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Ball Joint Twist

Friday, January 1, 2010

The styles of avatar have changed considerably since I first entered SL.  When I stepped in world about 3 years ago, the average female avatar was amazonian in height, extremely thin, and a bit cartoonish.  My own avatar was created as a counterpoint to that look.



For about a few months, I looked close to unique.  But it seemed I was just a bit ahead of the ball curve on realism.  Now more avatars are around my height, no longer quite as thin and celebrate different facial types.  Although SL is still overwhelmingly caucasian in appearance, there are more skins being offered that support different ethnicities.

Still I'm on the outer edges of fashion in avatar style.  Avatar fashion has moved away from the super model look and into something more strangely fascinating.



The picture above is from Blastmilk.  Blastmilk specializes in photography of Ball Joint dolls.  These dolls are popular in Asia, particularly Japan, and have a slightly creepy air.  They seem to encompass realism (in their range of expressions and poseable bodies) and fantasy (overly large eyes, baby round faces etc).  I never realized that these dolls had a large influence on new avatar styles in SL until a few days ago.  I was paging through an issue of "Coilhouse" and read an article about doll maker Marina Bychkova.



Seeing this particular photo of her dolls struck me as familiar.  Lately some of the SL blogs have been commenting on strange facial features in avatars lately...such as eyes that were too far apart and lips that were overly large.  The new avatar fashion in SL take after these porcelain ball joint dolls.

Its an overly stylized look to be sure.  And it doesn't quite look human.  Which could account for why many find the look creepy.  Truthfully avatar fashion is a tricky symbiotic relationship between skin designers and customers.  People naturally find large eyes and large lips attractive.  The skin designers cater to this genetic preference.  But left on their own, would the average VR resident create a BJ looking avatar?  I don't think so.  If anything it looks as if one designer (not sure who at the moment) referenced Bychkova's work and created a skin/shape that mimics her work.  And then the look took off from that point.

Do I like it?  No, it isn't my cup of tea.  I've never been fascinated by dolls, even when I was a child.  And again, I'm a little put off by the BJ dolls in general.  But I can't deny that they are an art.  And since now there is some RL reference for this look in SL, I don't find the avatar copy quite so horrific.

The winds of fashion...so to speak.

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