"Teef your head" An Interview with the beautiful mind behind Kiko Life: Shapes and Skins for the African American Avatar.

Hello darling blog readers, my my do I have a treat!

I had the pleasure of interviewing the wonderful Osuntomi Melendez, founder and creator of Kiko Life: Shapes and Skins and http://www.kikolife.com/ .

She is a visionary for the African American SL community. Providing well made, beautifully designed, and realistically captured shapes and skins, affordable for the hard working avvie who wants to look especially well taken care of.

I had the opportunity to sit down with her, and discuss her work, her latest idea's, and the history behind the name. She provided me with well thought out and detailed answers, making this an especially intriguing interview!

So sit back and enjoy meeting Osuntomi Melendez!

"Good Evening!

Afrosia Choche: "I just have to say, once again, thank you so much for taking this time to sit with me, I really truly appreciate it!"

Osuntomi Melendez:" oh it's my pleasure. I'm glad you care what i have to say. lol."

AC: "Firstly, what made you decide to create a more ethnic shape in sl?"

OM: "I decided to do it for many reasons, driven to do it because of personal experiences. but largely it was because I was tired of not seeing very many 'real' faces in SL. So many people who identify as 'black' in SL especially the men had European facial structures with mostly tan skin tones or when you got a true dark skin tone, it was still with this European face, I wanted to change that. I wanted to see more real faces in SL and see more darker skin tones or at least more variety, because Black avatars are barely visible in SL fashion. Walk into any big store, a big designer and you hardly see Black faces, African features, and I want to CHANGE that."

AC: "That is incredible, I love that, I think that is truly inspiring. I've had the pleasure of looking at your shapes and skins up close, they have incredibly realistic quality, is this due in part to an artistic background in rl?"

OM: "Yes indeed, I come from a family in the arts.My mother is an actress, painter, and historian. My father is an ex-revolutionary, a master African drum-maker, carver, artist, and play writer. I say is, but it's was, he passed a couple years ago. My brother is an award winning musician. I grew up writing and drawing, but drawing was something I let go as writing took over. But I always always did graphics. I started out on the computer learning graphics programs, that was about fifteen or sixteen years ago now. I have also been a web developer for more almost fourteen years, and graphics design and the web go hand in hand. However, with skins in particular, it brought me back to my drawing that I let go twenty years ago in a very real way. It's a different kind of graphic art for me. The web stuff I do is very simple, very basic, not sexy, it's good enough for government work and it gets me by, BUT with the skins, there is a lot of light and shadow involved. That was why I gave up Geography in fourth form at The Combermere School when I was 15. My class did not have art, but I went to the headmaster and said I wanted to stay in my class and give up geography. I was passionate about colour, and light and shadow. I lost that for twenty years, and Kiko Life gave it back to me."

AC: "Let me just say, I am in complete awe of you!"

OM: "LMAO, don't be."

AC: "Seriously, this has got to be THE coolest conversation!"
OM: "LMAO!"

AC: "Let me tell you, I adore the fact that you offer a whole package! Shape, Eyes, and Skin. What made you decide to offer the complete essentials at such a great cost, when so many others want you to pay an arm, a leg, your first born child, for just a part of what you're offering?"

OM: "Because I want it to be accessible, and while I do aim to make this part of my real life income, I don't need to milk everyone for every cent. I'm not greedy. I just want to provide a good product for a ,market that SORELY needs it. For passionately held reasons and beliefs that's it. If I happen to make a lot of money doing it then it's all to the good BUT I am very capable in rl."

AC: "Fabulous, simply fabulous!Have you ever had a negative reaction to your work? If so, how were you personally affected by it?"

OM: "Hmmm, your most interesting question to date. Define 'Negative Reaction'."

AC: "Well, has anyone ever said to you that your shapes aren't that of African American standard, or put what you're doing down in a way that made you feel inadequate?"

OM: "Absolutely not. The response has been overwhelmingly and incredibly positive. It's like Black SL was just waiting for me to arrive. little shorty av I am, with the big mouth. I have been overwhelmed by the positive feedback from customers, strangers, friends, friends of friends. the one thing I hear over and over is that it's diverse and that's exactly what I was going for. I didn't want it to be that you come here and see six shapes that look like white girls in dark skins. Or body wise looking like some ridiculous caricature of a Black woman, with thighs and hips that just look unnatural and disproportionate. my feedback has been re: shapes that the diversity of the range is moving. People have NEVER seen anything like it I think and I should know, I researched what I was doing before I did it. I know how hard it is to get good ethnic shapes, good BBW shapes, good male shapes, and even MORE, good black skins. I know how hard it is cause I was searching for those things too. I spent a ridiculous amount of money for skins that were never quite what I was looking for or for someone Else's interpretation of Black beauty. I was like, I can do this because I know how it feels to be a Black av in SL looking for makeup chile!"

AC: "lol! I hear that!"

OM: "My feedback has been that I am hitting that mark, so I am pleased for that."

AC: "It is truly hard..but thankfully, you have given us somewhere we can go for sure and know we'll be welcomed."

OM: "Awww, bless, bless. The negatives I have experience have been more personal in nature, and nothing to do with the work itself. The response to the work has been humbling."

AC: "I hear there is a points system currently within your store, how does the point system work, and What does it entail?"

OM: "I have deferred that, but will bring it back eventually. I am about to release a gift card program and fat pack cards."

AC: "Oh Excellent!!"

OM: "So that you can buy any combination of skin and shape you want in various amounts. I will bring back the points program as well but currently I've put it on hold."

AC: "I completely understand. As one of the foremost shape and skin creators in the African American sl community, do you have any words of wisdom to give to the yet undiscovered artists out there who are trying to make themselves known?"

OM: "I don't have any words of wisdom, but I do have a story, as I am by trade and in my heart a story teller. when I registered for Second Life, I had a computer that couldn't run the client. So for six months I didn't log in, I had no clue what was waiting for me. Then I got an iMac, and a friend of mine, Nobody Fugazi, the person who in fact hounded me about registering for SL as early as Summer 2006, again cranked up a campaign to get me to log in. I logged in and was utterly enchanted by SL. I have however spent long periods logged out as well. Not in a year to be true, but I have spent months out of this virtual environment. In Dec. of 2007 I started a business, a Black bookstore. Simple idea. Browse info on the books, buy them on a website, amazon delivers the book. And for a year, I paid rent on two shops so this bookstore could have a space. Of course, I never sold so much as one book, ever. That said, when I started up Kiko Life, I spent months researching the market, looking at what other people were doing, learning. And I would have gone on doing that for perhaps another year until a few very important people put pebbles in the river, hoping to block my passage. The course of my river diverted. What you see was born out of that. Disappointed hopes turned into a manifested reality based on hard work and determination. Every negative situation I've experienced from the time I had this idea until this moment I sit next to you on this bench, has made me grow more. As a real life person, as a 3D representation of that person. Something positive comes out of every negative I've faced and I guess that's what I'd like to pass on. Mastering that trick is the key. Not to let anyone turn you out of your head, "Teef your head" they say where I come from, because nobody can tell you who you are or who your friends are, or what's good for you, but turning negative into positive, that's a neat trick. A life lesson well worth learning."

AC: "That truly is a glorious lesson, one that I myself will take to heart. Thank you so much for your time."

OM: "Awww, bless you, bless, blessings and good things to you."

AC: "And unto you as well."

If you want to visit the wonderful Kiko Life Shopping center, simply go here: http://slurl.com/secondlife/University%20City/85/138/21/ !!