I have to confess, for grins and giggles, I have tried out a few times for model competitions.  Vint Falken has even helped me out doing some of the photography.  As someone said, back the and it really turns out to still be true, they all end in disaster.  The last large one I entered – the ~SL Next Top Model was a complete disaster.  And really not surprisingly this Simone modeling contest appears to have ended in the same way….  The amusing part is that most of the contests make up the rules as they go.  Usually because they don’t know what the rules are to start with.  It makes it hard to win the game if you never know how to win.  And don’t give me an excuse that it adds to the excitement or is like a reality TV show.  Those TV shows have the game figured out long in advance unlike these contests.

Now whether the accusations are true or not is only part of the whole problem of these contests.  They end up being petty little personality blow outs.  Usually not worth the time or effort.  Take a look at all the time invested in the Simone contest.  Vast amounts of it.  It has a very poor cost/benefit return ratio.  That’s why I’m not really interested in contests like these anymore.  Quite frankly, it is not that difficult now days in Second Life to come up to what I would call the 90% club.  That is better looking than 90% of the rest of the avatars.  Spend enough Lindens and you’re there.  The other 10% needed to win a contest is who you know, who you suck up to and just dumb luck.  That makes it not much of a contest.

The latest contest – get all of the avatars to vote for people in a giant pool of avatars – I can’t even recall the name, seems to be an interesting popularity contest.  And that’s really what it is.  Obviously a smart move on the part of the producers of the calendar.  Popular avatars are going to sell calendars.

Second Life Modeling is also not that great of a job.  The pay is not so great.  The job is actually not that easy – you have to pay attention to what your doing and know how to manipulate your avatar.  It’s rather boring to be honest.  For example, I often have to go into mouselook to get my head turned in the right direction for a shot.  This mouselook mode is actually a BSDM form of semi-torture.  They use it for punishment.  You can’t interact with anything, you can’t talk (type), you can’t use any HUD, you can’t get at your inventory or any other menu.

Why do I do it? Ego mostly and I genuinely like to help people out.  The Lindens are nice, but not my prime motivator.  A top end escort is going to make a lot more on her job than I am modeling anytime.

Any comments from any other models out there?

-Veyron