October 10, 2012
Before I hop back a day to yesterday's styling, I am going to pose some thoughts and suggestions on daily styling at CWS. These should be useful for any styling you do within the SL fashion world. Styling is always a lot of fun even though it requires creativity and time. Be prepared! A lot of time if you want to do well....
You start by putting your outfit together, making sure all pieces are harmonious and fit well. Editing prims is usually required. Don't forget the extra little touches like jewelry, makeup, tattoos, and props. They can really make an outfit "pop" or match the theme more closely.
After you are satisfied with your outfit (mostly), its time to work on your poses. I love poses and putting a nice 3 pose sequence together takes time. I used to use different pose sequences for each of the seven stops in the styling formation. Now, I am re-using some. It can be difficult to come up with seven unique pose sequences in a styling. I have developed my own repeating rhythm that is like a secret recipe. I encourage you to find yours too! But remember, poses should not put your hands into your body or clothing or drag them through either of those. They should not put you into unnatural stances, or show parts of your body you wouldn't show, in real life. Hopping around on one foot on a catwalk, or letting everyone see the rash in your armpits 'cuz you just shaved, is not my idea of fun.
So, now you have the poses selected and even organized in sequences, but that is only half of the pose effort. Now you have to drop them in a huddles of some kind. There are a lot of good ones out there, like the Huddles EZ Animator, Balut, Strut It, PoseMe, Zhao Overrider AO, and many more. I have tried most of these and continually come back to the one that is most reliable: Huddles EZ Animator. This is the one that UCWS requires for its model classes and CWS for its fashion shows. It usually does very well in lag.
My biggest gripe about modeling huds is they are not programmable while wearing the hud... except for Strut It. Strut It is awesome but absolutely unreliable. It has failed me many times in lag and even though I love how it can be programmed while wearing it, it just is not strong enough for runway use. If only Huddles allowed you to select the poses into a programming template while wearing it.... oh well. I have decided to to give PoseMe another chance during one of my stylings because of Huddles drawback on walk selecting. Testing it again will let me know whether PoseMe is the hud of choice for daily styling.
Huddles biggest drawback is not being able to easily select your walk. To ensure Huddles is using the proper one, you need to program your various walks into the Huddles AO so you can select the one you want when you need it. In CWS fashion shows, walk choices are minimal and if you are using the recommended AO, you don't need to have a walk selected in Huddles because you can wear your AO at the same time and select the walk in your AO. (Isn't that the same thing? Scratches head....)
Huddles greatest benefit is its ability to add others to it and control them (except for the walk, of course... scratches head) while moving on the runway. You can synchronize yourself with 1, 2 or many other models to make a truly thrilling fashion show. Just remember, you have to make sure you watch each other to walk at the same time. Which is why Huddles is so awesome for CWS fashion shows, but probably overkill for daily styling.
OK! The poses are done and loaded in your modeling hud. You have practiced your runway formation with the poses and everything is working like it should. What's left? The styling description! Yes, not only do you have to style an outfit and find poses to show it off, you also have to write about it!
Oh yes indeedy! Hah! I bet you didn't know that when you began pursuing your SL modeling career that you were going to learn to be a good writer too! YAY! Writing a styling description should be like writing about a style you created for your blog. Make it come alive and others drool to be wearing it! Tell a story or use words to describe how it makes you feel, but for heaven's sake, be emotional about it! You put it together, so tell them how proud you are of it! Point out what is so fab or fun... and don't forget to give the the style notes at the end. Style notes are everything when you have done a good job styling. Everyone will want to buy the outfit immediately, so they need to know who the designers are and the name of the outfit(s) and/or individual pieces. Please don't be stingy with your readers... share the designers!
There is a good reason to be generous... if you generate enough traffic for the designer, the designer will eventually find out and you could be asked to blog for the designer. Blogging for a designer doesn't usually result in Lindens being exchanged but it does provide clothing and accessories in payment. And really... what are you going to use those Lindens for anyway, except to buy "stuff" in SL. So be smart, fellow stylists... share the info!
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