Well, I don’t write the headlines. But I want to be accurate. The story, as originally written, said (mistakenly) that Joel charged L10,000 for a makeover. Joel read the entire story and approved it. I later heard that, in fact, the fee was L4000 per hour and asked him about it. This is what he said:

“L4000 per hour is correct. Thanks for double-checking. Between you and me, I am very lax on that point…and I let people pay less for more time than we originally agree. I simply find that if you give people no set time for the fee then they will drag it out for a whole week if you let them. So yeah. L4000 per hour.”

This is the first time I have heard that was the highest fee he ever charged. Anyway, I’m glad the story generated business for this talented man.

I can’t address script related performance impact other than to say I don’t notice any changes in performance when I’m working with my lights, and at times I have several running at once to test various functions and HUD controls.

Someone commented about limiting the number of available lights in a sim which I believe I mis-understood. I’ve seen numerous lights – not just facelights but street lights and other lighting effects, all at the same time. Is it perhaps related to the graphics card? I got lucky at Best Buy one weekend and have a giant super turbo mega extreme graphics card

Regarding the use of giant room illuminating kleig face lamps, I’m completely with you. Not only do they mess up the surrounding visual environment, they also make the wearer look washed out. The maximum range on my face lamps is two meters rather than the apparent 10 meters that most others use, and the intensity, range and fade effect are all adjustable. The default settings are all on the low end of the scale.

For the most part people can’t tell that I’m wearing a face light unless it’s turned off.

Lastly, clever girl that I am, mine automatically adjusts when the sun in a sim rises or sets so the light works quite well day or night.

Being a good consultant:
To me, it means helping the client getting what they want. To do this, I spend time asking about what they’re looking for, what they think looks good, I give feedback on choices that the client makes, introduce them to options they may not be aware of, and offer other input which may help them to make informed decisions for themselves (such as color theory, 3D rendering and lighting, etc). I don’t believe a good consultant says “wear this because it’s right”. Instead, he says “How do we achieve what you’re looking for?”. I’ve helped a number of clients with avatars that I wouldn’t personally choose for them, but I did my best to make sure they had some tools and made them aware of alternatives. In the end, if the client says “This is exactly what I wanted!”, that’s what I consider success. That’s how I work.

Facelights:
People spend an incredible amount of time and energy working on their skin and their shape to make it as realistic or life-like as they can (those who use demons or furries will obviously have different but equally valid goals for their look). While people agonize over realism in skins and shapes, they often forget that light is the very foundation of everything you can see, and they neglect to consider it. On its own, the Second Life light rendering casts a synthetic, volumetric shadow on your face built from hard polygons, unlike the RL sun which casts more subtle shadows from the shape of flesh over bone (and if you think the sun in SL works as elegantly as the sun in RL then you give Linden Labs an awful lot of credit) In SL, you will often seen dark, hard lines around the mouth, nose or cleavage which make your avatar look like it’s made of plastic instead of skin. A good Facelight (not all are good) softens or removes those shadows and smooths out the skin to restore a more natural, human look and present the skin with the intended color and tone. I said that Facelights “should be law” in a tongue-in-cheek way, but I advocate them for a lot of solid reasons.

If a client doesn’t like Facelights, that’s fine; all I ask is that they try one and see for themselves. If it’s not to the client’s taste, then we move on. What’s more, I typically explain that a Facelight sometimes does *not* improve your appearance (such as when you are very close to another avatar or if you are in low-light conditions) and that one must use common sense by occasionally turning it off. Facelights should never be “always on” or “always off”.

Fees:
I did tell Wendell that my fee was $4000L per hour. That was correct. I also told him that I have a sliding scale and that I rarely charge the whole $4KL/60 mins. In practice, I typically negotiate a price with the client based on what they need and how long it’ll take to get it. Wendell chose not to mention the sliding scale and, instead, wrote the highest fee I have ever charged into the headline. Why he made that choice is between him and his editor.

Make no mistake, however; I charge a professional-level fee because I do professional-level work. I serve the client with care and experience and I charge a fair price for it. I’m not cheap because the work I do isn’t cheap.

As I said, I don’t expect that everyone is going to agree with or love the things that I do or believe about my work and how I approach it, but I felt I should make some of these points openly so at least those who take issue with me are taking issue with things that I actually advocate and believe.

And thanks again for the article, SLH. It’s really helped me out.

p.s. Jessica, if you like a look… wear it. You’re the one who pays for what you wear, you’re the one who has to live with it, so make sure you always go with what you think is right for you. There’s a lot of talk about “be yourself” here, but it’s sandwiched in between claims that only idiots wear/do X, Y, or Z. Take the former to heart, ignore the latter.

I recently received a makeover and my new skin had a facelight. I used it because I liked the look. Until I read these comments telling me about all the bad effects, so I’ll stop using it unless I am taking photographs. But its good that there was this discussion.

As for Bling, so many people put it in their jewelry and shoes without telling you how to turn it off. I don’t wear a number of pieces due to bling or scripting.

In addition to blingtards, we now have flingtards?
I went to the mainland for an event, and in walked three birds. Tits pumped to 100, waist down to 12 and arse humped up to 85 (Hey! Watch where you turn, blingtard, nearly knocked my prim beer over!)
Two of them had so much bling I swear the DJ cried as he saw his 4 hours lighting build go down the lag drench and the third went the whole nine yards for the flingtard look. I suspect her rolemodel must be Perish Hilton nailed up to a hotel facade, caught in 30 spotlights.

I know you can’t buy personality, but are they THAT desperate for attention?

Harper looks like the typical SL fashionista. I mean, sure, she doesn’t look bad. But I can go to any fashion gathering in SL and point at 20 people looking exactly the same.

Joel looks, except for the photorealistic skin just the same as any other RL reject on SL. A guy with no personality whatsoever. Doesn’t look really bad. There just isn’t a single damn thing special about him.

Wendell before looks like an utter noob, but hey, being a noob is at least excusable.

Wendell after looks like a guy with no personality of his own, just like Joel basically, but being a failure even at that.

It’s pretty simple if you want to look good.

1) Shove those goddamn facelights up Joel’s ass. Looking at his face, I bet that gets enough traffic to be able to handle some lights.

2) Try to figure out your own style FFS.

3) Be yourself.

And advice for post-wendell: Until you figure out a proper style, go back to your noob look. You have no excuse for your current look. If anything, you look like a twat who has been given a make over by his mother. If you have a noob look, at least you can blame it on inexperience.

I hope a TP shoves ‘em up your ass.

Whenever I see an AV with facelights, it just seems like a pathetic “look at me look at me!” cry for attention. Usually seen on newbie blonde AVs that look like a blow-up sex doll and are undoubtedly a male posing as what passes for a “hot” female in his estimation.

Don’t ya just LOVE the great publicity your business gets here? I would recommend joining groups and spamming them as a more favorable way of having your business publicly trashed.