Day 43: Miss Second Life Beauty Pageant (or My SL Modeling Career)

Here is my Profile photo for the Annual Miss Second Life Beauty Pageant. Amazing what Photoshop can do, huh? OK, just kidding, I only used Photoshop to crop the photo and add my name. Doesnt it look like me? ;P

I heard about the Annual Miss SL Pageant about a month ago through the Search/Events screen. I missed the intro session, but the event manager was kind enough to provide some info and notecards.

According to the notecard, there will be several event categories: Formal wear, swimsuit/sexy, casual, AV/skins, walking/posing/dancing, personlity, building, and IQ. Signing up basically meant paying $50L and joining the "Miss Second Life Contestants" group. OK, easy enough. Why not?

Now, its a month later. Signups have just been closed, and the event is at capacity, with 65 contestants! No, we cannot all fit into a sim, much less have an audience/judges. So this event will be broken up into groups. The scheduling is being worked out as we speak, but it sounds like the big final event would be around January, 2007.

Meanwhile, we have been asked to supply a photo and fill out a questionnaire. I shot the one above in my living room. And here is my questionnaire/responses:

------------------
SL Age/Birthday: 42 days/September 24, 2006

Home Sim: Rieul

Favorite Color: Sky Blue (because I like to look up on a sunny day)

Likes/Dislikes:
Likes: Cloths, writing about cloths (http://slnatalia.blogspot.com), create things in SL (such as cloths ;P), helping others (to create cloths), and oh yes "World Peace" :)

Dislikes: guns/violence (I don't have any SL/RL weapons or shields) and spiders in RL (*ick*)

Why I want to be Miss Second Life:
Because I want to represent Second Life to the world and what SL is all about: Freedom. Freedom to create (from art to clothing/jewelry/shoes to buildings). Freedom to live (from classes to clubs to games to welcoming newbies). Freedom to love. And, of course, Freedom to shop (for cloths *smiles*).

My time in SL can only be described as magical. I want to share my SL experiences with the world so others can have the chance to do the same.
------------------

Well, youve read my blog! So how did I do on the responses?

All photos and questionnaires from all the contestants will be posted to the official Miss SL website. Note: this is not a "Hey Sexy" directory! Dont even think about it! :P

Along with the profile, we did a dry run of the runway modeling portion about a week and a half ago. Runway modeling, you say? Welcome to Second Life :)



I went back today to the runway modeling site and found it disappeared (these things happen in SL). Here is the site, along with the outfit I wore on my first modeling run! :) I got the top from one of my artist friends. Im wearing a plain black skirt (created in the "Appearance..." menu, no textures). These plain skirts come in handy at times when Im in a hurry.



The shoes are AFantasy "LW Sexy Lace Color Change Shoes" available as a freebie from Free Dove. They are pretty shoes with lace and ribbons, and change colors at a touch.

So during the dry run, I got a crash course on runway modeling in SL. OK, you hear models say this all the time, but its true: It is not as easy as it looks. Especially in SL. You are typically working in a fully loaded sim. Lag is awful. You need to watch the model ahead of you. When its your turn, you try to hit your markers without falling off the stage (the invisible stage barriers help), stop with good spacing between you and the previous model, then strike your pose. Now take 10 girls who have never done this and try it! :) Needless to say, I learned a lot that day.



One of the really cool things I learned is to get a Huddles Quick Pose HUD. A HUD attaches to your display screen, not your avatar. Its the squares on the upper left of the screen here. Its $149L but its great if you do modeling or a lot of posing (not animation). You basically attach it to your HUD, and drag/drop poses onto it. Then you click the corresponding number and you strike the pose. I have 6 poses loaded and I am striking pose #1 in this case. Pretty simply, isnt it? Great for something like a runway if you need to strike multiple poses. Sure beats doing "Play in World" with multiple poses under heavy lag.

Why did I sign up for the Miss SL Pageant? Well 2 reasons, mainly: 1) Its a great learning experience; and 2) forces me to create some new outfits. With the event about to start, I need to concentrate on the Miss SL outfits. So I will not build as many daily outfits over the next couple weeks.

BTW, you can buy outfits for the competition. Im just taking the opportunity to learn how to make diff styles of outfits. I already have the swimsuit and part of the casual ready. The formal wear promises to be a challenge.

What are my chances of winning? Not very good. The scoring is based on the following:

50% Judges
25% Live Audience
25% Off-site Audience

I only have a few friends in SL. But 50% of the votes will be based on popularity. Im in trouble. But I will certainly do my absolute best. I just want to make it to the final round!

And you WILL see some cool stuff from me, I promise! I will feature them in the blog as soon as I model them. :)

So will you come VOTE for me? Please, please, pretty please? I need all the help I can get!