For many people the mesh head is the most important part of their avatar. Which head you choose impacts not only the shape of your face, but also how smooth your animations are and what your facial poses look like. A huge amount of personality comes through in your face, so making sure your head works for you is very important. Of course by using shapes and skins you can change the appearance of a head, but most heads kept you looking either fairly masculine or fairly feminine. Lelutka River is a head that can very easily do both (or neither).
Avatar Inspiration
Genus is Back – Free Head Still Available!
As you may know, Genus heads have not been available for purchase on and off for a few months now. They’re officially back now with a 40% off discount, a free gift, and lots of excited customers bursting through the doors.
What Happened
Genus was the target of a DMCA complaint made earlier this year. Yesterday the owner of Genus announced an end to the situation and that the store would be back up today. I can confirm that the store is up and running in world, though the Marketplace (understandably) appears to still be empty at the time of this post.
The Group
Their group (which is free to join) has the free head and demo versions of all their heads conveniently in the group notices. If the group link in the last sentence doesn’t open your viewer automatically, just copy and paste the URL into your viewer’s URL box. The group will pop right up. I mention this before anything else because if you can avoid going to the store today, I highly recommend it. It’s been super busy so not only is it hard to get into, the average user will find it pretty laggy. The group is 100% the way to go if you want to chat about Genus, get the free gift, or try on demos.
Draconic Possibilities With BOM
Avatar inspiration focused posts are less in depth than most of my other content, but still credit everything used.
BOM – Not Just For Heads & Bodies
Bakes on Mesh has become very popular for heads and bodies. It lets you use system layers instead of appliers for skins, tattoos, etc. But did you know it’s not only for those parts? This post uses three products that use BOM in ways you may not expect: horns, tail, and draconian legs.
All three products are from Aii and use the BOM layers you’re already wearing. If you change your BOM skin the colors on these products change too, as seen in this image using classic layers from Deadly Skins. The horns come with various tattoo layers that can be used (and layered). The legs come with tattoo layers as well, however they can be used over the full body, not just the legs. The tail uses a HUD to apply and adjust tattoos. There are many possibilities available with each product.
One other neat part of this avatar I want to mention is the shiny scales. These are not BOM tattoos, but actually the materials layer. They look extra awesome when you’re in motion since they react to light. They’re shiny just like mermaid scales. You can adjust them using the materials portion of your HUD. These are from This Is Wrong, and they have so many different types in different styles.
Free Dove Friday: December 22, 2017
Since discovering The Free Dove, I’ve decided to showcase one look a week with items from the store. Welcome to Free Dove Friday!
This week showcases a unisex tattoo from [CAROL G].
Fast Facts On The Brand
- [CAROL G]
- Tattoos!
- Products for everyone.
- Marketplace location has nearly 500 items.
SongBird’s Frosted Eyes
Twisted Hunts are long known to be some of the most challenging yet most rewarding hunts on the grid. For this holiday season Twisted is running their Krissmuss celebration as a more traditional sale event instead. Running through January 3, 2018 is Twisted Krissmuss. There are 60 merchants participating in this event and items are only L$100 each.
Frosted Eyes
One of the many participating designers is SongBird. She’s created the Frosted Eyes seen below.
The Diverse Styles Of Moonstar
Moonstar has been bringing multiple gorgeous sets to Fashion Dazzle every month. This month is no exception. Today I’ll be showing off three of the sets you can find for December!
Splendour Gown Set
The Splendour Gown set comes with a gown, heels, and bento gloves.
I love the cut of the gown. When putting it on I was afraid it may gap weird when walking but it actually looks really nice! The slit is high yet still covers everything below the waist modestly. On the top it is a sexy level of revealing without exposing the nipples.
The gloves are possibly my favorite part. Why? They’re bento enabled! This means you don’t need bento hands if you want to wiggle those fingers. Just grab these beautiful gloves and show off your detailed movements.
The heels are a great addition to the set. While they look lovely with this gown I think they’d also be perfect for other outfits as well. Moonstar is good at making products great for mix & matching.
The Splendour Gown Set is for sale for L$180 at the Moonstar booth at Fashion Dazzle. The gown comes in sizes for Maitreya, eBody, Belleza, Ocacin, Slink, TMP, Tonic, Standard Fitmesh (5), and Classic avatars. The bento gloves come in Slink, Maitreya, and standard Fitmesh. The shoes are made for Belleza, Maitreya, and Slink bodies.
Vista Lia’s Animations
Vista Animations released their bento head Lia last week. This post covers her animations and how she can make your avatar come to life. For more information about her appearance, cosmetic options, and to see her HUD check out my Lia announcement post.
Moods & Expressions
The Moods section is the first chunk right at the top of the animations tab. The four options allow you to choose the default mood your face will display. Each mood is a long and subtle set of animations. You can have one mood selected at a time. The mood serves as a nice baseline for your own unique personality to shine through. You’ll spice it up with your expressions.
Expressions are the flavor, so to speak. Each one selected adds a more obvious facial movement into the loop. You can select them all, none, or anything in between. With twenty four expressions to choose from you can build your very own personality how you see fit. The large pause button in this section will halt the expressions until you click it again. The stop button will clear all the selected expressions. I highly recommend you grab the demo and play with the moods and expressions because it’s really fun to make your own combinations!
It’s not just the movement that’s exciting, though. Using the smaller pause icons will freeze the face in an expression perfect for photos. You can see every one of the static facial expressions in the slideshow below.
Lia: The Vista Bento Head Is Here!
Vista Animations has released their bento head Lia! Vista Facebook fans have been excited for this for the past week, though many people on grid are just now hearing about Lia. Can’t make it to the store to pick up your demo? Not a problem! Learn everything you need to know right here then snag that demo (and maybe the full version) once the crowds die down.
First Impressions
Right upon opening the box I was excited to see how many shapes Lia comes with. You don’t have to be an experienced shape maker to have a nice variety of looks. I also loved that Vista included a notecard explaining that this is their first head and feedback is welcome.
Originally I planned on making one post about Lia, however she’s so in depth that I had to split it into two. Today I’ll cover the main appearance of Lia and my next post will dig more into her animations and poses.
What Lia Comes With
While many of these are pretty self explanatory sometimes a cheat sheet can be helpful. Here is everything that comes with your Lia purchase and what it does. Note: the head itself can be copied, but not modified or transferred. All modification options happen with the included HUD. The shapes allow for copying and modifying so you can alter them with appearance sliders.
Free Dove Friday: November 3, 2017
Since discovering The Free Dove, I’ve decided to showcase one look a week with items from the store. Welcome to Free Dove Friday!
This week showcases an outfit from Artizana.
Fast Facts On The Brand
- Artizana
- Offers fashionable attire for professional and cultural styles.
- Has a selection for both men and women.
- Their Marketplace location has over 1,000 products!
Inspired By: Hel
To celebrate my favorite holiday, Halloween, I decided to create an avatar loosely based on the Norse goddess Hel. Those of you familiar with Hel know she’s described as being “part black and part white.” The video game Smite takes this literally by splitting Hel into two personalities and entities. I’ve based this look on that split image.
Split Hair
The hair is TRUTH‘s Ophelia. The hair itself is split colored, these images aren’t edited for that effect. You can choose any color in the HUD for either side. I highly recommend snagging the fatpack for this hair if you don’t usually. It gives you so many more options since you can wear two colors! The styling HUD also allows for the hair to sit differently as well. Ophelia is available at Salem until October 31.
Dual Skins
Two skins are featured here, both by 7 Deadly s{K}ins. The darker skin is Pepper in Mud and the lighter is Key in Dew. Both are designed for LAQ bento heads and come in Omega appliers. Pepper is currently available as part of the Trick or Treat hunt as well as for direct purchase at the 7DS store. Key was available as part of The Black Fair this month.