When reading my daily doses of SL-blogs I stumbled upon Gogolita’s Newbie Style Challenge II. It is all for fun and sounds easier than it turned out to be. The challenge is: go from newbie to a nicely dressed up avatar with a maximum of LS 550. Ouch! That is not a lot – I am probably a big spender and thought it to be almost impossible to do!
So I created a new account, with NO inventory and NO money. Her name is Yum and she arrived in SL on the 4th of November as a Female Cosplay Avatar.
Aw, here she is, in all her innocence, posing for the ‘before’ picture:
Cute as she may be, she had work to do! 550 Linden Dollars is maybe a lot of money for a new resident, but nice stuff is not cheap so she had to spent it wisely.
I started with the Mushroom-Hunt, which had some rather nice things and on the way of teleporting I joined her in all kind of shop-groups for free member gifts. Getting a bit tired of the shoppingtrips, I took a ‘break’ and worked on her shape. I picked up some free shape somewhere (oops, forgot where!!) but it looked awful so I editted her completely! That took some hours of playing with sliders..
The endresult for now, I spent a staggering amount of 270 Linden Dollars, is this:
Skin: Glam Affair – Gio Natural Skin – Fall , at the Dressingroom (70 L$)
Hair: W&Y New 120 (comes in a pack of 4 colors and bangs are optional) (200 L$)
Eyes: Amacci GreyBrown Eyes Big (free)
Jeans: Urban Republic Mushroom Hunt Jeans (free)
T-shirt: Free gift at Poison
Parka Jacket: COCO Design (free groupgift)
Shoes: COCO Ruffled Ankle Boots (free groupgift)
Facial Piercing: [Acide] Jam Turqouise (free groupgift)
Necklace: [EY-NO] Mushroom necklace (free Mushroom hunt item)
Poses: all pictures made in Angy’s Free DIY Photostudio
Cait's World 
Oh wow !! Great job !! She did a great job of being fashionable on a dime!
Thanks Colleen :) It was fun, but gawd…the time you have to invest!!! I am not an experienced freebie hunter and Caity usually can’t be arsed to spend hours looking for free stuff…so this was a double challenge for me!
She looks like the friend of the most attractive girl in the class . . .
Pep ( . . . who scares all the boys off from asking for a date with her friend.)
PS And never gets a date herself.
Lol Pep! I assume you refer to the grumpy look on Yum’s face? I cant help it, it is a bit in the modern skin, they seem to fit best with a hanging mouth! Reason why Caity wears old skins….she has to smile :p
Maybe Yum should hang out with Charly.
Pep (They could both be miserable about not having a date together.)
Cute!! Great job Caity <3
Thanks Argus! It was a cool experience, and since Yum still has 280 linden dollars left (!) I may take her for another make-over in future :p.
I found it impossible to find a good free skin and free or cheap hair for some reason, maybe that’s okay though: just invest some cents in a good skin and good hair, and the rest is a matter of hunting and joining as many groups as you can!
So the hair was the single most expensive buy. Go figure! For ‘next time’ (LOL), Truth has a freebie style in the main room of his shop.
She is very cute. Nice job Cait!
Ty Venus :)
Oh the hair! LOL. I think that is where Caity’s experience and taste popped up…Truth Hair never looks good on Caity and I stopped going there, as I only got dissapointed. I just never tought of Truth!
This whole challenge is nice though, initially they (juicybomb) do it to give new residents some examples on how to dress up for little money. I must admit, a brand new resident (was Yum really a newborn and fresh in SL) would probably have great trouble with the shape-editting. It took me hours and hours, and I am not even new to it!
Also a note: the shoes come with a hud to manually color the feet to your skin with a colourpicker, this is also not an easy job for a newcomer.
All in all, it was fun !!
I understand about the feet/HUD colour thing. Maitreya Gold has a great notecard with each purchase telling one how to use the HUD and what numbers to use for various skins (a whole lot of em listed). However, purchasing a pair of Maitreya Gold shoes would have busted your allowance…best stick to close-toed shoes or boots for the makeover. :)
Oh, I love my Maitreya’s! Their HUD is indeed amazingly simple…well for Caity that is, as my skins are in the list with numbers (I usually wear Belleza Elle Fair or Pale)
Yah…Yum would kill for a pair, but alas…no budget eh? Good point about closed boots, COCO also has a pair (free) of lovely black boots….will pick em up next time! (and yes, I will send her to Truth too…LOL)