
Janine's mother's SL avatar Sharona Medby (pic also by her mom)
NWN alum Janine "Iris Ophelia" Hawkins, has a very powerful post on Giant Bomb about her late mom who recently passed away, who she remembers through the games she used to play, and what they say about her. She was avid SLer as well (known as "Sharona Medby" in-world):
Second Life is full of artists, and for as much as she dabbled in the fashion and clubbing sides of it she inevitably fell in with them and started learning Photoshop to spruce up her virtual world snapshots. She figured out how to find and follow tutorials to get effects she liked, and posted picture after picture of photo-sharing sites like Flickr and Koinup before eventually filling a little gallery of her own in Second Life itself. After having her confidence in her artistic abilities torn down, Second Life steadily built it back up until she was sketching in real life again, exploring a part of herself she thought had atrophied. I will never have patience for people who dismiss Second Life as nothing more than an MMO for horny loners, because it was both the palette and the canvas that helped my mother understand that making art for yourself is much more important than making it for other people.
Much more of Sharona's art here, and read the rest of Iris' tribute on Giant Bomb here. I distinctly remember Iris writing about her family here on this blog, because as it happens, both her mom and dad were avid SLers: