Bloke on a Budget: Ten full mesh looks for just L$1 each

We’re slap bang in the middle of the winter holiday season, and you might be feeling the pinch from all the present-buying (and round-buying, if you’ve been on a pub crawl or three). You might even have been so busy that you completely missed the annual Lelutka mesh head giveaway (and you might be kicking yourself for that) but there’s still a full-featured EvoX-mapped mesh head on the grid, absolutely free of charge, until 7th January 2024, courtesy of LOGO. In this post I’m going to take you on a whistlestop tour of a few places so you can put together ten great looks for one measly Linden Dollar.

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.

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.

UPDATE (8th January 2024) – The free mesh head offer from LOGO is now no longer available. However, the rest of this post will still get you kitted out with a mesh body and clothing.

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 Freebie Store

When you arrive at the landing point, turn left and you’ll see the Freebie Store right in front of you. Note that items on the upper floor are discounted and not free, and I did find two items on the ground floor that require a L$1 payment, but everything else in here is free. Go nuts and pick up whatever you like in here! Most of it should work on the body we’re going to use.

The Man Cave Event

IMPORTANT: the gift items will only be here until this round of the event closes on 11th January 2024. After that, they will be gone. You will need to be in the Man Cave Event group (free to join, just paste that link into local chat and click it) and have the group tag enabled while you’re clicking to get the items.

You’re looking for these black canisters above each of the booths. Just click each one and you’ll get the gift item (note that I found a couple of them were empty, so unless those get updated there will be two items missing) –

Meshbody

You will need to be in The Shops group (free to join, just paste that link into local chat and click it) and with the group tag enabled while you’re clicking to get the items. It can be a bit tricky to find this free body, as when you land you’ll only see the full priced bodies in front of you. So here’s how to find it:

Once you’ve landed at the Meshbody location (ensure that you’re in the region called Meshbody, and not the region called The Shops; the free body is only at the Meshbody location) turn around 180° and you’ll see this:

Click the word ‘Men’ and you’ll be teleported to the location for the free male body. Note: You may need to accept an Experience from the owners of the store in order to be able to teleport.

Once you’re at the free male body location, click the area indicated below to get the body. Remember, you must have The Shops group tag active when you click:

LOGO Mainstore

This is the one you need to get your skates on for, as this free mesh head offer is only available until 7th January 2024. You’ll need to be in the LOGO Update group (currently free to join, just paste that link into local chat and click it) and with the group tag enabled while you’re clicking to get the head. Be patient with this one, as a lot of people might be at the store trying to get the head. There’s no need to pay the vendor; simply left-clicking it (or right-clicking and selecting ‘Touch’ from the menu) will be enough. The head should be delivered to you fairly quickly, but depending how many people are in the store, you may need to wait a few minutes. Don’t teleport out until you have it.

UPDATE (8th January 2024) – This free mesh head offer from LOGO is now no longer available.

Sinse Motion Capture

When you arrive here, turn left toward the store marked ‘Motion Capture’. Head upstairs toward this vendor:

Up there you will find a Lite AO containing three stands, one walk, and one sit, for just L$1:

Your final location is a store on the Second Life Marketplace, where you will need to pick up the free Bakes on Mesh Quick Nail Cover Fix from Sweets.

Pulling it all together

Once you’ve got everything unpacked, first add the Legacy Classic body. Make sure you’re not wearing any alpha layers (inventory icon is a white t-shirt shape with a grey grid on it) and add the Edit HUD from the body’s folder. Click through these options to enable BoM (Bakes on Mesh) on the body. And if you want to change your fingernails, below is where to find that option (I’m showing the glossy black nails I enabled).

IMPORTANT! Do not click to apply any of those skins from the Legacy Edit HUD. If you do that, it will cancel BoM on the body, and you’ll end up with all kinds of problems trying to match your body and head. We’re going to be using BoM skins for this post, once we get to adding the head.

Before we add the head, we’re going to do one more thing with the Legacy Edit HUD, and that’s remove the bump and shine. If you’re standing near any kind of light source (and you have advanced lighting enabled in your viewer) you’ll probably notice that your body is a bit shiny and has pores (the bump map) showing. While this can look great, it can also make it difficult to match your head and body, as the pores and shine need to be exactly the same in order not to cause problems with lines at your neck. This is easier said than done, especially if you’re new to working with mesh heads and bodies, so to begin with we’re just going to turn off all that shiny stuff on both the body and the head.

To turn off bump and shine on the body, click these areas on the Edit HUD. Again, if you’re standing near a light source, you should see the shine and pores disappear:

Now we need to get the LOGO head added and sorted out. You’ll notice that there are two versions of the head in the folder: the LOGO Noel v1.0 Head and the LOGO Noel v1.0 Head (Alternate Brows). I’m using the Alternate Brows one for this post, as it’s a bit less stern looking. You’ll need to right-click > ADD the following:

• LOGO Noel v1.0 Head (Alternate Brows)
• LOGO Noel v1.0 Shape
• LOGO Noel v1.0 Eyebrows Shape
• LOGO Noel v1.0 Eyes
• LOGO Noel v1.0 Teeth
• LOGO MALE Customization HUD v4.5 – Noel

You can edit the shape later, so it’s how you like it. I made quite a few edits on mine.

You’ll also want to choose and right-click > ADD a skin. This comes in three parts: the body (labelled as ‘skin’), the face, and the ears. I’m using the Pale tone, so I’ve added the following:

• LOGO Noel v1.0 Skin – Pale
• LOGO Noel EvoX Face – Pale (No Brows)
• LOGO EvoX Ears – Pale

You probably don’t match right now, so we’re now going to open up the LOGO Customisation HUD and make a few changes. First, we’ll check that EvoX mode is enabled (this is the UV map that the skins need to use) for both the skin and ears. We also need to enable BoM on both the skin and ears (in the same section) and we’ll remove the gloss and materials, just as we removed bump and shine from the Legacy body. While you’re there in the Customisation tab, you can also select the colour of brows you want, as well as any facial hair, eyeshadow, and tattoos (freckles and moles) that you might like. I chose the fifth eyeshadow from the left and used the ‘fade’ slider beneath it to fade it out a little. I chose the brown eyebrows, but I’m going to use other facial hair, so I didn’t enable that.

In the second tab (Tinting & Options) you can select your eye colour as well as what kind of lashes you want (I chose the hazel eye and the default lashes).

You should be mostly set up with head and body now, with one exception: the skin around your nails probably looks a bit odd! This is where you need to add the BoM Nail fix tattoos from Sweets (free from SL Marketplace), then edit the tattoos to tint them as close to your skin colour as you can. Once tinted to your liking, hit the save button, and you’re ready to start getting dressed.

I’m going to add the hairbase, hair, and facial hair first of all, as these are the same throughout all of these looks.

• Hairbase: Brabos – Social Hairbase. This is one of the gifts from the Man Cave Event. Select the colour you want (I chose 5 – Carbon Brown) and right-click > ADD
• Hair: Wings Hair – TZ0224 Gray. This is another gift from the Man Cave Event. You’ll notice that the unpacked folder says it’s the Gray pack, and if you add the HUD to change colours it’ll show you various shades of white through grey. BUT… on first wearing it, it’s light brown! Make a copy of this and put it in a sub-folder in the main folder, because you’re basically getting a free brown shade of hair here. If you want to use the HUD to change to any of the colours, you can, but I stuck with the original brown one.
• Facial Hair: Not Found – Teo Beard. Another gift from Man Cave. I’m using the ‘Natural’ option, as that’s a brown that matches the hair and hairbase nicely, but if you chose another colour of hair, add the ‘Tintable’ version, then right-click-edit it and tint it to the colour you need.

You should be looking something like this. Note that I’ve made quite a few edits to the shape, so it’s to my liking. The body hair in the left image is free from CheerNo & Nexus at Ajuda Brasil. Add the AO from Sinse, and you’ll have some decent animations running as well.

Now for the clothing!

Depending on any edits you’ve made to your shape, you should find that any clothing marked as ‘TMP’ or ‘Fitmesh TMP’ should fit fairly well. If it comes with an alpha layer, wear that; if not, then use the body’s HUD to hide any sections of your body that may poke through. If the clothing doesn’t have anything labelled as TMP or Fitmesh, try the standard sizing options (S, M, L, etc). For most of the below looks, I found that the Small or Medium sizes worked just fine.

Looks 1 through 3

Worn throughout this set:

• Jeans & Boots: Brii Underground – Arthur Country Outfit (free from Ajuda Brasil)

Tops are as follows, left to right:

• Damyn Store – Brant Shirt (black/green) (Ajuda Brasil)
• Amazing Creations – The Masters of Style (Ajuda Brasil)
• ONI – 60L P1 (Man Cave gift) – the hand is part of the outfit (the shirt will hide your actual hand) so use the included HUD to change the skintone to one close to yours

Looks 4 through 6

Worn throughout this set:

• Jeans & Boots: Brii Underground – Arthur Country Outfit (free from Ajuda Brasil)

Tops are as follows, left to right, all from the Gabriel freebie store:

• Gabriel – Military Jacket with T (black)
• Gabriel – Gentleman Pattern Shirt (light blue) – I’m wearing the included plain version
• Gabriel – Double Fur Coat (black)

Looks 7 through 9

Worn throughout this set:

• Jeans & Boots: Brii Underground – Arthur Country Outfit (free from Ajuda Brasil)

Tops are as follows, left to right, all from the Gabriel freebie store:

• Gabriel – Double Long Coat (black set)
• Gabriel – Mouton Jacket (brown)
• Gabriel – Shirt and Cardigan (choco)

Looks 10 through 11

• Left: Gabriel – Black Three-Piece (Big Stripe V2) (Gabriel freebie store)
• Right: Gabriel – Stripe Three-Piece (dark grey) (Gabriel freebie store)
• Shoes for both: MV Creations – Mens Formal Shoes (Ajuda Brasil)

And that’s you suited and booted on the cheap, ready for the New Year :-)

REMEMBER: The LOGO head, and any items marked as being Man Cave Event gifts are LIMITED TIME OFFERS. The LOGO head offer ends 7th January 2024, and the Man Cave Event gifts will be gone after 11th January 2024.