Having nothing to do today but wait to hear from people,

[snarp]

Deeply unscientific survey! Here are links to a bunch of images of a Second Life avatar’s face, with different skin textures applied: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8.

I would be extremely happy if people who had time went through them and told me in the comments on the LiveJournal (rather than on the website, which is behaving badly) 1) what ethnicity each one “reads” as to you, as short or long or vague or specific as you want, 2) optionally, some kind of description of your own racial/cultural background (like, “white American,” “1/2-generation Taiwanese-Canadian”). This is for a Top-Secret Grumpy Research Project about Second Life skins.

Today I finally did my laundry and grocery shopping. I think it’s been three weeks since I did laundry? I had some really good green tea ice cream at a restaurant a few weeks ago, so I bought some at the store. It turns out that not all green tea ice creams are necessarily edible.

(Originally published at SarahPin.com. You can comment here or there.)

Comments

[doom-magpie.livejournal.com]

1) I tend to look at size/shape of facial features more than skin tone. Given that all of them are the same face with the same features, they all read to me as at least part African (American or not).* Obviously, the two paler-skinned ones suggest a mixed background; #7 seems the most white (part Latina, maybe? hard to tell, especially with closed eyes). I will say that #6 looks weird with lips the same color as her skin.

2) For the record, I'm a little white girl living near San Francisco.


* On closer inspection, I would say this is mostly due to the lip size/shape/fullness (I'm trying to ignore the dreads), size of eyes (perhaps), and placement of features. The nose, eye shape, and cheekbones are fairly ordinary, and could fit a number of ethnicities, though Asian is kind of a long shot.

[snarp]

Yeah, I actually made the shape specifically to fit #2. To do this properly, I guess I'd want to use at least three different shapes, with multiple shapes for each texture, and take the hair off. (The number of Japanese girls with dreadlocks around here is seriously messing with my racial associations for dreads...)

I'm a little grumpy about #6 and #5 - they're new things from a designer I like, but for reasons I am incapable of articulating I feel like the shading's not right.

(It seems like your subject blinking should not be a problem with, you know, screenshots, but it is totally a problem with Second Life.)