Are Prices of Content falling too?

Very good last point. I´ve made a couple of tops that look great on me, but the detailing goes horribly distorted on more well-endowed females. The seams shouldn´t change though?
Greatest fun ever was making t-shirts with pics of loved ones for friends. A female friend of mine asked why I hadn´t put the picture of her partner on the front of her t-shirt

Unfortunately, the stretching aspect doesn't just stretch where the boobahs are.

If there is a horizontal line across the front and back, meeting at the seams, if someone is rather chesty (or takes a male shirt to wear on female) the stretching goes from front to the seam as the texture renders that half. Looks great on small chested av's possibly, and matches up perfect, but of Jordan were to walk into it, sorta like a woman in RL wearing a few sizes to small, it bunches at the seams distorting the design.

Since the original texture is flat, it doesn't take into account that the back is flat while the front is either muscled or chesty, which means content creators can only really adjust for themselves and hope for the best. Especially when it comes to lingerie.

We´re actually talking about the same thing I think It´s really awkward to make tops and see them look completely different on someone else. And no way to correct for that either until you see it on someone who´s bigger boobah´d.
I´ve also seen this happen with some of the most expensive stuff around BTW, to stick with the secondary original topic in the thread.

lol, Yeah, I have a great gown, absolutely gorgeous gown, that took a lot of time, I can see that, BUT because of my av shape, it's out of proportion and unfortunately, I'd have to change my entire self to look correct in it, but others are stunning. I did pay quite a bit of money (I think around 1300L) for it, and it doesn't work. But that's okay for me, because everytime someone buys anything, it's a gamble. But this is also before I started creating and realized the av shapes definition to the content.

That's why I look for me sized models.

I wonder if anyone else has been doing that, and in that search has narrowed down the places they shop, which also leaves less money spreading around to different vendors, which in turn creates a semi price war?

I mean, if you could take the chance on 1 gown being "maybe" slightly distorted for 400L, versus a gown I know would fit for 1500L... that's a tough call. At least for me, but that's cause I'm a money whore.

Good question. I´m sure if you´ve been around long enough, you start having favourite stores, where - in the context of the distortion factor - you know you´re going to find something that will look good. And I suppose given the choice between spending more on something you know will work or spending less on a (dare I say) gamble, many people would choose to spend the extra. But then you also have factor in the particular style of the buyer and the store etc. Shopping remains a headache IMHO.

One thing that blew my brain the other day was a store, which shall remain nameless, where the outfit came with a notecard stating the best body measurements to go with the outfit. Oh and a hair store which recommends changing your head to make the hair work

Taking this a step beyond just clothing, skins tend to be the same way.
One skin looks gorgeous on my shape, another looks like hell. Yet the same one that looks like hell on me, looks stunning on my friend and the skin I wear, looks bad on her. It's definately a matter of shape.

I've noticed more and more people doing this with hair anyway. I bought some really cool hair from Aitui the other day, which Jesseaitui (hope I spelled that right) had included a notecard with HIS head size, but also instructions to resize. The headsize, at least from what I gather, is his way of telling them, if you can't edit it to fit you, here's an alternative.
Even with boy hair, I've never had a problem fitting it though. It's helpful for people who are clueless about resizing or just tend to screw it up.

I didn't even think about skins. I've had the same one I bought since I started, but my av hasn't changed an ounce (even hair color).

And I think the testimonials from that too, if you didn't have someone to compare to, might be rather bad. "So and so's skin is so ugly and distorted and nasty, etc." Wonder how much that plays a part in it too?

That makes sense. Although the notecard I referred to never even mentioned the option of how to adjust it yourself. Most notecards that come with hair give reasonably detailed descriptions of how to do that. I´m a hair fitting addict btw.
My comment was more in the context of how different clothes and hair can look on different shapes. I for one would rather not adjust my shape to fit an outfit, would prefer to do it the other way around

As for skins...... I spent about eight months looking for one I liked, tried a gazillion demos and finally settled for something that works reasonably well with my shape, which, like I said, I´m kinda attached to.

It all makes judging outfits, skins, clothes etc. from ads in shops all the more difficult, and shopping occasionally a very disappointing experience IMHO.

Definately. I won't change my shape for a hair. I will change a hair to fit me though. Even with the hair from Aitui I mentioned, after shrinking it down, I had to move and delete certain prims to get it to look "just right" for my face/ears. I suppose everyone's not as gifted as us (fitting addicts) though lol.

Another thing I tend to do:
if I buy alot from a hair place like Kin, I don't even try the demos unless it's a funky shaped hair style. If I know it's going to fit, I don't bother.

Perhaps. Then again I'm charging $1250L for a skin that took me about 300 hours to make. That's about $4.75us per sale. Amortize 300 hours over $4.75 and even at minimum wage (forget about anything competitive for a competent graphics designer), I need to sell 473 units just to get what I could've flipping burgers. So, although manufacturing cost is zero, the production cost most definitely was not. Granted, I am the first to admit that I made this skin for me and making at least minimum wage on it was not one of the design criteria. I just wanted to rebut the "it costs nothing to make" argument.

Insofar as the overall falling prices, I think what you're seeing is basically a glut of utter garbage on the market. I end up throwing away something like 90% of the clothes I buy from "unknown (to me)" designers. Personally, I'd much rather pay the extra price for the designers I know to be good and actually wear the stuff. What is truly disheartening about this is that it makes the job of a new designer almost impossible. How is a customer to weed through all the garbage to find your goods, even if they are top quality? And when they do, they will compare the price to the hoards of freebies being resold and decide not to buy anyway.

I'm a premium account, and I'm still shopping. There's always the "I haven't got a THING to wear!" and, "oh, THIS old rag?" motivations behind new purchases. Works for guys and shiny vehicles, too. Plus the desire for novelty and change causing purchases of furniture, whole houses, etc.

I have a premium account as well and still spending money in SL... if what you make is GOOD and I need/want it, I will pay for it.

Hey, what is this about guys and shiny vehicles...?

/me hides the number of bows in his inventory...

A case in point...

A new friend (male) and I were out touring around this place and that. Every time we'd run across some sleek curvaceous aerial vehicle or a big shiny mecha bot, he'd stop and say, "Hey, check this out! Cool, huh?"

I was a little miffed after the fourth such event, since at the time I was wearing a sleek, curvaceous, shiny catsuit myself. Did he say, "Whoa, babe, you look like Mach Two standing still"? Nope. Upstaged by the hardware.

/me thinks that you are hanging with the wrong kind of bo... err guys. When you want to show off you next catsuit (or anything else for that matter) make sure that you give me or one of the other perv.. err men in this group a shout. I hear one has a dancing frog and another one a bad case of crabs... but I am pretty sure our eyes would not wander too far from the Soft-wear..

/me smiles and raises his right eyebrow playfully...

.d

It is very disheartening to hear about your experiences with buying clothes from new designers. I suppose it is possible that you have very high standards or simply that you are unlucky (or perhaps both).

I do worry about such things a lot. I mean I like the things I make, I compare them against other well known designers to see if quality wise they are ok. But its not enough IMO. I would be quite upset if people bought things from me and subsequently trashed them because they didn't meet their expectations.

As such I decided to offer a 30 money back policy, so if someone didn't like an item I would refund the price of it no questions asked. Luckily nobody has yet asked for their money back. But even if they did, rather that than sinking their hard earned L$ into something they didn't like.

I'm not sure what more I can do other than treat my (few) customers with respect.

I like trying to find new places to shop, as a customer, while at the same time there is one that I'll always go back to visit.

Didn't mean to mention the customer side, but the creator side. These threads, and what I've seen in SL are why I've never even attempted to ever sell anything. Though someone said they wanted to buy something once. Never did, but that was a nice little break from reality. It is discouraging. The last thing I made, I made quickly just to go along with a little joke, and that was probably two months ago. Just too discouraging to see the high quality of everyone else's stuff (discouraging as a creator; as a customer, I'm always encouraged to buy and keep looking, by the great things I've seen, that people took the time to build).

{looking at this post again to see what I have to fix, and I always have to fix something, I spotted my avatar picture, and heh, there's one outfit I made}