Ophelia's Gaze: My Favorite Cosplay Fashion For Second Life

Exclusive to NWN, Iris Ophelia's ongoing showcase of all things stylish in SL

Confession: Since my very first days in SL, I've been a closet cosplayer. Let's face it, anime and Japanese video games are both filled with some really fabulous costumes and character designs, and Second Life is an excellent platform to play with them-- and you can even cosplay things in SL that would never be possible to do in RL, from miniature fairies to massive demons. 

Keep reading for three of my favourite cosplay styles, characters taken from the world of Final Fantasy, Shin Megami Tensei, and Chobits-- now brought to Second Life!

A lot of cosplay in SL comes in the form of complete avatars, like Damien Fate's Final Fantasy X inspired sets, like Chocobos and Yuna's summons (or Aeons if you want to be technical) including Shiva (shown above). Shiva is my favourite because all of her components, including her animation override and her special attack effects, can all be mixed in with other outfits. So, from something stunningly faithful to it's source, you can change into something amazingly original if you want to. The hair/head that comes with the avatar also comes in two versions, flexi and sculptie. Sculptie is what I'm wearing, as it's more faithful to the source material, but flexi ads a lot of movement that you may prefer if you're going to be moving around a lot. If/when flexi sculpts come out, I have my fingers crossed that Damien (also the designer of the amazing Loco Pocos avatars, and also SL's Iron Man) will be persuaded to update this hair.

There is a lot of concern about avatars or objects that are based on copyright not held by the designer, which came up with the fabulous Watchmen-inspired avatars that came out last month. There are actually copyright holders in SL making avatars too, right under our noses. I was completely shocked that I hadn't heard that Japanese game developer ATLUS, the company behind Shin Megami Tensei, was in SL officially, and producing a pile of amazing avatars and outfits based on their characters and monsters. As I've been playing their new MMORPG, Shin Megami Tensei: Imagine, I recognized the impressive monster avatars right away, and initially thought it was just a very devoted fan responsible for them. The avatars are carefully sculpted and textured to be nearly identical to the originals, and though their movements are a little bit stiff, they have full AO's and animated attacks that are performed on a click. My favourite is the Chimaira avatar shown above, which has a snake for a tail and a goat head grafter to its back. They have a very full range to choose from, and even simple school uniforms if you don't feel like being quite so monstrous. I highly recommend their sim, ATLUS Vegas [SLurl here], for cosplayers, avatar collectors, and sightseers alike.

The cosplay purist in me wouldn't let me post this article with only complete, prepackaged avatars. The most satisfying costumes are the ones that you piece together yourself using elements from all over. BareRose is normally the easiest choice to make when you're doing this, because June Dion has just about anything you could ever want for most anime cosplay, but it's old news that I love June's work, so I wanted to make this a bit more challenging. Since I'm a big fan of deceptively cute androids (who isn't?) decided to recreate Chii from the series Chobits. Lucky for me, Persocon ears are one of the most common cosplay accessories on the grid. I got mine from Sae Luan's store, Rave Nation, where they're available in several different colours (though I stuck with pink for the sake of accuracy). I opted for a loose, ropy blonde hairstyle similar to something the character would wear in a special illustration, in this case Yuria by LilKim Lovell of DejaVu, and a sweet skin without much makeup-- Jini in nude by Romi Juliesse. The dress had to be light, frilly, and girly, so I chose the Classic Design Dress 002 in blue by Beaumont Ryba of LittleGirl Shop, then tied it all together with the Casandra Locket by Kesseret Steeplechase of KessKreations and Fallingwater Cellardoor's new Romance flats from Shiny Things.

Another great place to check for cosplay items is Aetherstyle Boutique (home of the famous freebie Totoro avatar), which displays costume elements and anime-inspired designs from many different creators all in one location. Happy hunting, costumistas!

Iris Ophelia has been featured in the New York Times and has spoken about SL-based design at the Fashion Institute of Technology in Manhattan.

Comments

[Ann Otoole]

Nice to see at least one firm has an official presence in Second Life. I wish the rest would enter Second Life to drive out the IP thieves.

As for the rest of us making costumes we just have to make whatever weirdness comes out of our brains to be original. But since we don't have trademarks or video games or movies to back them up with we will forever be the under dogs unless we form teams to produce better, more of it, and for less. It is widely said that Bare Rose mastered this concept long ago and I adore them for it.

[Candy Cerveau]

FYI to your readers, one of my good friends Risusipo Jun showed me the Atlus sim just a couple of days ago, sadly it came up because the sim is scheduled to close in three days. So if anyone wants these fantastic avatars, you only have a short amount of time to get them :(

[Faerie]

I didn't know the background to the Atlus sim but I love their giant crane vending machine game (it's on their sim). That thing is sooo addictive.

[Sanny Yoshikawa]

The last event of Atlus Vegas is on until tomorrow (24:00 on 29 March JPN time).
If you find 17 parts hidden in the SIM, you will receive a rare Kerberos avatar from Megami Tensei. Also many other popular avatars are hidden.
This is the last chance to get Atlus's official avatars.... :(

[Chihaya Nakajima]

The Atlus store still exists, but it's here now: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Quartz/192/64/28

But who knows for how long?

[Reiko Fimicoloud]

I love this post, and i would love to try and feature some of your information in my website dedicated to all walks of visual asia. I've been looking for good research points to start my way into my blogging about visual asia in second life.

I would invite you to see my humble blog and community ^_^

[kesseret]

I am sad that I totally missed this post (I took a break from SL after Armoire) and I'd have loved to browse around that sim and get those avatars. :(

Thanks, Iris for wearing my piece in one of your costumes! So glad it worked for you.