I was intrigued. Was this some new fashion trend I'd missed? In local chat I asked something like, "Who started the black skin avatar craze?" Silence. No response at all.
Of course, it turned out it was just a software glitch causing a few avatars to render improperly on my screen. The dead air after my question was likely because no one had a clue what the hell I was talking about. Or they thought it was a racist remark related to our ebony-skinned DJ, GoSpeed Racer. Oh well.
Later that night, I decided to try duplicating what I'd seen by creating a solid black texture and applying it to my skin and eyes. It worked! I took a few photographs like the one below and went to bed.
I woke up way-too-early-for-a-Sunday-morning and couldn't get back to sleep. On a whim, I decided to jump inworld and grab a little video. Nightflower was online so I asked if she'd join me for a "ShadowPlay" shoot. She was kind enough to agree and we had a good time messing around on a rooftop in the middle of Extropia Core. I spent a few hours editing that afternoon to create the video I posted yesterday.
Here are a couple of still shots from Sunday morning. They are unretouched except for cropping.
Finally, here's a shot taken with CodeBastard Redgrave's cool FilterCam HUD.
I really like the black avatar look. It's kind of like being a walking infographic character. New fashion trend? What do you think?
