Pixelapproved!

In a world dominated by predominantly glamorous skins, with built in dewy glow, or downright shine, baked shadows and often some basic make up, a brand like Avarosa is refreshing with their fresh and pure faces. Perl has just been released at Kustom9 and I just had to play with her. I am wearing her without any additions here on my Camila head from leLutka and the Trendie eyes from Avi-Glam. Like straight out of the shower! Tabula rasa! The head towel is from Unorthodox, and my hairbase is Camila from Addon+

And here we are with the basic layers on, pre-make-up even. Because I like the idea of building my face up if you know what I mean. Most layers I have used here are from The Skinnery, from one of their face bundles. The forehead lines, my little crows feet and under-eye wrinkles are from them. As well as the lip scar and my moles. Then I slightly adjusted the eyelid with Izzie’s mid-crease eyelid changer. And then from Avarosa I added the freckles, a lip adjuster (set 11) and some Avana eyebags, as well as Nuve‘s sunken cheeks, which I simply love. I feel that these additions give me some more character and add a couple of years to my face.

I quickly got out of my Ricielli Isabel Robe and got dressed in the Laure sweater from the same brand, as well as Fashionably Dead‘s Satin Midi skirt and my favorite Promagic Vertigo sneakers for a pretty Saturday look and styled my hair into Stealthic‘s Beam hair. I wish my RL hair was as easily managed! Then I sat down to do my make-up. I added some contour layers from Velour‘s Pretty Face set and used a blush from The Skinnery‘s Face Bundle which I mentioned before. For all layers, I have picked the partial opacity option, for which I am most grateful because this allows for a more subtle look. Then I added the eye shadow which came with the Pearl skin, because it’s just enhancing my eyes without glamming me up, and last but not least, I added a shade of the Petra lip oil from Jack Spoon.

Before I wrap this up, I wanted to address why I usually struggle with full body shots, and feet in poses. It’s the disregard of many posers -some of whom I greatly admire for their otherwise amazing and natural looking work- for the natural laws of gravity and the principle of contrapposto/counterbalance.
Let me briefly explain that, or rather, invite you to experience it. When you stand firmly on both feet, the weight is distributed evenly. However, that is a very dull pose to stand in when taking pics. To create some movement, you will momst likely have (most of) your weight put on 1 leg. This is your stand leg. Your other leg is your play leg. You will be moving it a bit, using it for balance, but you’re not actually standing on it. Try it, you’ll see what I mean. Standing like that, affects your entire posture, it will cock your hips more or less, move your spine a bit and cause your shoulders to move against the position of your hips.

What can’t happen in RL, but frequently happens in SL, is that the foot of the play leg, will end up lower than the foot of the stand leg, effectively being buried in the floor when you want to stand on that surface. It’s my main pet peeve. Yes, you can fix this yourself, as most viewers have an inworld poser, or you can use a tool like Anypose, but honestly, this is a flaw in the pose, in the product. Just like visible seams in skins and tattoos are, or weird, misplaced shading on clothing. It is not an adjustment you make to move an arm out of the way that hinders a good display of your outfit or like I often do, to move hands out of the frame because I only want a face in there, and not (part of) my hand, nor is it an adjustment you want to make because you decided to make your hips larger than the posemaker’s shape and need to get your hands out of your pelvic area.

You can see what I mean below. Left the pose as is, to the right, I fixed the right leg to be not buried anymore

[UPDATE] Shellina from OMY pointed out that this might occur when the pose is made for heels and you’re wearing flat shoes, like I am in these images. I had no idea this might be the case, so I logged back in to try some poses with high heels on, but while it does make a difference as you can see in the pics with the pink skirt, it doesn’t solve the issue.

If you want to know more about this, I can recommend this video. It is from an art history class on Khan Academy and it really explains the principle really well.

That’s it for now! Be kind! <3