Today was a slow day for me. I worked at JCNY and HOB like usual, but I didn’t have to rush to rehearsals and shows. I took some pictures for my entry into HOB this week. My own pictures. Two of my pictures are above. I love taking pictures and once I learn how to use Photoshop they will be better. I can add text in Photoshop but that is about it. I wanted to take a class that’s starting this week but because I am in so many shows over the next few weeks I can’t do it. Some of my friends routinely make their own backgrounds and they are amazing. But, Photoshop or not I keep trying. Often some contests in SL are about how amazing the photographer is and not about the models. If you want to hire the photographer that’s fine but to me, most contests should be about how the model looks. How attractive is the model. Do they style well and pick the right fashions? But, I’m not running these contests and they can do what they like of course. I’ve seen pics from some great photographers and the model looked terrible. The purpose of the picture was about being artistic and not how the model looked. I’ve seen some great pictures too, of course. It’s all so subjective though. What I think looks terrible sometimes, other people love, and probably vice versa. We don’t all have to agree. Everyone is entitled to their opinion. Mine happens to be right. Just Kidding.
Well here I am again on the JCNY runway right after our show today. It was laggy but went well. This beautiful gown was from our sponsor this week Miamai. This is the third week in a row I got a great gown. Gowns are my favorite things to wear. Probably because I can’t recall the last time in rl I wore a gown. A customer told me once that I lived in the wrong place because I don’t wear gowns much. She was from NY and I am from the midwest. I agreed with her lol.
So I submitted my entry for MRI challenge 2. I am worried about it though because I have never in my life done anything marketing related and am not sure I was even in the ballpark. We had to create a 10 point marketing plan for our blog. This is all foreign to me. Two weeks ago I did my first blog and now I am trying to create a marketing plan for it. But the idea of basically marketing myself, marketing my blog which contains my thoughts, is not something I had ever thought about doing. It was an interesting challenge. I like challenges. Challenges are how we learn and grow. I won’t say it was fun though. Marketing is not fun to me. Which I hope isn’t insulting to business people. I don’t mean it to be insulting, it just isn’t for me. But I am sure there are things that interest me that other people would find uninteresting.
I was picked for the show where I wear the darker skins. I am excited. I love being in shows. I did 3 shows in 3 days this week. Fashion shows are my favorite modelling job. I was called a show hog by an agency owner once. I try to get into every show I can. I don’t see what is wrong with that. Does it upset other people? Maybe it does. I thought it was rude when he said that though. I would think most models try to do as much as they can. Agency owners should be happy that their models are out there and working and encouraging them.
So this week we found out our next challenge for MRI. The first task was to take a picture of how we look now and combine it with a picture of what we looked like as a newbie player. We could use an old picture of ourselves or take a new picture but in our newbie outfits and skins. Well, I honestly think I burned all pictures of me as a newbie or didn’t take many because I couldn’t easily think of any that I had. So I put on all my old newbie stuff. Anyone can do this since it is all sitting there waiting in your SL Library. I put those clothes and that skin and shape on and, oh- my- gosh, did I ever really look that bad? Apparently I did. Although what’s funny about that to me is, that all new players think they are just quite hot. It isn’t until you play for a little while and see how other people look that you realize you don’t look very good. Anyway, so I had my newbie picture combined with what I look like now by a friend since that requires Photoshop and I haven’t been able to develop my Photoshop skills that far yet. It is quite a striking difference when you see the 2 pictures together.
We could also choose to do a task involving making a 10 point marketing plan for our blog. I plan to do both since we get more points for that, however, I know nothing about marketing and this is a true challenge for me. It is quite interesting from what research I have done so far. The idea to me is still a little foreign, I only started blogging a little less than 2 weeks ago. However, I will approach it like I do everything and give it my all.
So today was a pretty good day modelling wise. I got picked to compete for both House of Beningborough and JCNY for the week. I had a dress rehearsal and it went well. The designer was there and that always makes me nervous because I think well, what if she hates everything that I just did, but she only made a couple requests and I was totally fine with it. I want the designer to be completely happy and the small changes made do look better anyway. So what makes this a good day you might say, well I love competing both places and when I enter it’s always thrilling when I get a yes. So today was a two yes day. I’ve talked before about how I get 5 or so no’s for every yes I hear so on a day I got two yes answers, it’s a good day. Then, when I got to JCNY I noticed there is a picture of me on the wall. I was thrilled when I saw it. I even took a picture to share in here lol.
So I am going to keep writing in my blog. We get more points for the MRI competition if we continue blogging but more importantly than that, I like it. I can post things about Sl and modelling that amuse and interest me and annoy me. Maybe I will be entertaining and provide information that others need.
We got our next challenge for MRI which I will talk about in my next post.
It amazes me sometimes how being a model in SL is like a full-time job but I don’t really get paid for it and in fact have to spend money to do it. lol Only on SL does that make sense. And even though it takes inordinate amounts of time I still love every minute of it. Maybe in the future I will ask myself why I spend so much time at this and want to do it so much but for now, I am going with it. I know there are people who in rl are models and also model on SL and I think that’s awesome. But in rl I am a 39-year-old woman. Those days have long passed me by. And thats ok. In rl modelling was never a dream or a goal, but in SL it is. I’m lucky that in rl, I have a husband who doesn’t understand why I want to do this but supports me anyway. I’m very lucky. He even fixes technical issues I have in SL when they crop up. I recommend that anyone thinking about modelling in SL seriously think about the time factor involved. There are days that I’m doing modeling jobs, rehearsals and preparing for jobs from morning until night. Then there are all the other things that need to be done such as shopping for things I need and working on pictures for contests. These are just some of the time-consuming activities. So make sure if you want to model that you you think about not only the cost involved, but the time requirements as well.
People might wonder what there is to do in SL for fun. Well, for me one of my favorite things is the same as in rl, shopping. Here I am at a skin store in SL. I needed a darker skin for an audition so I went to my favorite store to see what I could get. I wound up getting a great deal on a pack of skins in my chosen style on sale for only 50L. Two different colors of makeup. So for only 100L I have skins from light to dark in two different colors.Woot
So then, I start looking at the skins in my favorite style, the Cupcakes line Daydream in Honey and find out they have 2 new sets of makeups so of course I have to get those. Now I have lots of choices to play with. I’ve heard people say as a model stick with one style skin designer. I am very happy with the designer I’m sticking to. Of course if I won the MRI competition I’d have more money to go buy the expensive skins I see people with, but I really love mine. I’m quite sure I could find other uses for the money though. IT’s amazing how much skins in SL cost at some stores. I don’t know what goes in to making a skin. I’m sure it takes a lot of time. But, I really think they are over-priced. Paying thousands of lindens for one skin is something I would really have to think about. I don’t mean thousands of lindens for a skin that includes multiple make-up options either. I mean thousands of lindens for just 1 color make-up.
Brat's Corner 