Crossdressers-Haven.com

Well, I finally bought an outfit for myself today. I was so nervous worse than when my oldest was born, way back when.

I did not have the bravery to go to the dressing room, made up a story about buying for my wife as it is our Anniversary when the girl keep asking if she could help.

I got a cheap wig, mostly to small as I have a big head 7 7-8 hat. But I am going to take a picture in a little while and add to my avatar but it will be ugly as I have not attempt war paint as of yet. I have not even shaved today.

O well could not wait to type this out. I am going to try everything on and see how bad my reading up on sizes went. later ladies.

Gee

I hate the picture. O well always hated cameras.

Gelinda

Gelinda,
Try EBay. I get a lot of my wardrobe from there. Shoes, undies, wigs, make-up. I get my best clothes from GoodWill, the Salvation Army Thrift Store are both great sources for clothing. One example, I picked up a silk blouse at Good Will, almost brand new would probably be $150 - $200 for $4.00. Yo mihgt want to check them out too.
Love,
Deborah

Glenda,
I tell you the same thing I told my husband..Smile! It will make all the difference when you take a picture of yourself, you are having fun aren't your??
DH got a very nice wig at PaulaYoung.com for under $40. Nice style, very soft. Lots of choices. They also carry large size wigs for bigger 'girls'.
Happy shopping
Honey (SO)

thanks Ladies, Me Smile the face would fall off. I have been getting my stuff from ebay but not outer clothing as I was so unsure of sizes. I got it all right. So I will try the Goodwill when I can find one, I have seen one some where in my travels around this state. Thanks, I can remove the picture now as I have been seen and do not want to destroy a good thing as this website with my ugly picture will do. Gee

You can look in catalogs and online about sizes. Get a flexible measuring tape (not the steel ones - ouch) to help.

Anne

Will have to get another wig this one is way to small after about an hour I have a major headache. I know I cause too many of them. Thanks for the site on the wig, I did not give but 5.00 dollars for this one. Clearance

Only reason I bought it was the clearance price as it is not the style I want.

I will ask you ladies what style do you thing I will look good in. You can see how Ugly I truly am. So the wig has to be just right.

Help. Please. Gelinda or Gee

Gelinda wrote:I am going to take a picture in a little while and add it to my avatar, but it will be ugly as I have not attempted war paint as of yet.

Hi Gelinda,

     Well, your photo certainly isn’t ugly. As for “war paint,” however, I agree with you that we can make ourselves much more photogenic with a little help from our makeup kits. Marlene Klein sells cosmetics on the Internet and also dispenses information on how to apply them. See
Marlene Klein’s Beauty Tips for help in getting that “war paint” applied. I should add that she is very TG-friendly and in fact provides links to crossdressing websites.

Thanks Jamie Ann: I will look at that website later. My problem I know nothing about war paint as my wife is the type that does not even own any so I have never watched the way colors are chosen or what you really need. I have a lot of reading to do Thanks a million. Gee.

Gelinda there was a wonderful makeup artist named Kevin Aucoin who put out a series of books about make up I personally have Changing Faces and Face Forward both are fabulous about showing you how to apply makeup. They also show you how to make yourself have drastically varying looks simply by changing how you apply your makeup.

Hugs,
Stef

Gelinda, Girls our age have to be concened with so many more things than the younger ones do, I'm 53. I connot help you makeup, like Stehp did,(she such a cutie) and knowshe knows how to apply her makeup. But I can help you with your picture taking. I can see from the quality and direction of lighting that you Probably took your picure in the mirror. Mirrors are okay, but the lightning from the ceiling isn't right for you and me. Next time what you can do is take a piece of white foam board or a piece of cardboard inside a white pillow case and reflect some of the light back up into your face. You may have to duck tape the reflector tothe back of chair or a door that is close by, the main thing is to try different angles of reflection into your face before you take any pictures. You can even do this before shave in the moring, you don't need to dressed, but so much more fun. What this will do is fill light into your eyes sockets take away the shadow from your nose on your lips.. This will make you look more girlish and younger. Since were alsmost the same age I feel I can help you look more like you want to in your photographs. I also have deep set eyes and make up is still a mysterey to me too. I hope this is helpful to you , I have been photograhping since 1971 , lighting is the key, what kind of camera you use is insignificant. Good luck on your adventures Kristen

Kristen, Thanks a million, I was actually using my computer camera as when I attempted to use my digitial camera the pictures were to big in storage size to use as a avatar. the Avatar is only 90 x 90 and has to be less than 12k. I could crop the pictures to size but the digitial storage data was still to big. Not sure how to cut it down as the pictures are much better from it. I am a huge novice with a camera been wanting to get a good quality Digitial to use with my first granchild but moving and bills have stopped that for a while. Having to keep two houses does not help either. Thanks for the help and I will play with the lighting on the next one if there ever is one. Gelinda.

Gelinda wrote:I attempted to use my digitial camera, but the pictures were too big in storage size to use as a avatar. The Avatar is only 90 x 90 and has to be less than 12k.

     I have two brief comments on makeup and avatars, and then I have a (probably) stupid question for anyone who might have the answer.

1. Stef’s point about Kevyn Aucoin’s books is well worth repeating. His book, Making Faces (New York: Little, Brown and Company. © 1997), was the #1 New York Times bestseller the year it came out — quite remarkable for a beauty book! It is filled with pictures that help you to follow the written text. For me, the pictures were extremely helpful, as I was not familiar with all of the terminology.
2. Regarding the creation of an avatar, you can get the original photo in many ways. Both Kodak and America Online routinely create digital versions when they process 35mm film. These typically are 768 × 512 pixels and about 100 KB. If you use a digitial camera, the pictures you will produce — as you noted — almost certainly will be way too big, both in dimensions (exceeding the 90 × 90 limit) and in storage size (exceeding the 12KB limit). In either case, however, you basically have to use some photo software such as the Microsoft Photo Editor or Adobe Photoshop to crop the original photo and then to reduce it to 90 × 90.   For my avatar, I started with a 768 × 512 Kodak digital image, cropped most of it to get a 135 × 135 headshot, then reduced the dimensions to 90 × 90 using the “Photoshop 5.0 Limited Edition” program that came on my computer.  Looking around the forum, I can see that some of the girls probably know a lot more than I do about this, but my approach worked reasonably well.

     Now a question about which I have been wondering for some time: Where does the word “avatar” come from? Is it a brand name, an abbreviation for something, or what? It is not found in my reasonably modern unabridged dictionary.

Source: The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing, © 1993-2003 Denis Howe
(on Dictionary.com)

avatar
1. <chat, virtual reality> An image representing a user in a
multi-user virtual reality (or VR-like, in the case of
Palace) space.

-Connie

Thanks, Connie!