Post Three: Avatar Styles
• • • • This thread was made for people who are new to Gaia and want to get a glimpse at some of the Gaian styles.
Assuming that you're new to Gaia, here's a quick look at some of the avatar "styles" on Gaia. There are other styles besides these ones. Go look through the forums and virtual spaces. Look at all the avatars and keep a mental note of what you like. Don't copy someone's exact avatar. It's rude. (If you and a friend want to dress like twins, that's different.) You can also play around on [tektek] for a while to get a feel for what you like.
I do have another thread in which I plan to include more styles and examples. This thread will have to suffice until that thread is made. ;D
Here's something to keep in mind about these categories. Sometimes avatars fit in more than one category. A cosplay of a real life person might also fit into the real life avatar category. A matching avatar might also have a theme. You don't have to be boxed into one category.
Cosplays: You can dress up your avatar to look like a famous movie star, movie character, cartoon character, historical figure, favorite anime, favorite video game, you name it. This is not always easy because the right items might not even exist to make the character. It can feel very rewarding to pull this off. Some people have usernames based off of a character and find it fun to dress and act like that character.
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Themes: With a themed avatar, you don't really dress your avatar up as a specific person. You dress like a stereotype. For example, you wouldn't dress up like David Blaine, the magician. You dress up like a stereotypical magician. You'd wear a top hat, have a magic wand, hold a bunny-- that kind of stuff. This category is widely varied since you can dress up in all sorts of themes from attorneys to zebras. Depending on the theme, the items needed might be cheap or expensive. You have to go all out though. You can't just hold a magician's wand and say you're a magician.
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Abstract Blobs: This one's neat. Sometimes people can equip certain items together that distort their shape and turn them into.. blobs. They look like they didn't start out human. This requires lots of items. It usually requires expensive items that add mists and swirls to the avatar.[Space]
Inanimate Objects: This is also neat. Here, people make their avatars look like a table with tea on it or like a volcano in the midst of clouds. To accomplish this, people usually turn their avatars around and often sit down. There is no way to preview items with your avatar turned backwards or sitting down. These types of avatars are usually discovered by accident as a person plays around with items they own. Note, there are also poses called "I am" poses. These are poses that turn your avatar into an animal, another person, and sometimes even objects like swords. Using an item that turns you into a volcano doesn't count in this category. To count, you'd have to use a bunch of other random items that make your avatar look like a volcano. :]
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Cluttered Avatars: Clutter isn't all about showing off all your expensive items at once. In fact, stylish clutter is not about showing off items at all. However, you do have to own a lot of items. The goal here is to equip lots of items in such a way that it's hard to pick out each item. The items meld together in one large clutter ball. Most successful cluttered avatars often still keep their human shape. Cluttered avatars can match or not match. There are also varying degrees of clutter. [Space]
Real Life Avatars: The goal here is to make your avatar look like an average person. You can dress up like that guy or girl you see walking down the street. You can dress it up to look like yourself. Yes, it's possible for a person to wear clothing like a toga or a suit of armor, but those kinds of items aren't everyday wear. An avatar dressed in a toga or suit of armor most likely wouldn't be a Real Life Avatar. A Real Life Avatar would more likely have a couple pieces of clothing with regular accessories like glasses, earrings, and belts. Real Life Avatars can look boring or they can look interesting. To make a Real Life Avatar look more interesting, you often need items like contacts, wigs, tattoos, scars, moles, etc. You might not see the difference between an average realistic avatar and an artistic realistic avatar until you've hung around the Avatar Talk subforum for awhile.
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Non-matching Avatars: This sounds easy, right? Just throw on random items and say you went for the non-matching style. Wrong. Non-matching avatars actually take a lot of coordination. There's often still a hint of matching. They often use different shades of of one color throughout the avatar. You also have to pay attention to the shape and texture of items. Texture is created by how an item is colored. Some items have a smooth gradient, some are rough, some are plaid, some dotted, etc. Sometimes the two styles of Real Life Avatars and Non-matching Avatars look like the same thing. This is because an avatar can match, not match, be themed, or be a cosplay and still be realistic. A Real Life Avatar would wear an outfit that you can or would wear in real life (irl). A Real Life Avatar can match or not match. With Non-matching, the outfit might be possible irl or it might not. You can also get away with things like tails, wings and scarves that defy gravity.
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And finally, Matching Avatars: The goal of this style is to use two or more colors on an avatar. For each color used, all items have to be the same shade. For example, light sky blue does not match dark royal blue. Each color should be spread as evenly around the avatar as possible. Matching avatars can range from as simple as wearing five items to wearing forty items or more. Making simple matching avatars can be cheap, while the more complex cluttered matching avatars would most likely cost a lot. [Space]
Really, all styles boil down to two things:
One: Do not use sets. Sets are items that were released at the same time. You can often tell what is a set because they share the same keyword like "g-lol" and "glamrock." Gaians celebrate creativity and diversity. If everyone wore the same items, we'd all look alike. Boring. And wearing a set of items made to equip together does not show your own creativity. Show off the awesome creations you can come up with.
Two: Have an interesting facial expression. This part pretty much requires lots of gold since you would need items like contacts, blush, scars, moles, etc. You can find more info on this concept [here].
