Tellaq Avatar Creations

One complaint about Second Life that occasionally comes up is the lack of ethnic avatars. Quality ones seem especially hard to find. One man here started up a skin store to do something about it: Tellaq Avatar Creations.

The store is two buildings, one for male skins, one for female. The mens’ area had the larger selection (for now), and had mostly black skins. But there were several white ones as well, in addition to an Asian look. Both buildings had a lucky chair, giving people a chance to win one of the skins.

Tellaq Avatar Creations is owned by Tellaq Guardian. “I am a graphics designer in my First Life,” he explained, “Seven months after I got into Second Life I tried (making) my first skin. First reason for making the Afro skin, I couldn’t find any good black skins for myself. As you can see in the store, there are many Afro skins.”

Tellaq remarked that his choice of his name in Second Life was a joke, “ ‘Tellaq’ means a cleaner guy in a Turkish bath. He cleans the customers inside (grin), helping them to clean their shoulders and (places on) their back where they can’t reach.”

Tellaq has a total od 48 avatars in his store, but only for the moment, “I am working on forty Afro women now.” He plans for a total of ninety avatars in the near future, “It will be done in two months.”

Among the avatars, his favorite is “Derrick,” which he created first and still wears most of the time. He also feels especially proud of his work on “Kid,” “Francis,” and “Vincent.” Comments by others about his skins encouraged him to make more, “Their comments made me do better things. They said I was number one (smile), and (had) the most beautiful Afro skins when they saw this. ... They gave me the fire to do (more).”

Tellaq had not been planning on making a store when he started, intending to make just a few skins, but the complements by others spurred him to make more, “I wasn’t planning to do it. I was just having fun in Second Life.”

Tellaq had no plans to sell anything but skins, “Except skins and shapes, I don’t really plan to do anything else.”



Tellaq Avatar Creations is at the Tropical Breeze sim at (49, 62, 23)


Bixyl Shuftan

Body Snatching reported!

On this lazy Sunday afternoon, my girlfriend was shopping for a new skin. And trust me, if there is anyone who knows just about every skin and skin shop on the Grid, it's her! Usually I am reluctant to interfere with her shopping sprees, but in this case there were so many 'OMG's' coming in my IM that I just had to accept that teleport.

Where I landed was just amazing. It was a camping spot from hell. I felt like I was dropped into a sequel to 'Invasion of the Body Snatchers'. Just imagine being surrounded by all naked ruthed avatars dancing and making weird moves.


So, here I was, surrounded by alts or script controlled avatars. The reason why people do this, is just to create extra traffic. They create a number of alts and bring them in-world with a clever script or program. They park them and there you go.

So I was wondering why we were here. My darling told me that she had stumbled on to something really really bad. There already have been numerous reports on stolen skins and clothing for the last couple of months. There's even a long article about it on the official Linden Lab Jira site (link here). And she had found the place where they sell the contraband goods. We flew down from the camping platform in the sky to a big mall on the floor. There was a big shop selling skins there. And piece by piece, they are exact copies from famous skin shops like Naughty Designs and X2.

Look at the resemblance and examine the detail of it.



So far, Linden Lab hasn't done anything about this. The place still exists, the illegal copied textures haven't been removed from SL, the search is still unfairly screwed up, and suspected thieves still make tons of money from it. And the worst thing about it, is that these skins aren't even given away as freebies, they are actually sold as quality original goods, although we all know that they're not.

The problem with these things is that without the help of Linden Lab, it is very hard to find proof of the theft. LL could easily see when the textures were uploaded and thus see which ones are original. But so far they haven't done anything, it appears.

And these people are in breach with the Terms of Service and Community Standards altogether, because the regions that they show these skins (including explicit adult content) are rated PG, not Mature. To complement this statement, on the other side of the street is a Dicks & Pussies store, showing their wares !!

Mind you, with the term 'help' in the name of one of their regions, they suggest that they're an official Help Island. I can tell you, they're NOT. That, combined with the high traffic numbers that they produce themselves, it's basically one big scam.

All in all this is just a very bad place to be and it made me feel very very uncomfortable. About the stuff that I could prove, I have submitted a few abuse reports. Please remember that at least part of what they sell is illegal (if not all) and you would be supporting copyright breach if you buy there.

Skin designers like Backstage (Naughty Designs), X2:Exotica and RaC have put a lot of time and effort into those skins and that's what makes them quite expensive. So the only right way to do it, is use a (legal) freebie skin like the CS-Passport ones and save up to buy a good one at the right places.

Finding a Furred Avatar (Do You Love the Skin You’re In Part 2)

Some friends and I were recently talking about articles in the SLN, and I mentioned Dashwood Dayafter’s article, “Do You Love the Skin You’re In,” of which the topic had also recently been discussed on Second Life TV. Discussing it, it was suggested I do an article about finding a “furry” avatar.............

Read more in the DESIGN section

by Bixyl Shuftan

Can "big business" overtake Second Life?

I recently got in a discussion with a truly business-savvy guy who has come up with one of the best ideas for businesses in SL. (The discussion was private, therefore I am not mentionning the name.) We talked about the future of SL and explored the danger that "big business", meaning the corporate world, could "take over" this environment as they did with the Web when they got involved.

We had the impression that it is not likely. Of course, companies are looking at Second Life and its potential for growth. They definitely want to find out whether they can use it, start some activities in it and make money. According to the businessman I was talking to, it could take companies a year or two to actually understand what can be done here.

On the other hand, he could not deny that I had a point when I told him how limited the potential was for a company. Imagine paying staffers with real-life salaries to set up a sim, build places and design products that they cannot sell at real-life prices.

If you pay up to L$2000 for a skin from an in-world creator, you are paying about 8 US dollars. Which is considered expensive around here. Will you pay 50 US dollars (more than L$13000!) because the cost or production forces a real-life company to charge higher prices? Will it be infinitely detailed to justify dumping the L$2000 skin you already wear?

What kind of model could businesses adopt? They established their Web presence by investing heavily, and advertising followed since this is the kind of ad-friendly media. Second Life is not.

So there is a big hole in the argument that favors expansion of "big business" around here. How far can they go with a model that doesn't provide them with much revenue potential unless prices rise extremely high?

Who is that gorgeous av?

Has Dana found a new love?

find out in the DESIGN section