A lot of layering lol
 

Takes a lot of practice to get some things right. The painful thing for me is finding the right shades and knowing when to break from a color scheme to help my avatar pop out more.
Worst thing ever is to find an amazing combo and realizing it doesn't work or needs 20k in aurumn. But by time you made that much money you already moved on.

i have a tendancy to be pretty simple most of the time XD at most like 20 items, hahahaha, sadly i am rocking a hella complicated head atm

I never layer. Err, I never purposely layer. I slap things on and hope for the best xD. Of course I move things around, but I've never actually built an avatar purposefully.