried to make my avatar look SOMEWHAT like me. I wanted the face in particular to look like mine (failed on that count, it's just too hard)... going lenient on what I look like, of course... I tend to keep the same body for my av, but I like playing dress up. To me, the different clothes and accessories are more interesting than making wild characters.

Heheh, I consider my avatar to be a hyperextension of my personality. I'm not really a mad scientist with a bolt-action rifle and a bandoleer, but I am certainly leaning that way in a much tamer sense in real life.

I look just like my AV lol NOT!!


But if you knew me irl you would see that I do not physically look like my av but you would notice that my AV's appearance is an extension of how I hold my views, emotions, and all around how I show myself on the exterior.

So without to much personnal detail my AV is an extension of my mood (in a nut shell) It has a direct relation to how I feel irl and in Lindoland

But as I said its a rough dark mysterious exterior, I usually don't hold the attitude that the look my AV shows, it's just a Scorpio trait I have to those I don't know.

Get to know me, you will see that I am a teddy bear in a demon costume.....

I guess my AV is just what I always imagined Dionysus Starseeker to look like. Dionysus isn't my RPG name, so I couldn't really make an AV that was brandishing a sword (even though I do on occasion). I've sence made several more AV's based on either a video game character, a movie character, or just a concept.

I love love love the Av controls, my favorite feature of SL. It has been wonderful seeing the Av features develop over the course of Linden's continuing evolution. Back when I first started we only had control over texture applications so it really has been an exciting road.

I love to change my looks, almost as spastic as my dieting habits. I enjoy the creating of look-alike known characters and people as well as some totally out-there looks. Currently I am on a "Color Series" binge. This week I’m green.

i'm on permanent vacation.

barefoot, shorts, t-shirt, and a big floppy hat.

i have played with the avatar options very little. it was one of the last things i tweaked. my av looks roughly like me, tall & lanky.

even tho i'm blasé about how accurately my av mirrors me, i feel uncomfortable wearing a different outfit. i once wore a Space Ghost outfit for a week while i was creating & scripting attachments for it. after i finished it and slipped my old bp outfit back on, i made an audible sigh of relief.

bp

ok I spent almost no time on my avatars. The first one was created using the random feature in the avatar feature controls. The second one was made by Tooth Lippman and the third was made by BuhBuhCuh Fairchild.

What's funny is that the avatars made by third parties resonated with me very strongly. And I found something about each avatar that was expressive of some aspect of my personality.

I like to think that the artist in the other players picked up on something they saw in my personality.

Having other people create avatars for me is a kind of discovery. Rather than being limited by my own concepts, I get to "see" myself through someone else's eyes.

The avatar I normally is about the same as the one I created the day I started SL. I don't know if the problem was something I did or not, but I had to recreate it about four or five times before I stopped reverting to the Ruth avatar. Since then, the only change I've made to the body is making the ears a little pointed when that option became available.

I wanted an avatar that was definitely not a regular human, but not too strange. Something that looked fun-loving, unintimidating and a little amusing.

I've made a few different avatars, because I do enjoy designing them, but I seldom use those other ones. My normal avatar does not resemble what I actually look like, but it is what I feel I ought to look like. In a way, using anything else seems like wearing a disguise.

While my avatar's body has stayed the same, I frequently change clothes. Some of it is very much like the really do wear and some of it is much more ecentric, depending what I feel like at the time.

Because of my avatar's appearance and the last name I chose, many people seem to assume it is supposed to be a hobbit. Actually, what influenced me the most in designing it was Rolf Lidberg's troll paintings.

I tried to make mine look like me . I dont dress like my av though, and my hair is not straight like that its more wavy, but yeah I sorta tried to make it look like I do offline.

For some reason, I felt compelled to create myself as an Asian as soon as I entered the world. I was messing with my appearance to reflect this even before I began the tutorial. (:

I’m a short, Irish redhead IRL, but I love learning about cultures and traditions, especially Native American and Asian. I wouldn’t say I would prefer to be of another culture than I am IRL… rather I am celebrating the cultures I admire in SL.

My pointy ears in SL, however, do stem from my wish that RL could be more “fantastic” … I like to think of myself as a wise, older elf… though young-looking and always smiling and full of spirit (with a hefty dose of mischievousness!).

What I do think is interesting is that Ama Omega (my fiancé) and I both think of ourselves as wise beyond our 23/24 years, and our in game personas reflect this (though in different ways). I guess that’s why we get along so well. (:

Cool comments, all-- keep 'em coming!

Wednesday,

I just clicked on your Gaiman reference. Excited to see another fan of his work here. Can't believe we met and it didn't come up, heh. I guess once we are "in world" it becomes much easier to get distracted, but sometime I'd love talking SANDMAN and whatnot... Neil's my hero.

-Voodoo