141 - Samson

Dim Sum finds a new hero and meows, "I'm rooting for you, mister."


This is one of several sculptures of Starax Statosky, who is (in my opinion) one of the best (if not THE best) prim sculptors in SL. Long before sculpts and mesh came along, he took basic prims and tortured and combined them into amazingly expressive sculptures, like this one.

Sure, the more recent sculptures with sculpts and mesh are less primmy and more realistic, but I still think that sculpting with basic prims is way more impressive.

location: SL10B Wonderous

I haven't done Strawberry's memes for a while, and this one seems easy, so here goes.

Technical notes

windlight: Alchemy Immortalis - Fog Lifting (modified)

Strawberry's memes - Proportions Challenge

Strawberry wants proportions. Well, ... okay....

Height (floor to shoulder): 0.36m
Length (nose tip to tail tip): 0.76m, approximate because her tail won't keep still
Head: Too big
Body: Huggable size

Do you try and keep your avatar’s body proportionate and similar to the “average” proportions pictured above?
Dim Sum believes she's perfect and she doesn't care about body proportions. Opal and her human alts tend to have slightly longer legs. A lover told me of this Paris cabaret called Crazy Horse, where the criteria for the performers is that the length from top of head to crotch must be equal to the length from crotch to floor. And that lover is a "leg man" so I keep my avies leggy for him.

What do you dislike the most about the SL avatar mesh?
The butt! Actually, the part from the waist to the thighs. Why is it that in order for your hips to look like the normal length in front, you end up with a long butt, like it's sagging?!? If you want a normal-looking butt, you look like you're getting a wedgie in front. And if your butt is even a little curvier than a flat board, your thighs look fat at a certain angle.

Does it bother you when you see other avatars that are not proportionate at all?
It's not the disproportion per se that bothers me; most bodies in RL are disproportionate and they come in different sizes, including my own RL body.

What makes me cringe is the extreme unnaturalness that seem to be more about unoriginal fashion slavery and less about aesthetic creativity. Like the pony riders whose waist-to-hip ratio makes them look like clothes hangers with thighs separated by a mile. Or the alien-looking stick figures with enormous round heads and small eyes, worn mostly by fashion models. (Thank goodness that one seems to have faded out of fashion.)

If it's one or two people with an extreme look, it's awesome because it's original and innovative and creative and artistic. If a slew of people wear the same extreme look, the unnaturalness stands out and then it's just plain ugly.

Even though this is a virtual world and people can be anything they want to be, do you feel when they are in human form, they should try to keep their proportions close to average?
No. In spite of the cringe effect, I still think that people should be able to express themselves any way they want. I actually think that there's less originality in SL nowadays than during the early years, when more people had creative and unique avies, humanoid or not. I prefer a very diverse SL. Even if I cringe once in a while.