To show how complete a transformation can be, I set this ask before my 2008 class mentor Tenchi Morigi. She runs a shopping service, Styles by T, that will find an ensemble for the time-strapped (or fashion-challenged) avatar.
Pappy Enoch thinks a lot of himself, but he does not exactly meet a GQ model of male perfection. None of your mentors wanted that, but we decided that it would be fun to give the Moonshiner 2000L (about $8 US) and Tenchi's shopping list to see if he could be transformed from a drunken, fat, bearded layabout into: James Dean (well, the drunken and layabout version from the movie Giant, at least).
Pappy began with his shopping list and hit the stores. At the very first stop, he managed to get sucked into a dance party.
Hours later, and already short on funds (he loves giving "purty gals" money) he continued his shopping. He found a cowboy hat, boots, vest, and shirt all at one shop.
Pappy's regular "hair" was a problem (to say the least). It is a stock hairstyle that comes with his starting avatar that he had "prettified up" into a mullet. So he had to go to a hair shop and dropped 250 Linden Dollars there. To banish the permanent mullet, Pappy put on a "baldie" that came with his new hairdo, then attached his new hair-style.
His stock "shape" got beefed out when Pappy entered the world. He would be nearly 7' tall in real life, so he needed something closer to James Dean's 5'8" (or 5'9"--fans actually argue over this) as well as the actor's trim build.
Luckily, cash-strapped Pappy found a free shape and skin at another shop. To get his appearance just right, he right-clicked his avatar and began to make minor changes. The first picture here shows Pappy with the transformation partly done. He made a few more changes, but his basic shape and skin--unlike the Linden Lab "standards" you will begin with in SL--could be altered.
My wife says "he looks like a woman!" True, Dean's jawline was different, but Pappy is close enough to James Dean's Giant look for me to declare: Mission Possible!
Scavenger Hunt Challenge: Give your avatar new hair and a new set of clothes. Use Jokay's comic to help. The first to post a snapshot to our Koinup group and notify me by e-mail gets 50L.