~ Avatar Making Guide ~

A poll for you.

Option 1	62.0%	[ 2801 ]
Option 2	38.0%	[ 1714 ]
Total Votes:			[ 4515 ]

[sdrawkcab]

Teacup Creations

sdrawkcab

I have too many dream avatars to count I love playing around with tek tek too much, I change my avatar often too but my items limit me xp

you meant last year right? it's new years :3

o: Yeah I gave up on making dream avatars long ago when I realized that I wouldn't be able to stick to one avatar.
I remember when my items limited me. Well, my items still limit me. XD; But my dreams keep getting bigger as Gaia releases more and more neat items to play with. Well the good news is that your avatar doesn't look limited at all. o: It's very pretty. And you'll slowly amass a large inventory of items. ^^ It creeps up on you and one day you'll realize that you own more than you ever thought you would. ...But you'll still want more. >3 Well, you'll only still want more if you still love to change your avatar all the time.

XD; Yeah, oops, I meant last year. I was hurrying when I wrote that post. :]

[sdrawkcab]

Buttercream Pendragon

♥ Mm.. I didn't started using the caroling items even if I like them so much, so I can't help you unfortunately :/ But this gold is kind of lighter then the other shades of gold we have in Gaia right now O_o So this will be kind of hard..
You got baos from donating? I got two of the new Piero-like coat, a red one and a cream one *^* and lots of christmas trees so instead of gold sink for me it's been a modest but welcomed income xP
Now, every new annoucement I hope it's a new rei or cash item I like and can buy, I'm so desperate xP For now I have spent all the gold I had for the Selkie (80k and it was a great deal because it used to cost hundreds of kk O_O), Golden Victory (my avi came out Narnia inspired *^*) and Caretaker Tia (30k for a great and complet outfit with horns too!) and now I'm happy and poor xP

XD I still haven't worn the xmas 2k11 caroling items. > < Bad me. One of my mules is enjoying her free gloves though. ^^
That xmas event was awesome. <3 It was boring, but I loved all the gold. I sold my trees and bought a Pink Bao with the gold. u .u; I was hoping that the event would give me a free one, but at least it still was free.

Oooo those are great items. I'd be happy too. o:
The last few cash shop updates didn't appeal to me, but now I really want some of the new items. What is your opinion of the Daughter of Snows REI? I think the cream color is lovely. o wo I also really like the Pink Dragoness item. The wig is adorable. The wig looks very hard to match, but it's so cute that I must have it. :3

[sdrawkcab]

Black Lust Perfume

wow, very clearly and this deserve to be sticky.

Aww thank you. I'm flattered by your comment.

I think it would make a lot of people mad to have a sticky that's trying to tell them to dress a specific way though. XD; So I'll just hope that people stumble across this thread every now and then. ^^

[sdrawkcab]

Octoberrry

hey guys; can you help me with this avi

Sorry for such a late response. Are you still working on it?
I'd love to help, but I don't know what your goal is. I'll just assume matching. > <;
Oh, and I tested that green cap at the black hat. They won't equip at the same time. </3

Um, consider putting a hat under the green hat? o: That sounds like fun. I wanted to suggest the Blue Pompaca Hat, but it added waaay too much blue. Here's an example of using a white hat with it. (The white fuzz that sticks out on top is cut off on Gaia.)
http://www.tektek.org/avatar/47983109

[sdrawkcab]

Ceaen

Oh how I wish everyone who makes horrid avatars would read this and take your advice. And nobody has an excuse to have such bad avatars, because you even had a section on cheap avatars. I was actually thinking of making a "on a budget" guide but you seemed to cover it fairly well, so I'm not even sure if it would be worth my time to make a more in depth guide focusing purely on gold shop items and particularly aimed at newbies.

(Pardon my avatar's condition at the moment, it's a brand new account I made since I abandoned my old account quite some time ago. I simply haven't had time to do much with her yet.)

o: I agree that price is no excuse to have a poorly constructed avatar. There are tons of cheap gems out there. We're even getting more and more well-detailed gold shop items. And if you're against gold shop items (I don't understand those people XDD), the CIs release 10-30k items each month. Being poor on Gaia is no excuse to not put thought into your outfit. Heck, I've been living the life of a poor Gaian for years. XD (Hence my strange fondness of gold shop items.)

The funny thing is, this guide was originally aimed at newbies. Er, well, it was aimed at those who hadn't attempted the matching style yet. And, at the time, that usually meant that they were new to the site. ^^;;;
This guide was made to show that good avatars can be cheap. And that cheap avatars can be good. There were other guides on matching, but their examples always used verrrrry expensive items in every example. Always. The guides were intimidating.
In order to try to stay relevant with the times, this guide has changed and expanded. At heart, I still want it to be cheap. All tektek avatar examples in this main thread are about 25k or less and only use gold shop items. .... It's why a lot of the examples look like they're stuck in the old days of Gaia. XD; The spiffier items often break my fake budget. (And a lot of the examples are actually stuck in the old days because I slooowly do edits on the guide when I find time.)


Funny enough, I've always wanted to do a guide aimed at working on a budget. o wo
I mean, my guide is on a budget. And, well, I also have tips about working on a budget spread around the guide. And my guide does try to show people that you can make a good avatar on a budget... but it doesn't really explain how to do that. I mostly just tell people that it's possible. XD;
If you do go through with making a guide about being on a budget, can I suggest something? Consider not limiting yourself to gold shop items. Or maybe make a separate section/post that allows you to expand to other cheap items. My gold-shop-item-only rules constrict me. I miss out on all of those great cheap equippable items from zOMG and other Gaia games, events, sponsors, Daily Chance. I mean, yes, those items have the potential to increase in price. But let's face it, there are tons that won't. XD; All those free items hold a special place in my heart. I used to clothe myself on free event items alone. (And boy did my avatars look awful. XD;;; There weren't many cheap items at the time so I couldn't afford much to wear. > < I just looked forward to the next event and hoped that those items would work with the event items I owned. )


And those new starter items were released at a very convenient time. I can't wait until I find time to add them to examples in this thread.
A lot of the older starter items are horrible. XD I like to exclaim how great they are... but there are really only a handful that are wearable. Some of the old starter items just fit the avatar oddly...

[Octoberrry]

sdrawkcab

Well, l think the avatar that you made is beautiful, Thanks a lot.

[Ceaen]

sdrawkcab

As I've been thinking more lately, if I make a guide it will be focused on a budget using mostly gold shop, but I'll include other cheap items like the daily change stuff, sponsor items, and event items. I'm thinking of having a section on how to make your very first avi on a newbie budget of under 10k (since 10k can easily be earned in under 15 minutes of booty grab). And then maybe have sections on how to make progressively more expensive (but still cheap) avis as a newbie earns more gold.
But it is crazy how easy it is to make a nice looking avi for around 10k. The past few days on my old account I was cleaning out my inventory by building decent avis and selling them in the outfit shop. A good number of them were under 10k (even more wound up being almost exactly 11k) and I was working with an even more limited item selection since it was only the items I already owned. Some of the avis weren't as great as they could have been (color matching a little off, appearing like it needed one more accessory, ect) do to the limitations of my item collection, but if I had gone to the gold shops to buy that extra item or two I needed it still would have been super cheap.

I'd probably also explain ways to keep an avi affordable but still make it look good. Possibly even a section on making a dream avi that you can build up over time but have it look complete and attractive even while your questing for the more expensive items.



And the new starter items are really great. Before this account got her trading pass (I happened to make this the same day those items were release), I had to make a cheap avi, so I used those new items and a few others from the cash shop; the whole avi cost under 3k and I quite liked it considering how cheap it was and that it used starter items, but avoided using a full set of anything.

[Black Lust Perfume]

sdrawkcab

Black Lust Perfume

wow, very clearly and this deserve to be sticky.

Aww thank you. I'm flattered by your comment.

I think it would make a lot of people mad to have a sticky that's trying to tell them to dress a specific way though. XD; So I'll just hope that people stumble across this thread every now and then. ^^

Very true. I know there is some people who like unique items, more of clattering avatar and somehow they turns out unique. And use I am poses with unique backgrounds that made it look something differently, I wonder how they did that.

True that people will not like someone tell what to dress, but this thread sound just giving some ideas how to get a very good avatar with small gold and able to impress anyone.

[Teacup Creations]

sdrawkcab

Yup and then there's that time when you decide to empty your large masses of items and realise how much you've actually spent gonk I've got a general idea of a dream avatar now, mainly to aim for those nice looking items though, could you help me out a bit I'm struggling a bit with the bottom gonk ?

[Mikerochip]

<3

[twin cities]

This thread. heart

[JeeszyCreezy]

Happy 1206 pages! ^^

[Chaotic Guilt]

Hmm. Impressive.
But what I noticed that there aren't many male examples. :/
Either way, still a pretty good guide. c:

[sdrawkcab]

Chaotic Guilt

Hmm. Impressive.
But what I noticed that there aren't many male examples. :/
Either way, still a pretty good guide. c:

XD You're right. In my mind, it's pretty darn even. I don't count the extra parts where I threw my avatar in as placeholders for concepts. I'll do something about that. ;3
It should be pretty clear that each individual concept can be applied to both bases no matter what the model is, but I do want to keep things even. Thanks for bringing this to my attention. :}







Now that I have a bit more time again, I'll try to tweak the examples. These gold shop items really go out of fashion and look old quickly. XD And I'll respond to other posts at that time. ^^;;;;

[Buttercream Pendragon]

sdrawkcab

Go for it Cabbi dear!
Lately the shops have been updated with really cute things, even for male I think :3