Kelly Bruder

I can see your point of view it is kinda cool to be the only one who looks like you in Secondlife with out a carbon copy running around. its the time investment I guess that gets to me. I have spent days and even a whole week looking for skins and hair, Vahalla Avatars makes a great looking Native American skin check them out

I have been to The Shop I am a big fan of their work and I own a number of there skins, thank you for the feed back

I have been in secondlife almost 8 years now. In that time I have been on an almost constant hunt for good skins for African american females. I am Half black half Hispanic IRL and I like my avatar to reflect my ethnic background. The problem I have run into is that Most but not All skin makers make a skin and just change the color with no thought or regard to features, furthermore some skin makers refuse to make ethnic skins. Some exaggerate features to the point of being insulting. Now I could forgive this with early skins back when secondlife was young. Yet I still find these exaggerated features, or red nipples or simply just changing the shade without any thought to the features of people of color. The problem is further compounded because it seems like the ethnic skin is the last skin to make it into the store or on the market. I am not trying to make this into a racial thing but when you look for ethnic skins african skins there is a limited number of creators who make the content. With that being said those who do Make ethnic or African skins they do a beautiful job of it taking care to think of features nipple color and shape of breast. These skins are well worth the cost I would just like to see more creators take the time to make beautiful skins for all women of color. The overwhelming number of skins available to my fair skinned counterparts makes me a little jealous and to a degree makes me feel that some creators think that ethnic or african women are not worth doing skins for because they might fear the skin won't sell. To this I would like to say when I have used a quality skin 9 times out of 10 some one will ask me where I got the skin from. I will gladly give them the landmark. The Best advertising any business can do even in secondlife is customer testimony. word of mouth and letting the work speak for itself. Fear of not selling a skin due to the ethnic nature is no excuse I have spoken to many designers over the years. Often they have an ebony skin or ethnic in the works. Sometimes its well worth the wait sometimes its a let down. Some designers have flat out said they are not making any ethnic skins at all. Thats a Huge Let down because I like their work I want to spend my money in there shop I want to give them Business but their refusal to make an ethnic skin is a Huge Put down, One creator who does awesome work and I would Love to spend money in there shop is Valhalla Avatars. The work is awesome the detail is awesome when I spoke to the creator about an ebony skin I was told he was not going to make one. I was heart broken and I had to wonder why? Is it because he finds african women or ethnic women unattractive does he not find us worth his time or does he think that the skin won't sell. These are the questions I ask myself and I sure there are other women of color who think the same thing when we found out that a skin designer has not made a ethnic skin or when we speak to them to find out that they're not going to. This has troubled me for some time, So I want to open the floor up for a conversation. my hope is to bring light to this and perhaps some change will happen and we can start to see a wider range of designers embracing the rainbow of color that ethnic women are with thought to our features