Second Life Yearbook Smile Challenge!

January 5, 2015January 5, 2015 Strawberry

The new year has started and I have made the decision to bring back my Monday memes and blog challenges regularly, mainly because I really missed doing them. They actually help me stay organized and focused, not only with blogging, but with my RL school work as well. I guess because it forces me to stay on schedule and on top of things. Hopefully I can keep this going, we shall see! I have a lot of ideas, so looking forward to using them.

Meme instructions: Share an image of your Second Life avatar smiling for a yearbook photo. Don’t forget to share the link to your post in the comments and add your pictures to the new Second Life Yearbook flickr group, you can also share them in the Blog Memes flickr group if you like.

This challenge started off as an idea I had where I would ask you guys to share an image of your avatar smiling. I always have a hard time trying to make my avatar not look so creepy while smiling, so I was testing it out a few days ago and shared my image on plurk and Whiskey Monday came in leaving me comments as if she was signing my yearbook, which I thought was hilarious! So I kind of stole from her idea and changed the challenge to a yearbook challenge.

Here is some information about my yearbook picture:

Background: I wanted to get the grainy bluish background that is most often used for yearbook photos, so I actually made some of my own which you can download and upload to Second Life and drag onto a prim if you like, or just use plain white or your own background. When I uploaded the bluish background and posed in front of it, I didn’t like how it looked against my skin tone so I changed the color in the texture tab to brown. If you are not sure how to rez a prim and put the background on it, you can use my free Photostudio and use the plain backgrounds it comes with or drag the texture on it.
Smile: To make my avatar smile I used the free AnyPose Expression HUD but I didn’t really like the way my avatar looked while it smiled (see this plurk). I do have a different shape for when I’m smiling. I make my eye opening a bit wider and slant them up a bit, but still didn’t like it that much so I decided to purchase the Loud Mouth Danika Smile mesh mouth, which is quite lovely on its own, but I still feel like I look creepy smiling, lol. I dunno, maybe it’s just my face. I also purchased the Loud Mouth Alli mouth, which is a very cute open mouthed pouty mesh mouth, but I couldn’t get it to look seamless. So I ended up photoshopping both of these loud mouth images. Here is the raw shot to the Danika Smile Mouth and then the raw shot to the Alli Pouty Mouth so you can see how much I processed these images.
Ratio: I cropped my image at a 8×10 ratio since that’s the size of usual yearbook portraits, but after adding in my border and text, I think that changed a bit. I just left it though, you can make yours any ratio, size, etc… I used picmonkey.com to add in the simple border and text.
Flickr Group: I created the Second Life Yearbook flickr group specifically for this challenge because I thought it would be fun to see them all in a group. I hope you guys are able to do them. I do have one small request though. If you are active on flickr and tend to bulk add your images to flickr groups, can you please unjoin the group after you submit your image. I moderate a number of groups on flickr now and it is so difficult moderating because people have a tendency to just add to all groups and a lot of flickr groups have themes and rules that they follow, like my Blog Memes flickr group or my Exploring Second Life flickr group or my Digits group. I have to remove random images from them on a daily basis. It gets very time consuming. So just a small request, if you do have a tendency to add to all groups, just leave the groups that have themes and rules, that way you won’t accidentally spam them. You can rejoin and add anytime in the future. Removing yourself from a group doesn’t remove your images from it unless you choose to do that on your own. Thank you, I would really love it if you can do that for me. <3
Pose: I used one of Izzie’s Headshot poses for the yearbook image.

(click here for raw shot)

I hope you guys find this challenge interesting and are able to do it. I would love to see some yearbook photos in the group. I might make Manberry do it later this week as well. I wonder if maybe one day someone will take all of our smiling avatar pictures and make an actual Second Life yearbook! That would be kind of awesome.

If you do decide to do this challenge, please share how you get your avatar to smile, what are you tricks and tips? I am always looking for a better way to make my avatar smile. If you decide this challenge is not for you, feel free to just leave a comment in my post as if you were signing my yearbook like whiskey did in my plurk, that would be kinda hilarious! 😛

Please remember that you can participate in any of the memes/challenges at any time. You’ll find them all under my Blog Challenges category along with other memes and challenges I’ve done over the years. You don’t have to have a blog to do this challenge, you can share your image on any social platform you prefer.

Credits:
1st image:
*Mesh Body: Maitreya Mesh Body – Lara V1.0 by Onyx LeShelle
Skin: DeeTaleZ Megan (Brows2) brown Eastern by Steffi Villota
Mesh Mouth: .Loud Mouth. – Alli by Brias Stardust
Teeth: .Loud Mouth. – Parted Teeth by Brias Stardust
Mouth Applier: DeeTaleZ HUD LOUD MOUTH for Skin Megan Eastern by Steffi Villota
*Eyes: IKON Promise Eyes – Brown by Ikon Innovia
*Hair: TRUTH HAIR Harmony [Ponytail] by Truth Hawks (flickr)
*Dress: GizzA – Emily Dress [Black-Beige] Size XS by Giz Seorn (flickr)
*Earrings: (Yummy) Pearl Stud – Pearl by Polyester Partridge (@ Uber)
Pose: Izzie’s Headshot poses by Izzie Button

2nd image:
*Mesh Body: Maitreya Mesh Body – Lara V1.0 by Onyx LeShelle
Skin: DeeTaleZ Megan (Brows2) brown Eastern by Steffi Villota
Mesh Mouth: .Loud Mouth. – Danika Smile by Brias Stardust
Teeth: .Loud Mouth. – Parted Teeth by Brias Stardust
Mouth Applier: DeeTaleZ HUD LOUD MOUTH for Skin Megan Eastern by Steffi Villota
*Eyes: IKON Promise Eyes – Brown by Ikon Innovia
Eyeliner: –Glam Affair– Couture Eyeliner no.03 by Aida Ewing
Eyelashes: Mon Cheri “Falsies” Mesh Alpha Lashes by Freya Olivieri
Hair: /Wasabi Pills/ Tiffany Mesh Hair Chocolate by MissAllSunday Lemon (@ FaMESHed)
Pearls: Yummy by Polyester Partridge (@ Uber)