Keep It Simple

I'm mostly on exploration when I get the chance. Like trying to discover new talented designers before they get so over popular, that everybody starts wearing their stuff. It's not really easy to avoid getting one of those popular releases, cuz it's hard to resist the good stuff from well named designers.

I still try to resist though, especially when you see the same shoes and clothes etc. in the feeds, every time a new awesome release is out (don't you get tired of it?). Like for example the new boots from Maitreya. Those boots are just so amazing, but I still didn't buy them, cuz everybody seems to have them.

Anyways, I've discovered a few great designers lately and I will show you some of my discoveries in my later posts. For now, I thought of showing some men's fashion for a change and it's a hell lot of a challenge to get decent stuff for males really.

I've been searching for good clothing with reasonable prices for my male alt, cuz he's on a budget like I posted here. I don't spend more than 200 L$ for a single item so I try to find really cheap high quality items. Now if it's free, the better.

But why is it so hard to find cheap high quality stuff for men? I needed some simple cheap male poses for example, but I couldn't find any. And I'm not talking about those wacky freebie poses. I found a set at the SLM market for 10 L$ and thought I'd try them out, but I couldn't use any of the poses (you get what you pay for, mostly). So I ended up again, using the poses from my AO, which is very minimally loaded, so the poses I use for shots don't vary much.

Another thing I've noticed is finding a cool location to shoot fotos. I was using the Second Life destination guide and I'm sorry to say, but the first ten or something that I tried to go to just sucked. I mean those places are featured on the SL destination guide, c'mon now. So I gave up and just took a few quick shots at Luxembourg.

Most people just don't have the eye for aesthetic or simply don't have a good taste IMHO. You see lots of badly textured builds with visible seams not properly lined up. Most even didn't upgrade their builds yet to sculpties. I mean WTF?! There are so many amazing builds and landscaping available and they still stick to that simple box with slapped on textures.

I really hope this changes a lot when mesh becomes the standard later, but I even doubt that. As you can see, I still haven't found hair for my male alt, cuz I just don't want those "boyish" looking hairdos, cuz my male alt is suppose to be more mature looking, like around mid 30's or 40's; or those stiff hairstyles, which reminds me of wigs or toupets in RL. Luckily, the hairbase texturing on his skin is great. So I'll leave it like that, till I find one.

Sweater: ARAI
Pants: Artilleri
Sneakers: HOC (color change)
Glasses: Kumaki Glasses Style (free on SLM)
Location: Luxembourg
Poses: Oracul AO

Noobie Doobie Doo.... Oooh La La! Part 2 - A Male Avatar On A Budget

Now comes the fun part when creating a new avatar -- the tweaking! My plan for this avatar, was to stay as low budget as possible and mostly get free items. I'm not talking about the ones that you can get from freebie places or BIAB (business in a box) freebie crap. That is sooo 2006!

I'm concentrating more on the free high quality stuff for male avatars. So first I had a look at what the default library in the inventory has to offer, since there are new default avatars from top Second Life designers, now included to choose from. This is another picture heavy post, so please wait a bit for the pics to load, and click on images to enlarge.

First I tried the "Rocker Male" (I'm not using any hair here, cuz I still think most male hair are blech!):




Hmmm.. the skin is well done, but the shape is weird. So I tweaked the shape to get this result:

It looks better now. But I wanted to see how the other ones look like.

This one is the "Party Male"

This one is called "Designer Male"

This one is the "Student Male"

This one is obviously the "Gothic Male" which already looks scary.

And this is the Shitty oh I mean "City Male"
All Skins and Eyes: Adam & Eve (Inventory Library)

This is only about the skins, which I tried on with the same shape. They will of course all look more pleasant, if you tweak the shape for each skin, but I was lazy. So I finally decided for the "Rocker Male", which looked best in my opinion.

I got some free outfits from the Discovery Island and tried them on:

Hmmm... nah!

This one will be fine for now, since I need to go shopping for real good stuff.

I gave my new avatar an allowance of 1500 L$ (I usually spend at least 10.000 L$ on a new avatar) and that should be enough, to get everything he needs. Some other residents called me "Obama" while I was shopping around and I just responded "yes we can" to them.

There are several options, when getting a free high quality skin. Either you join hunts, which is very time consuming and annoying; join groups of skin designers, which might cost an amount to join e.g. 250 L$ or stand around lucky chairs and wait until the first letter of your name shows up.

Since the skin (and shape) is one of the most important thing, that an avatar should invest on, and a shape too, but since I'm a shape maker, I don't need to buy a shape. I thought of investing the majority of this avatar's allowance on the skin.

Now finding the right one, which fits the budget, was a very difficult task. I didn't want it to look too "boyish", "gayish", nor the typical gorgeous face that most steroid-overdosed-T-Rex-pin-head types wear, like you see them everywhere inworld. I wanted it of course to look absolutely gorgeous but with that certain something, if you know what I mean. It took me a couple of days, until I decided for the one I liked best that fit my budget -- a Redgrave skin.

Isn't he gorgeous?
Boxer Shorts: Phoenix Rising Closing Sale (25 L$)

It's actually amazing, cuz I was never a fan of Redgrave skins, but her releases lately in both male and female skins are just awesome and they only cost 990 L$. So I still have a lot of lindens left for apparel.

I made the body shape as aesthetic and proportional, the way I create the body shapes I sell (I don't sell male body shapes though). For me, this means no pin heads. The muscles shouldn't be too bulging and the shoulder like ten meters wide, then a teeny weeny head. And absolutely no T-Rex syndrome. This means, that the arms shouldn't be above the hip.

For example:

This might look weird but I didn't get him a penis, since I'm not planning to exchange pixel juices with anyone.

This is so very wrong. Notice the exaggerated massively bulging muscles and the tiny head. The arms are too short and the hands too small. Unfortunately, most male avatars roaming the grid prefer this kind of shape. To all you male residents out there, listen -- this is a no go! It's ugly. It's retarded. It's scary.

Perhaps the guys who prefer that body shape, looks in reality like this:

...but we will probably never know.

Anyway, I first went to Mad Designs, to get some male freebie stuff, then join the Make Him Over Hunt 4. Then over to Duh! to get some cheap shoes. Oh and also one of the most important thing to consider, is to get a decent Animation Overrider (AO) HUD. You definitely don't want to walk or stand around like an idiot don't you? The duck walk is so noob really.

So I went to LAP for the AO, cuz they have a starter AO free, for both genders under 30 days old. Really awesome and decent AO. I also got a starter one from Vista Animations from the Second Life Marketplace for 1 L$. But I still prefer the LAP one, even if I like the walking animation from the Vista HUD. So there's no excuse even if you don't have Linden Dollars or you simply don't want to spend any.

Here's how my avatar looked so far:

Jacket: Muism (free at Mad Designs)
Jeans: FIR & MNA (free at Mad Designs)
Sneakers: Duh! (20 L$)
Skin: Redgrave (990 L$)
Eyes: Exodi (free)

He already looks pretty good but notice the jeans. I don't like skinny jeans on guys really. So I had to go and shop for a better one with sculpted jean bottom parts. I therefore went to Phoenix Rising, cuz they are having a closing sale till the end of this month and almost all items are 25 L$, which should perfectly fit my budget.

All I needed were basics anyway, like casual outfits, underwear and formal or business oufits. I'm glad the clothes I got there were only 25 L$ though, cuz like I say, you get what you pay for. I would have been so pissed off if I paid more (some prim parts are no mod, but I ain't stressing cuz they only cost 25 L$).

I also went to HOC Industries for more cheap shoes. I needed a sneaker and one for formal outfits. They got some pretty good and cheap stuff over there, but the men's shoes were so huge, I needed to modify them. Luckily it wasn't a problem, since they were modifiable. The sneakers I got from there were also color changeable, so it was a pretty good deal.

I remembered that they still had that awesome Aoharu Leather Jacket and Hoorenbeck men's boots, over at Le Look. So I went there and spent most of my last Linden Dollars for the group membership fee of 100 L$, to get them. But it was worth it.

The last thing I wanted to get were some headphones, as an homage to myself, since I mainly walk around with headphones too in real life (but my headphones are not as huge). I thought I probably would need to spend a little fortune, if I wanted some high quality ones, but lo and behold! I found a shop called JBX in a Japanese Sim and they had these awesome headphones for free! They also sell music equipments and speakers etc.







I must say, that it's not as fun as dressing up a female avatar or a themed avatar. But I'm glad I got everything I needed and I still got 34 L$ left. So these are the stuff I got so far.

Jacket: Aoharu (at Le Look, free if you join the group)
Sweater: Phoenix Rising closing sale (25 L$)
Jeans: FIR & MNA (at Mad Designs free, modified anti skinny)
Sneakers: HOC Industries (40 L$, color change 16 colors)
Animation Overrider HUD: LAP (free for avatars under 30 days old)
Location: Soap

Sweater: Phoenix Rising closing sale (25 L$)
Bag (part of complete outfit): Phoenix Rising closing sale (25 L$)
Sneakers: Duh! (free for avatars under 30 days old)
Headphones: JBX (free)
Necklace: Curious Kitties (at Discovery Island, free)

Outfit: Phoenix Rising closing sale (25 L$)
Shoes: HOC Industries (20 L$)

Shirt with tie: Phoenix Rising closing sale (25 L$)
Pants: Phoenix Rising closing sale (25 L$)
Location: Sick

You probably would ask the question, what if they didn't have the Phoenix Rising closing sale? Well I admit it was some sort of good timing, but I asure you, that there are still other great options out there. You just need is to find them. I'm even positive that I wouldn't have needed to spend anything on clothes and shoes, but it would have taken more time and effort researching.

I believe I created a damn good looking male avatar, don't you think so? Not "boyish" nor "gayish". By the way, when using the term "gayish", I don't mean homosexuals. It's the look, if you get what I mean. I got a lot of gay friends and they don't look "gay". They are simply men, and I love them. So if you see some gorgeous looking male avatars out there, watch out! Cuz they are mostly operated by females in real life lol! But vice versa? Hell no!

P.S.

Reviewing my post, I just noticed that my avatar looks like he got boobs when wearing that tight sweater. This is caused by wrong or exaggerated shading. I therefore suggest to only wear it with jackets.