Bloke on a Budget: Four full mesh looks, each for L$2 or less

Getting fully ‘meshed-up’ in Second Life can be a pricey business for anyone, but for blokes it can be especially expensive. SL is a woman’s world when it comes to shopping, so there are a great deal more high quality free gifts for the ladies than there are for the gents. Given the current economic situation, many people are returning to Second Life but their finances might not stretch to the full shebang of a Bento mesh head and Bento mesh body from the top-tier creators, nor to an extensive wardrobe. Or they may simply not want to invest that kind of money initially, at least until they’ve had time to explore and find out whether Second Life is the place for them.

So I’ve got you covered with four basic looks—each one featuring a mesh head and body—for L$2 or less. Where you find that miniscule amount of cash is up to you. The best way to get L$ is to put payment information on file, but for that small an amount you can run around Linden Realms for a few hours, and even collecting the low-tier crystals will net you enough.

Each of these looks will involve a little bit of work from you (sorry guys, you can’t get out of the shopping experience!) but I’ve kept the amount of places you’ll need to visit to a minimum, and I’ll be offering some tips as we work through each look.

While each outfit is a standalone that was created specifically for the mesh head and body being used, don’t feel that you need to limit yourself to just that outfit. Each of the main shopping locations you’ll be visiting has a lot more items than the ones I’m showing, so feel free to pick up more ‘freebies and cheapies’ to customise your look and start building your wardrobe. I’ll link the relevant Marketplace shopping within each look’s more detailed description.

Your inworld shopping locations

Ajuda SL Brasil – Look for the tall, layered black building and go up to the top level and the mezzanine above it to find the male items. Everything in here is free. Be aware that some of the items used in this post are on the walls around and above the stairs, so you may need to look around a bit to find them.

Gabriel 1L Corner – When you arrive at the landing point, walk forward until you’re in the store, then take a left. Walk right to the end and you’ll find the L$1 section. Check prices here, because some items in this area might cost a little more (L$10, for example).

Kauna store at the Time Portal Shopping District – This is an archive of all the clothing that was sold by Kauna before the store closed down. On the walls you’ll find free historical items, but to find the more modern stuff, look for the ad board that tells you it holds the rest of the collection.

Stillman Bazaar – This is the oldest freebie area in Second Life, and to be honest a lot of the stuff here is incredibly dated. However, there’s one box of stuff that has some fantastic bits and bobs in it, so when you land follow the visual guide below:

That grey ‘House of Curios’ box is the item you need to grab.

Gild Mainstore – Go inside the grey building in front of you and turn left. Click the group join board to get a link to join the group (it’s free) then click to get the gifts.

Now let’s start putting this together!

Look #1

This first look makes use of the free Altamura ‘Max’ Bento head and body gift from Ajuda Brasil. I’m using the lighter toned one here, and this is your formal look thanks to this fantastic mesh pinstripe suit from the L$1 corner at Gabriel. Add in some free formal shoes by MV Creations at Ajuda Brasil and you’re pretty much set. Note that this body takes best to mesh clothing rigged for the Altamura, Signature, and Adam bodies (as well as anything labelled ‘fitted mesh’ or ‘fitmesh’) and to shoes rigged for Slink feet. You can also use Standard Sizing clothes on this body (these will be labelled with the familiar S, M, L, XL etc).

Your accessory shopping comes from Marketplace for the sunglasses and the hair. The shape I’m using is the ‘Fred’ shape from Mary’s Shapes at Ajuda Brasil, together with some slider edits of my own (since I like my avatar to be tall and lean).

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We’re now switching to a different body for the remainder of these looks: the Onupup Male Mesh Body. You can get this for free here on Marketplace. We’re going to be using BoM (Bakes on Mesh) to put our system skin onto the mesh of this body and head, but this one needs to be done differently than most major brand heads and bodies. The Onupup body is completely modifiable, so we’re going to edit it and change the textures manually. You don’t need to know how to build or anything like that, and I’ll walk you through it.

Setting up the Onupup head and body for Bakes on Mesh (BoM)

First, wear the CH Design skin and add the Modulus hair. Then, wear the Onupup shape and Eyebrow Fixer. Add the Onupup body and head and make sure you’re not wearing any alpha layers. Right-click the Onupup mesh head and select Edit from the menu. From there, go into the Texture tab, click the Texture square, select BAKE from the three options in the new window that pops up, then choose the BAKED_HEAD option from the dropdown menu:

Next, back in the main part of the Edit menu, change Alpha Mode from ‘Alpha Blending’ to ‘Alpha Masking’ and set the cutoff to 1:

Move down to select the torso and set the BAKE texture for that to BAKED_UPPER, then change the Alpha mode, as above:

Lastly, select the legs and change the BAKE on those to BAKED_LOWER, then change the Alpha Mode as above:

 

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Look #2

 

This next look (and the remaining two) are Bakes on Mesh (BoM) ones. You’ve already set up your Onupup body for BoM, so all you need to do now to change your skin is simply wear a new system skin. When you’re putting together this look, make sure that you ADD (always add, don’t wear) the alpha layers for each item. In this case there are alpha layers for the shirt, the pants, and the boots. I’ve added some glasses again—this time from that House of Curios freebie box at Stillman Bazaar—and I’ve accessorised with a necklace from Gild’s group gifts section.

For the hairbase—since you have this body and head set up for BoM—just ADD the tattoo layer hairbase from the CheerNo giftbox that you picked up from Ajuda Brasil. I’ve used the brown shades HUD for the Modulus hair, so I’ve selected the ‘brunette 5’ hairbase colour.

Look #3

This look is going to require you to wear one of the default starter avatars in order to get those shoes into your inventory. That sounds like a weird thing to have to do—considering that the starter avatars are already in your inventory’s Library folder—but for some reason you can’t just wear any items from the Library folder. Instead you have to change into the full avatar, which will place all of the items into the Clothing folder of the inventory itself. So, look on your viewer’s toolbar buttons for the icon that has a man and woman standing beside each other. If you don’t see it, then right-click your viewer toolbar, select ‘Toolbar Buttons’, find that icon—labelled Avatar—and drag it onto the toolbar.

Before you change into that avatar, though, save your current look as a New Outfit. Right-click your avatar, select Edit Outfit, then Save As and give it a name. Once you’ve done that, change into the Gabriel avatar.

That will change your entire look, but it will also place all of the components for that avatar into a folder named Gabriel in your main inventory’s Clothing folder. Check that it’s there, then go to your Outfits folder and find the outfit that you just saved. Right-click it and select Replace Outfit, and you’ll be back in your original look with the Onupup body and head. Now you can move on to customising this look.

For this one I used the L$1 Daniel skin by Swallow, so wear that and it will change the skin on your Onupup head and body. This skin does have some eyeshadow and guyliner built into it, so if you’re not fond of that then you can carry on using the previous skin. I changed the colour of the Modulus hair to red for this look, so I also changed the hairbase colour.

The jeans and jacket each have their own alpha layers to wear, but the shoes don’t. You can use the alpha layer from the boots that were in the previous look for that. Remember to add each item instead of using the wear option. Note that the jacket is created in such a way that your avatar will always walk with his hands in his pockets. Lastly, accessorise with the Kauna glasses.

Look #4

This final look also requires some stuff from the Inventory Libary, but this one is accessed differently. You won’t find it in the Avatar selection toolbar. Instead, you need to open your inventory and go into Library > Clothing > Initial Outfits > Jaxon. Right-click the Jaxon folder and select ‘Replace Outfit’. (As before, if you haven’t saved your previous look as an outfit then do that before you change!) This will change your avatar into the futuristic Jaxon one, and place a folder called Jaxon into your main inventory’s Clothing folder. So—once you’ve done that—change back into your previous outfit with the Onupup body

For this look, wear the Jaxon skin and hair. Add the clothing items, plus the alpha layers from the shirt, jeans, and boots folders. Accessorise with the House of Curios glasses and the Gabriel necklace.

Finally, you’ll need an AO (Animation Overrider) to replace the default ‘duck walk’. There are several free and L$1 AOs on Marketplace. For these avatars I used the Daily sLife Bento AO from Tuty’s (free) but you can also try the Ordinary Guy AO from Sweets (free) or the Male Basic MOCAP AO from Vista (L$1).

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So there are your four cheap-as-chips full mesh looks. I may create more of these in the future, so keep an eye out for them. And don’t forget that you don’t need to stick slavishly to exactly the same items that I’ve used. Mix and match that stuff, try different combinations, pick up other freebies from those locations, and create your own style. These Bloke on a Budget posts are intended to just get you started, so take what I’ve offered here and put your own spin on it.

And hey, if you put together something great show me in the comments! As always, commenting will be open for 30 days from the time of posting, after which comments are automatically closed (to deter spammers who like to hit ‘older’ posts).