Kawaii Idol and Fashion Expert

I didn't log in to Second Life for over a month.  Mostly I've been watching movies or TV series in the evening, getting in about 50 minutes of exercise on the treadmill at the apartment complex exercise center, and then trying to write a bit before I go to bed.  I've managed to get a lot of writing done recently, although I should probably be working on my anime fanfic by now.

Anyway I spent most of Sunday goofing off in Second Life.  Right away a friend wanted to know if I wanted to join a group for idols.  I said sure, I guess, and I was told to IM the person who was in charge of the group and mention my friend's name.  Well, that seemed weird to me, I'm not in the habit of IMing people to beg to join their group, especially when I'm not even sure what the group is about.  I did some quick research and found that it was an SL idol music group, and there were two groups -- one for the professional members of the group, one for fans to keep up with their announcements, performances, etc.  That one was free to join for anyone, so I joined it.  But it seems my friend is not in the fan group but the pro group... but I wasn't sure why I needed to be in the pro group, or if I was being invited to it, so I left it at that.

But all of this reminded me that my current look was outdated.  In particular, I really liked the profile photo of the person running the idol group.  She looked cute and professional as you might expect from a Japanese idol.  I didn't look nearly that good.

So I decide to build a whole new avatar, because that's the thing I do most in SL.  This time I wanted to get a really good, modern skin -- a lot of mine are years old by now.  I went looking for a nice Japanese or Asian skin and after a lot of shopping I settled on the photo-realistic skins sold by DRLife (Digital Reality, I think is what it stands for).  I had decided on one of several possibilities, but then I tried on the demo models (Side note -- it really annoys me when a demo of anything in a store is delivered to you in a box that you have to open, but you're not allowed to rez objects in the store.  Seriously, you're inviting me to leave as soon as possible, without buying anything, you realize this yes?  Also, the first store I was at, the demo box wasn't even working for the skin I was interested in.)  Anyway, tried on the demos and the skin I really liked didn't look nearly as good on my usual shape, so I settled on what had been my second choice, which actually looks very good.  These were very expensive skins... but I plan on making this my new look so I decided to go for it.

I also bought some hair from DRLife, and then some new eyes from IKON.  Then I went looking for an outfit for my new look.  Here's what I came up with:

Skin:  DrLife SilkGIrl Xue-Fair
Shape:  Modified Colette's Body Shop Anime
Eyes:  IKON Lucid Eyes - Optimism
Hair:  DrLife Natural Hair Leila (set to Chocolate)
Belt/Skirt:  Shine Mesh Pleated Mini Skirt tartan lila (& casual belt black)
Top:  Colly Top Purple Leopard (Designs by Danielle)
Socks:  Sn@tch Derby Socks Eggplant
Boots:  AvaGirl Sandra White
Panties:  Gawk!  Black Stars Mini
Jewelry:  (hidden)  AvaGirl black bangles
Necklace:  lassitude & ennui Queen's gambit necklace gold/purple

That was Sunday.  Monday night I shopped a bit more, and came up with a few more looks and photos:

Skin:  DrLife SilkGIrl Xue-Fair
Shape:  Modified Colette's Body Shop Anime
Eyes:  IKON Lucid Eyes - Optimism
Hair:  DrLife Natural Hair Leila (set to Chocolate)
Boots:  lassitude & ennui Assassin's Boots white
Pants:  Alessandra Beltless LEather Pants Black
Shirt:  Sassy! Poet Shirt White
Necklace:  lassitude & ennui Queen's gambit necklace gold/purple

Skin:  DrLife SilkGIrl Xue-Fair
Shape:  Modified Colette's Body Shop Anime
Eyes:  IKON Lucid Eyes - Optimism
Hair:  DrLife Natural Hair Leila (set to Chocolate)
Skirt:  Ambrosia Mesh Flared Skirt glencheck
Sweater:  Ambrosia knit black
Socks:  Sn@tch Wooly Plaid Socks Moss
Boots:  lassitude & ennui Lazy boots black
Necklace:  lassitude & ennui Queen's gambit necklace gold/purple

I'd just taken the above picture when I got called away by a friend to serve as a fashion expert.  Their male friend needed help finding clothes.  I don't know why I'm an expert on male fashion, but I'd just read a thread that day on SLUniverse about good places to shop for men, so I looked that thread up and we tried several places listed there -- FATEwear, XTC Leather, Razorblade Jacket, and Mortality.  My friend was looking for more punk styles so the last two in particular worked, but he's also a furry, and mesh clothing can be difficult to adapt to a non-standard avatar.  But mostly I think I was able to justify my friend's unexpected faith in my fashion sensibilities.  I also remembered the furry fashion blog http://covermyfurrybutt.blogspot.com/ and mentioned that, which my friend was interested in.

So yeah, fashion expert, I guess.