New World Notes

Amazing Second Life Cosplay Images Inspired by a Classic Kabuki Manga

Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting

Kunisaki Izumo is a fascinating SL avatar and about as meta as they come. Based on the manga character of the same name, our Kunisaki imagines himself all grown up and running a kabuki theater company on Izumo island. Just as men played women’s roles in Shakespeare’s time, onnagata are men playing the female role. Kunisaki is an onnagata actor. This is a picture of Kunisaki playing Sagi Masume, the Heron Maiden. [For a guide to the kabuki play Sagi Masume: click here] I love that it is a blue/black duotone. It’s very dramatic. Kunisaki created an album from his theater’s performance. [Click here for album.]

For more of Kunisaki’s kabuki, click here:

In Praise of "Painterly" Avatars - Stylization & Personality Over Ultra-Realism

Image and avatar by "Father Daddy"

A recent /SecondLife post sent me down the rabbit hole in search of "painterly avatars":

I'm not super into the Extremely Realistic Human Skin style that dominates the [Second Life] market. Don't get me wrong -- this style requires a great deal of skill to execute, and I do think the skins are beautiful, but it's just not "Me"... I'm wondering if anyone knows of any human skin makers who have a more "painterly" or heavily-stylized style? I like styles that are somewhat dramatic, mature, and less-than-pristine -- think the art style from Dishonored or Bloodborne.  - u/Vuhlkansu

Not sure I've seen the term "painterly avatars" in common currency, but it captures a real category worth highlighting. Thanks to excessively detailed mesh bodies, most Second Life avatars tend to creep way too far into ultra-realistic territory for my taste, and paradoxically, feels less believable. (It's like trying to get emotionally engaged by a high-end fashion model in a Vogue or GQ spread.) Whereas painterly avatar stylization evokes more uniqueness, personality, and the implications of a backstory. 

Here's some favorites suggested by SL Redditors, these first two here from an SLer with the intriguing avatar name Father Daddy.

Veteran SLer Nylon Pinkney is probably the most famous creator of painterly avatars, and has proven their appeal on the marketplace -- see below:

Can Philip Fix Second Life's Complex Avatar System? (Comment of the Week)

Good comment from Dee, one of many Second Life users welcoming back Philip Rosedale to advising the virtual world he founded:

I am MUCH more optimistic than I have been for a while where SL is concerned. I hope that Philips' return will bring renewed enthusiasm and fresh ideas that are outside the Linden Lab "box". I hope that he attends the creator group meetings held every other Thursday, or hosts a series of town hall meetings perhaps.

And the thing that is highest on my wishlist is a new avatar body. Where people can continue on with the system + alpha + mesh this that and the other OR a new integrated body. The body I envision is one where existing body and head creators could make deformers to create all of the body and face types they had in mind (and to sell of course) but one single thing to be worn and arranged. No more neck seams, no more crazy fiddling with all of the complexities of the current way of doing things. Just one seamless system way of adding a shape, a skin, applied textures, etc. Like the original system body, on beauty steroids. A body where clothing makers would only have to create ONE single version of their rigged clothing item and have it work with the blend shapes right out of the box.

I think it is critical for Linden Lab to address the current complexity (and expense) of trying to have a decent looking avatar in world. Even folks who have been in and out of SL for years quickly become frustrated with all these new complexities, mesh everything, BOM, etc. Dressing yourself should not require an advanced fashion degree!

This is all very true. Offhand, I'd estimate that a highly intuitive avatar customization system that was immediately fun and easy for the first-time user would grow retention by at least 5%. (I'm talking as seamless as it is in the The Sims series.)

If only. The core challenge is, there's already a massive cottage industry that depends on all that complexity:

Watch: Profound Chat About Living With Cerebral Palsy IRL Via a Wailugi Avatar in VRChat (Syrmor's Latest)

"I think of this whole disability as one joke that God put on me... I don't think I would be the person I am now without this disability. It's helped my perspective on the world."

Here's the latest interview from Syrmor, the Toronto-based embedded reporter in VRChat, in a characteristically surreal and zany yet but also profound interview with someone who speaks about their real life through the safe distance of their avatar -- in this case, a wheelchair-bound British guy with cerebral palsy and a Wailugi avatar. After a good natured North American trolling (referring to football as "soccer" never fails to enrage a Brit), Syrmor's questions evoke powerfully honest answers from "benjiboi420" about his life online -- questions that would be socially difficult to ask or answer in another context. 

Surprising Gamer Study: Avatar Gender Preference Remains Unchanged for Over 20 Years -- And Very Few Female Gamers Choose Male Avatars

Here’s a fascinating new report on avatars and gender from longtime game culture researcher Nick Yee, based on a survey of nearly 3,000 gamers. Nick’s topline takeaway is that 1 in 3 men prefer to play as female avatars, which is more than many might assume.

Two other learnings stand out to me even more:

Avatar gender preferences among players have remained basically the same since Nick started studying questions like this during the peak of Everquest -- over two decades ago! This despite the fact that MMOs have become much more mainstream since then, attracting many millions of players where they once only drew hundreds of thousands.

“This implies that whatever is causing this to happen (for both male and female players) has been consistent for the past 20 years,” Nick tells me, “so it's a function of some stable sociological dynamic and/or how we've been making games/avatars for the past 20 years. 

“Back in EQ days, I think it was easy to imagine that this phenomenon was idiosyncratic to MMOs, because the genre was more niche back then. But perhaps the MMO findings were always pointing at deeper, stable findings given that much of MMO mechanics and the live services model is now everywhere.” (In other words, online games like Overwatch and Fortnite also have heavy MMO features.)

Nick’s other standout finding: Very few females want to play as male avatars. Seriously few:

As Fifty Linden Fridays Launches Its 12th Anniversary Party, Its Founder Tells Me How an Internet Meme Led to One of Second Life’s Largest Groups

Barb photo by Catalina Staheli, edited by Kreao Kujisawa

Click here to join the 12th year anniversary of Fifty Linden Fridays, one of Second Life’s largest in-world groups. Expect a massive crowd, however, because with 52,530 active members, roughly 1 in 10 of SL’s entire user base is a member of FLF. 

Founded and still managed by an SLer named OMGWTF Barbecue -- or just “Barb” to those who know her -- this celebration is quite a culmination for a young woman who, back in 2006, joined Second Life simply to have some rude fun. 

Hence her notably wacky avatar name:

SL Vs. RL: Nine More Photos Of Second Life Users With Their Avatars

"I was inspired by my real look," a Second Life user named "Rainhaindiamorena" tells me. In real life, she continues, "I'm a Brazilian singer. I live in Bahia. I tried to make the avatar with my style. black with braided hair Rainha. In Second Life I sing in different lands."

Her SL/RL photo is one of dozens now on Facebook with the tag #slvsrl, launched in Holger Gilruth's Facebook group for SLers, featuring pics of avatars alongside their real life owners.

See part one of my mixed reality profiles here. Displayed with their permission, here are ten more of my favorites, featuring the owners' explanation for their avatar's appearance:

Watch: The Teaser for Alter Ego is Here, and I Have Questions About FOX's Upcoming Avatars-Meet-Masked Singer Show

Back in May, a FOX producer was reaching out to members of the Second Life community (and presumably other virtual world communities) about Alter Ego, an upcoming avatars-meet-Masked Singer reality competition show. Now set to premiere on September 22nd, here's the teaser.

... and here's my questions about it:

SL vs. RL: Ten Photos of Second Life Users With Their Avatars

“A friend introduced me [to Second Life] a few months ago," Billie Echo (above) tells me, "It’s quite interesting.” The inspiration for her avatar's appearance (also above) is also interesting:

"Actually, I was going for a tall vitiligo queen but a lot of wonderful mistakes were made. But I don't regret it." (Her father is from Benin, where many people have vitiligo.) Now, she wants "to use this platform to spread awareness about vitiligo and albinism."

Billie Echo's SL/RL photo is one of dozens now on Facebook with the tag #slvsrl, launched in Holger Gilruth's Facebook group for SLers, featuring pics of avatars alongside their real life owners. Displayed with their permission, here are ten of my favorites, featuring the owners' explanation for their avatar's appearance:

Parthenoid 2.0: A Fascinating & Insightful Fashion Blog for Trans Avatars

Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting

Parthenoid 2. 0 is a blog by Sian who focuses on cyber-fashion for trans avatars. Sian’s most recent post “xx:xy tryouts” is a fascinating and insightful exploration of how Second Life offers freedom of exploration to individuals. They write, “one of the unexpected, unintended niches of Second Life has been its use as a testing ground for trans identity, for the sexuality of unaccustomed bodies, a relief from a dysphoria we might not even have known we had. We wanted to investigate another possibility of who we were, tried on gender in the cheaper off-the-rack way, the better to know what worked and what didn't.”

The fashion is interesting in its exploration of cyberkink, but secondary to the intriguing and deeply introspective writing as Sian explores trans identity in their first and Second Life. I particularly loved Sian’s plea for acceptance of making mistakes: 

“Whoever we are, however we are, we have to be allowed to trial who we are without harming anyone, with full consent, as messy and transgressive as that might be, because for many of us, in the worlds we live in, in the closets we inhabit, so often padlocked on the outside, a trial is the best we might get.”

• r2 a/d/e asanagi top, sasa gloves by Rei2 Aya
• out of order 80s geo earrings by DonnaCasta

For a meditation on baldness, click here: