Anime Girl (UTILIZATOR Avatar 2.0 Beta)

I bought a new avatar today.  After all, that's one of the things that I do in SL.

This is not technically my first full-mesh avatar, since that's basically what petite avatars are, and what some of the newest furry avatars are (pretty much).  But this was the first time I bought an avatar that is basically intended as a replacement for the default Second Life (female) body.

There are some downsides to this.  You can only wear mesh clothing and pretty much only stuff designed for this specific body, although some other things might work.  Mesh shoes and boots with alpha layers probably can work fine, prim or mesh skirts can probably work if you play with them, that sort of thing.  Pants and tops, not very likely, but I suppose it depends.  UTILIZATOR has several clothing options so you can make a nice anime-girl avatar, but beyond that your clothing options are almost non-existent at the moment.  Also, you get the one skin, which can be lightened or darkened, but no other options right now.

The advantages?  This body is very beautiful, with none of the weird bumps and strange artifacts of the default SL body.  It's designed to look good sitting or bending as well.  I had a really good test for this too:  an animated stand that I'd bought several years ago which had my avatar stretching and turning this way and that before bending over.  It always gave the old Second Life avatar fits, twisting up the waist and looking very ugly.  How would my new avatar fare?

(Old Second Life Avatar -- the animation really messes it up.)

(New Avatar 2.0 looks beautiful!)

Unfortunately the only way to truly appreciate the beauty of this new avatar is to see it naked, because that's where you see some of the biggest flaws in the Second Life avatar.  ~_^  But hopefully these swimsuit shots will give you some idea.

Surfing Teahupo'o

Here's a few pictures of me trying out the waves in Teahupo'o.  This is a pretty set of sims (four at least, from what I saw).  They claim to have the longest waves in SL, which I took to mean waves that you could ride the longest, but on reflecting they may have meant the widest waves.  They have two large waves side by side so that may well be true.  They have spray that kicks up from your board, a nice touch, but the waves make no noise, something that I don't like at all.

But overall it seemed like a very good surfing sim.

Surfing T'ai

I imagine the waves here in T'ai are the ones called "fluffies" which are not super-challenging for the pro surfers... no pipes, just a big wave.  But I find those to be the more realistic ones also, and this one comes with sound so it's very realistic.  The whole sim is incredibly pretty, nice place to visit!

Before this I tried to surf at Cape Marina, but I was unable to rez a board there, not even in the square where you're supposed to rez boards and not even the freebie board they provided.  It's probably set to a group but you can't freely join the group, I think I'd have to be invited.  So no surfing at Cape Marina!

T'ai was a prettier zone anyway.  I really like this place.  I could hang out here all day.

Surfing at Pirate Point Break

Pirate Point Break has waves that move sideways to the beach, rather than coming in straight at the beach.  These waves are not very realistic looking, but they provide a longer wave to surf and a ride that also lasts longer.  There's also sound -- the waves at Kona Beach were silent, I like having the crashing surf when a giant wave is coming in.  Overall I liked surfing here better.

This place has been here a while, because I remember being here before, a couple of years ago.

There isn't much else here.  There's an island with a few shacks selling swimwear and surf boards, but most of the sim is taken up with the waves.   That's a good thing, that's why it provides such a good surf experience.

Second Life Surfing: Kona Beach, Woodbridge

A couple of years ago I met a guy in Second Life who encouraged me to surf.  He ran a surf shop and published a low-quality magazine full of girls in bikini's, and I think at least a third of the reason he talked to me was to hit on a female avatar, and a third was to convince me to buy from his shop, but he also clearly liked to surf and enjoyed surfing in Second Life and wanted to encourage other people to try it.

So I did.

I surfed half a dozen beaches over the course of about two weeks, and I took a lot of pictures, but this one was my favorite, taking ad Bundoran Reef.  It almost looks like a real surfing photo.  That surfboard is the one I finally picked out for myself after doing some shopping -- I like it.  ^_^

Recently I was thinking I'd like to get back into surfing a bit, so today I looked for a good spot.  I found Kona Beach in Woodridge.  I'd heard that physics in SL had changed and older surfboards might not float any longer, but mine seemed to work just fine:

There was also hang gliding from a cliff, and a typical assortment of tropical beach items:  places to lie in the sun, hammocks or beach towels, books to read, cozy places for couples, underwater reefs to explore, and shops selling tattoos and bikinis.  There were several rezzable surfboards, sailboards, and boats, so you don't need your own to have fun and ride the waves.

I'm not an expert on this, or even that experienced, I just do it to have fun.  ^_^  I'm going to try and hit a few more SL surf beaches over the next few weeks or so and blog about them as well.

More Photos of New Outfits

I really like this outfit from Feathers -- I like a lot of their stuff, very cute Japanese styles.

Top:  Feathers, 1-dot white cami
Coat:  Feathers, Red Flower Bolero
Skirt:  Feathers, Red MSK skirt
Tights:  Feathers, white stockings (came with a Red Tweed Outfit)
Boots:  lassitude & ennui, Assassin Boots Black
Skin:  Pink Fuel Kumi Peach
Necklace:  lassitude & ennui Queen's gambit gold and purple
Hair:  DRLife natural hair Leila set to chocolate

The Feathers Tweed Set, Red, that I mentioned above.  This was a complete set, only I've matched it with the lovely Assassin boots again.  Skirt/dress, Furred bolero, Turtleneck Sweater, tights, were all part of the same outfit purchased as a single unit from Feathers.

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.