The Evolution of Sonya

It’s Sonya’s rez day today! She logged onto the grid as a clueless newbie on April 19th, 2008. There’s been breaks from SL during that time — usually to give a new mmorpg a go — but somehow I always seem to return and find new things to squee about. Everything changes so fast and on the other hand, some things never do. Enough familiarity to return to, but enough novelty to intrigue.

I originally compiled these pictures for The Evolution of an Avatar thread in the SLUniverse Forums, but decided to wait with blogging them until now. They were so perfect for a rez day post.

This pretty much covers the first half a year, easily. The small top one on the left is the very first picture I took. Behold the noobness! I was roleplaying in a Vampire: the Requiem game at the time, so white skin was the obvious choice. When the game ended and I stuck around on the grid, I gradually shifted into an ooc-avatar with a human skin from the same maker (Bodies by Oh!).

I found Sky Everett and became addicted to the hairs. (The top right one is Curious Kitties, though.) I also found Evie’s Closet and added her fantasy outfits into my growing addiction list. I learned to use colours! Gothic colours, I admit, but colours nevertheless. This skin carried me from late 2008 to December 2009, after which I felt like I wanted to update it somehow…

Which I did when I found this skin by Djinn & Tonic. My SL style began mixing vintage and rock moments into the fantasy and goth. I also found bobs by various makers — Lamb’s top left and LOQ Hairs’ bottom left. LeeZu, Miamai and Aoharu got their shares of squees as well as Mandala, who continues to kill me with jewelgasms. The lotus chain bracelet combos are probably the most worn piece of jewelry I’ve worn, ever.

When the tattoo make-up layers became widely available, I began twitching about wanting a skin with less make-up. It took actually months of searching and eventually waiting before the skin I wanted was released. I bought League’s Sia almost precisely a month ago and it still astonishes me with its quality.

I thought that I’d wear more make-up with it even on daily basis, but instead I’m actually really happy with the fresher look. Combined with the bobs that are these days my favorite, it feels like Sonya has grown up.

Picture 1, Bodies by Oh! skin in white: (too long ago for proper credits, but let’s see what I remember) Hairs by Cake, Random and Gurl6 (top left, top right, bottom). Top right: ankh choker by Bastchild, stockings by LaPointe, hand jewelry Celtic Myst, no idea of the rest. Bottom: fur shawl thing by Crave, ankle pearls by Bonita’s and the couch by Relic! …yeah, no idea of the rest.

Picture 2, Bodies by Oh! skin in human pale: Top left: dress by Mimikri, gloves by Atsuki Kayo, pearls by Ztique, rose hat by G Field. Top right: dress & gloves by Discord, jewelry by Perturb/ation. Bottom left: outfit by Cynful. Bottom right: dress by Evie’s Closet, boots by J’s. All the hairs are by Sky Everett except the top right from Curious Kitties.

Picture 3, Djinn & Tonic skin: Top left: hair by Lamb, dress by Miamai, jewelry by Mandala. Top right: hair by Sky Everett, dress by Rotten Toe. Bottom left: hair by LOQ, roses by Sn@tch, fur coat by Aoharu. Bottom right: hair by Sky Everett, jacket & tights by LeeZu, mini skirt by League, hand jewelry by Mandala.

Picture 4, League skin: Hair by Waka & Yuki, eyes by Poetic Colors, dress by Miamai, hand jewelry by Mandala, butterflies with the pose by Lauria, orient express skybox by Blue Sky.

Blogger Challenge – Then And Now~

I don’t really consider myself a blogger, not with my two posts a year rate. *grins* However, I’m an avid SL blog reader, and this challenge about posting your newbie look and comparing it to how your avatar looks today was way too hilarious to pass.

I started Second Life on 19th April 2008 for a very specific purpose. To play in a Vampire: the Requiem game of a friend. I did not come to the grid all curious and clueless and poking around, trying to figure out what I wanted to do. I came there to create my roleplay character in pixels and to roleplay the said character. I wasn’t at all interested in everything else that was going around, it was just a gameroom with pretty avatars for me. Until the game ended, of course. Then I went through the usual newbie phases of camping and trying to figure out how to earn lindens and wandering around and… anyways.

I didn’t put any RL money into SL — I still haven’t, although there are friends who have tossed lindens my way so I can hardly say I started or continued completely from scratch. However, my first 1k lindens went into two specific things: AO from Vista (I still use it) and a black and gold celtic dress from Husky GFX. As Sonya’s character developed, though, she was hardly going to hover about in that. Instead her usual wardrobe was all about system skirts — in an attempt to create pencil skirt silhouette — whatever passed for stilettos in the newbie era and very soon beehives.

Here we have a remake of a very typical get up of the time. Beehive from Gurl6, Lapointe stockings that I loved to death, braided prom shoes (I know v_v), basic system skirt and top… oh, and the skin from Bodies By Oh! I first found this skin as a demo with no demo markings and wore nothing but through all my roleplay time and long after. I also bought it for real, and bought a custom coloring of it later when I could afford to. When I finally started wearing a human tone skin I went back to Bodies by Oh! and more or less bought the same one in human tone. I have updated the look only lately with a lovely Djinn & Tonic skin.

Here we have a close-up. Note the lack of prim lashes. Since this is a remake I do admit that originally I had system lashes with the look. She had neko eyes because I was so nooblet I didn’t even realize that. She had to have grey eyes that looked like she was blind and these were the closest I could find! By Ondeline Pera, now that I checked. See that thing on the back of her hand? That’s from Celtic Myst and one of the first things I bought, loved them to death. The pearls are from Muse and Aleksander gave them to me (and to Sonya IC) when she became the Seneschal. Time hasn’t really passed by those, still awesome.

This here is a genuine nooblet picture. Yes, I’m camping. Yes, that’s Cake’s Black Night hair that every nooblet goth -ever- had. I met a nice woman in the nooblet garden and she gave me some freebies, including that. I kept her calling card just so I’d recognize the name — Lemony Flanagan. If you happen to read this: thank you! Why yes, yes I have lace leggings that overlap and clash with my fishnet stockings. -.- The outfit is by Ginger Chevalier — no idea if she had a business or what, I cheated and just checked the creators from the items. I’m sentimental and had stored my most favorite old looks into a box. ^_^ On that note, the prom braid shoes that my little nooblet vampire walked so many miles on were made by Lightwave Valkyrie. The basic short system skirt and top combo that was a staple was made by Elisa Stringer.

And here… Aleks and I did something sort of like this in the summer. This is more like what Sonya should have looked like if I hadn’t been a nooblet, the SL tech had been to a higher level and I had had more lindens.

Now that, ladies and gentlemen, is a beehive. Ah, Sky Everett. If I could lock her in my virtual basement and enslave her to make hairdos for Sonya, I so would! <.< The dress is from Sn@tch, gorgeously textured and absolutely perfect for IC Sonya who always had skirts so tight that it was a miracle she could walk.

As for the proper ‘now’… it varies a lot. Generally I shift between glamour goth and couture casual, but then there are days when I want to run about in a lolita dress and with a bunny on my head, or in a steampunk outfit and a monocle, or random vintage looks. I still have a weakness for beehives, but even bigger weakness for fantastically strange, huge scifi hairdos. A lot of my inventory is still black, although fortunately there’s textures these days. *chuckles* I’d feel naked without my prim lashes — Sky Everett’s.

This is another of those IC Sonya moments — she so would have worn fur coats back in the day if I had had the lindens and the SL tech had been high enough to produce good looking furs. The coat is a group gift from Azul, the wonderfully high waisted pants are from LeeZu, hair is Sky Everett’s — and probably the one I have worn most of all the hairs. The jewelry is from my new addiction — Mandala. /jewelgasm. Seriously. Oh, the skin is the new one I mentioned from Djinn & Tonic. Eyes are from EarthStones and have been for a very long time.

See what I mean about still mostly black inventory? Coat and tights from LeeZu, mini skirt from League, hair from Sky Everett, jewelry Mandala. Taken while shoeshopping in Tesla, and yes, those stilettos walked out with me.

And sometimes I feel like doing something completely different. This hairdo from lamb has made me dress in so many different looks and yet it’s awesome in each and every one of them. Here I was attempting for a spy jazz girl vibe. Jacket is from Miamai, the dress underneath it is from PixelDolls. And hey, the more things change, the more they stay the same. Black pearls! From Ztique, with roses~

Aoharu’s sale all but burned a hole in my virtual wallet. All those lovely leather coats and vests and other coats and shirts and leggings and and… anyways. Coat and the blue shirt that I wear as a dress here from Aoharu, the leggings from Source (yes, the Le Look promo avi), fingerless gloves with black nails from Sn@tch, the skull flower in her hair from Artilleri.

There’s only one thing that hasn’t changed almost at all since the beginning, and that’s the shape. It’s from one of those random mysterious full-perm freebie piles you acquire as a true clueless newbie, tagged ‘Esmeralda’. SL won’t show the creator anymore, and I’ve edited it so much that it’s hardly the same shape anyway. When I was shaping her I wanted to go for the fifties pin-up look, curves without the skinny, slightly more caricature look instead of realistic, and definitely with all the glamour I could muster. I’ve followed with that vision for over year and a half now and I like it. Going to be interesting to see what she’ll look like in another year.