Here's an interesting item of note...

I am reviewing photographs of my avatar and I see a distinct progression from an 'open and innocent look' to a 'mature' (read age, not necessarily experience) look. Anyone else notice this? It is interestingly bizarre, because this is the same change that happens to our faces as we age and experience things.

Here are shots taken at each 'point of revision' in my SL life to date. See for yourself... (four here and four in the reply).

The remaining four...

Oh, I saw this too. In fact, I wonder if they put it in the latest patch? Or??

I didn't change a thing on some of my looks from the day I first made them. But as I look at Prok now, he has distinct shadows under his eyes, reflecting all those late-night hoverings over parcels trying to terraform and demarcate them, in between visits to the flame wars on the forums ROFL.

In fact, Prok was looking so peaked and undernourished with bags under his eyes last night (Foolish Frost had told him to "sit down more often" that I really zoomed in and studied his face for some time. And I had to conclude that somebody has tweaked the shadowing in the game to make faces have more planes and shadows. Unless I'm losing my mind lol. Could just be my graphic card being colicky which it does now more with the new patch.

This may be something I've done somewhere on my toggles -- I endlessly fuss with them to get the game to stop crashing. But I dunno.

What do you think it is?

Hmm..you're a babe in all of them.

But you do seem more sophisticated as time passes, but I'm sure that is pretty normal. I know my looks have changed somewhat from when I started due to better clothing..a skin...plastic surgery...drugs...

Interesting Cienna. I wonder if a lot of people subconsciously age their avatars as they get more confident in their environment. Our little Cienna is all growed up now

Such a stern countenance in the later shots!

Glad you posted, though, as I've noticed something else...

I can tell a newbie by their face. I guess it's because people don't stray all that far from the default face. But the practical result is that newbs all have this dainty, almost infantile appearance that changes and fades as they take ownership of their avs.

It really is fascinating how our avatars begin to show their maturity. I wish I had some snaps of my original avs. Much different from now

What I see are the results of SL wealth.

Better clothes, fancier surroundings, jewelry, hairdo, skin, etc.

Elegance tends to make people look more mature.

You look nice in all the pics though.

Tito

i have noticed this also, and since i have pictures from when i joined in november of 2003, i can really see the changes along the way.

You look different but I think it was changes that you made though.

I would LOVE to know where you bought the outfit in .jpg 5. Adorable.

I haven't noticed it but I made my AV somewhat aged at the beginning. Now I will have to take a close look. If they are really aging our AV's, mine will be a hag soon.

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I tried to make my face look older than 22 when I joined, but succeeded only in getting a very pinched, ugly look. So I settled for just a slacker jawline, which actually tends to give me an even MORE baby face in profile, lol.

Now y'all know that all my clothes and everything are freebies - I rarely buy anything (though I did get a wonderful seagull today! You should all drop by my house and look at it). But I did get a pair of texture- and color-changing glasses with a gift certificate I had won to Firstie's Prim Jewelry.

These glasses are just totally WONDERFUL and so versatile and beautiful and SO MUCH FUN, and also give my avatar at least a more serious look, which automatically makes her look kind of older, so I ADORE these glasses. Which is odd, cause I would much rather wear contacs than glasses irl.

I would take a picture of myself in themand post it here, but I'm not sure how to.

I have the same makeup and hair and body I made the first night, but I just last night got around to changing some make-up and putting it in another folder so as not to lose my original self, the fear of which has kept me from experimenting with this up to now. I always wear more makeup in SL than I do irl, because we are farther from each other's faces in this game, quite a bit like on stage, so I consider my makeup here to be stage makeup. I doubt I will ever change my body, though, which approximates my rl body. Unless it is to be something like . . .

. . . a FRUIT BOWL! Yes, I am the proud owner of the fruit bowl avatar, now, thanks to azazel (or however it's spelled), and I do enjoy fumbling and bobbling around in that, kind of like Scout in her ham costume in To Kill a Mockingbird.

Next up: Try to make myself a ponytail.

coco

I think it's a slow process of making the avatars more realistic looking, in most cases.

This is the Flickr set of my avatar progression: SecondLife Avatar I need to add in a new one where, with the help of a friend, I tweaked the facial proportions to make her more realistic looking. As you can see (like the other Cienna) I've gone from a fairly young look that was still very 'Ruth' to the more modern look that is older looking than my real age. I also wear (and make) glasses in SL, though I have nearly perfect vision in RL. One thing I lack, though, is the addition of a custom skin on my own; those drastically skew appearance towards an older age is what I've found.

For another look there are a few shots of my alt, although her progression is over the course of a week rather than a year and a half; since I'm feted and old and twinked her, as it were. Alt 1, Alt 2, Alt 3. Again I had my friend's help from the start on the alt. She initially looked much older before the adjustments to facial proportions. The difference between 2 and 3 is rather subtle, I had sezmra remove some of the facial shading to bring her age back down a few years after getting the custom skin.

I must be weird I think my av looks younger than when I was a newbie.

I slowly change my avatar, but I use the "make outfit" tool a lot, and the other day I looked at my original avatar, and it was... really really ugly. It's weird. I was all proud of it at the time too, but its interesting looking through all of my old avatars.

It could also be the result of a different graphics card, updated graphics card drivers, or changes to render settings... such as shadows/local lighting/bump enabled/etc.