Five Questions to Ask Yourself if You Want to be a Second Life Designer

Janine "Iris Ophelia" Hawkins' ongoing review of gaming and virtual world style

A very nice person sent me a notecard once, asking what they needed to know to become a Second Life designer. Content creators, including fashion designers, are some of the most respected people in the virtual world, so this question is a pretty common one. At the time I sent them a few Youtube links, a few blog tutorials, and some free software suggestions to get them started, but every now and then they pop into my mind. As far as I can tell they never did open up a store like they wanted to, and I wonder if I should have given them some slightly more practical advice instead. 

What do you really need to know before you become a Second Life Designer? Well, a lot more than just Photoshop and Blender.

Will you still want to be a designer if you never sell a single item?

If your interest in creating content in Second Life starts and stops with creating for yourself and your friends, maybe even for free, then you can probably leave right here and enjoy the rest of your afternoon. If you're not some sort of mythical creature made of raw creativity and altruism, that's okay too. But it's important to bear in mind that there are a lot of designers in Second Life, and for every rags-to-riches success story there are dozens of people struggling to be seen at all. 

Are you prepared to operate at a loss?

One of the most popular reasons to open up shop is to earn a little bit of virtual revenue. Maybe you don't even need to cash it out. Maybe you just want to have enough L$ to shop without pulling your credit card out to top up your balance. Unfortunately, content creation isn't free. Upload fees seem small on their own, but L$10 for each model, for each color variation... It adds up, and while it may be negligible for an established designer, if you're just getting started it can take a big bite out of your funds. If you want an in-world shop location or any form of advertising, that bite will only get bigger. Until your brand gains momentum, you may find yourself with less pocket money every month than you started with.

Will you still want to be a designer if no one blogs your work?

As I mentioned, designing and content creation is a popular pursuit in Second Life because the people who do it well are highly respected, and have been since well before I joined SL. But not everyone gets that recognition, and sometimes it doesn't even have anything to do with the quality of your product. You're a voice in a sea of voices, each one trying to be the loudest. Even if you do get blogged, it may not be for months, and it won't necessarily be your favorite top SL bloggers doing the blogging. They may blog your work poorly, they may complain about it, they may gush about it but take an absolutely terrible snapshot. And your hands will be tied, because no one will blog a designer who throws shade in the comments.

Are you willing to spend a lot of time (and money) learning?

Finally, a nod to the increasingly high technical demands of designing in Second Life. If you're unwilling or unable to learn 3D modelling (assuming you don't already know) then current standards in the fashion and decor community are going to make your life quite hard. Sticking to the basics with Photoshop or GIMP, you'll be able to make skins and layers, or make textures for full-perm items(yet another potential expense) but beyond that... Well... Let's just say if you want to be the next Siddean Munro you'll probably need to invest some real-world cash into the software and lessons it'll take to get you there.

Are you bringing something new to the table?

It's fine to want to create (that in itself is a healthy and constructive impulse that you should absolutely pursue) but do you know what you want to create? Visit the SL Marketplace and wade through the search results for things like tank tops, jeans, novelty t-shirts and so on. There are a lot. The best way to stand out is to offer something that only you (or at least only a significantly smaller cross-section of creators) are offering. It might take some soul searching to figure out what exactly that should be, but developing a style and a focus beforehand will give you a huge head start.

One last thing: I don't want this to read like I'm trying to discourage you. I'm sure it does read that way, but that's not my intention. The truth can be discouraging, but if you can get over it early and keep moving forward, it'll save you a lot of heartache in the future.

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Janine Hawkins (@bleatingheart on Twitter, Iris Ophelia in Second Life) has been writing about virtual worlds and video games for nearly a decade, and has had her work featured on Paste, Kotaku, Jezebel and The Mary Sue.

Comments

[Estelle Pienaar]

It's a funny read, but really: if anyone assumes to become a "designer" before being close to having the skills - that's so naive that it makes me laugh.

Seriously there are already too many people who can't distinguish between their dream world and tough reality - especially in SL. Please don't tell these dreamers that they should be willing to spend a lot of money for lessons and tools. That is mean! Or do you go to a 3 month old baby and shout: "Stand up already. Try harder, I'll buy you expensive gear and that's the way to go to become the next marathon champion"? Absurd? Exactly!

Of course people can learn and grow their skills. And it is helpful to have dreams and objectives. But there are a lot of free and superb tutorials and programmes available. This would have been a helpful advice. My 5 cents to everyone: if you are not managing to get very good results with free tools, don't invest in the professional gear. It's purpouse is to make the extremely talented to go the extra mile, not to rip off the beginners.

[Estelle Pienaar]

And there is one more advice that I absolutely disagree with: all successful content creators that I know have started with creating content for themselves and their friends. After hearing from many people that they would be willing to buy their creations, they started selling them. This is probably the most commen road to commercial designing in SL. Therefore I couldn't believe my eyes when you said that people who are at that point of their skill development should stop reading.

[Estelle Pienaar]

And there is one more advice that I absolutely disagree with: all successful content creators that I know have started with creating content for themselves and their friends. After hearing from many people that they would be willing to buy their creations, they started selling them. This is probably the most commen road to commercial designing in SL. Therefore I couldn't believe my eyes when you said that people who are at that point of their skill development should stop reading.

[Liana Faith]

@Estelle, I tend to agree with your points. I found Iris's first question difficult to read as well. The interpretation that I finally ended up with is: if you are willing to invest time into your personal projects without monetary gain, then the next 4 points tend to be self-promoting.

[irihapeti]

is any number of new people who ask: how do I make money on this game?

Like about 80% of all I ever met

my stock answer: most people learn how to make stuff and sell it

then they ask: if I dont wanna do that then what?

stock answer: DJ, live singer, club host, land baron, sell ur pixels for love u longtime

then they go: DJ I got no gears. Sing nah! host nah! I hate ppl. land baron nah got no money. love u longtime looool!!!

and then they go: tell me about making stuff. I need money to get stuff in the game

so I do and off they go to try that bc cant be all that hard can it. Compare to all them other things that actual require talking to people

so yes agree with the first posit in the article

most people going down this path stop thinking about the money after a bit. But it was the idea of the money that gets them started. Way more people than will ever confess to it

[SL Lost Soul]

I have a very small store, where I was encouraged to make items, after making items for my friends. I did not and still do not do this to make a profit for real life. What I make, which is only about 65,000 lindens a month, goes either back into to SL to pay for tier and other expenses every month. While everyone wants to make a profit and be the next big thing in SL, this does not always happen and sometimes you have to create for yourself or for the experience. Just my two cents.

[CronoCloud Creeggan]

I get asked that question too, Iris. I tend to say the following:

If you can't make items as good or better than what is currently offered, don't even try.

There is a massive glut of content, how will you differentiate your items from everyone else offering the same thing. That's not even taking templates into account where it IS exactly the same thing.

How will you market your business in a world where marketing sucks and you have a ton of well established competitors?

I personally have no problem with people doing it for fun, but they should know that making a profit in SL is very difficult.

[Janine/Iris]

@Liana: That is more like what I meant, yes. If someone doing something purely for the joy of it, then a lot of what follows sort of doesn't apply to them anymore. If you're doing something 100% for yourself you'll either take the steps you want to take or you won't, and the finished product really only needs to meet your own standards. Those folks don't need a reality check, they're just having fun, and it's sure not my place to tell them "BUT OKAY WORK HARD ANYWAY SO YOU CAN MAYBE SELL STUFF DOWN THE LINE!"

@CronoCloud: I dislike that for a lot of reasons, but here's a simple and recent example that kind of covers them all:

I bought my first dress from Junbug like 1.5ish years ago I think... or whenever it was that LeLutka did those Silent Film starlet hairstyles, because that's what I bought it for. It wasn't bad, but it was miles and miles from great. The texturing was really gritty and low-res, parts of the dress mesh kind of puffed out in weird places, it was very tricky to shoot it in a way that didn't look kind of like a mess. If I'd told her "You're not even close to being as good as X, Y, and Z at mesh dresses, don't bother" then I'd be lacking all of my current favourite dresses in SL right now.

[madeline blackbart]

IMO main thing is having money and being able to work without praise. If you can't afford to keep putting into SL and paying for teir then you can't afford to continue to create TBH. You can always gain skills. It helps to have a decent level of skill to start but even templates can sell given some tweaking to make them interesting and you learn from that and get better.