This year will be Nora's 4th year of operation. I have "Nora Appreciation Week" coming up on the 14th, so I thought I'd take a bit to reminisce all the way back to Day One!
Nora originally began as a fantasy-goth clothing store. One fateful day while visiting Le Cadre, during an event, yours truly met Kimmera Madison. Kimmera was a designer, herself, and she complimented me on my skin. My skin was my own - I had worked on it shortly after I began using SL. I spent all 250 of my starting Lindens trying to make it. So, you could say that from my first day, I was a skinner.
Anyway - Kimmera showed me some then-popular skins and what she didn't like about them... and then asked me to make her a skin. Thus it began! I made it to her liking and she was the Prototype for the first Nora skin. She did not mind that I would sell it in my own shop, which was kind of her!
This skin was essentially, 1.0 - it came in 7 skin tones, Vanilla, Caramel, Cocoa, Chocolate, Gothic Cream, Gothic Sky, and Gothic Lily. The skin was a bit too harsh all around, and the colors were somewhat too rich. I sure was proud at the time though! The biggest complaint I received about it was the stomach. Of course, I didn't have a lot of experience handpainting stomachs at the time. Heee!
You may actually recognize the makeup here - it was ripped long ago and spread around as "free". It's called Cherry Bomb. Back then I sold basic skins and then sold separate makeup texture files. It really was just a matter of time, as all thefts are in SL.
This was in 2004, sometime in the fall. I wouldn't be until 2005 that I'd redo the skin for a 2.0 release. ...
I kept the same sale model, this time updating the body of the skin, and producing more makeup texture with a different face. All future makeups would also fit on the older skin, so they were backwards compatible! I thought I was super smart! The newer skin was a bit smoother and not so harsh in the stomach area. 2.0 and 1.0 were both completely opaque skins. Later on I would make a "Custoskin" version which was slightly transparent - that allowed the SL skin color sliders to change the tone. That was a whole other adventure!
I also experienced my first skin theft issue about this time. Needless to say, it was upsetting - as it was a complete skin that was "stolen", not just a head texture. Thankfully a DMCA proved useful and the problem was corrected. I'm sure there are quite a few other thefts I don't know about. I try not to think of it. SL can be frustrating on its own, anyway!
A makeup similar to this was also passed around in freebie packs, against my wishes. It's called "Scarlet Vanilla". This one was "Smoke Caramel". It was fairly popular too, and I know why! You girls love the smoky eyeshadow, don'tcha?
By this point, late 2005, I was gaining confidence in myself - people would compliment me on my [...]
