Dear Philip…

This morning I woke up to three offline messages from friends, telling me about a post you’d made on the official SL Forums, where you asked for suggestions to create a modern Second Life male avatar for yourself. Thankfully, two of these messages included screenshots, since the people sending them know that I no longer visit the forum, so here’s one of those screenshots:

So why did three different SL residents each immediately think of reaching out to me when they saw this post? Most likely because helping male avatars to look good in Second Life has been my passion for well over a decade. Second Life has always been a woman’s world when it comes to avatar customisation, but helping SL’s blokes to navigate that customisation is a hill that I have stood upon (and died upon) for longer than I care to remember. And, honestly, it can be exhausting.

It takes a London taxi driver between three and four years to learn what’s known as The Knowledge before they can earn their license to drive one of the city’s famous black cabs. The Knowledge comprises a thorough understanding of 320 ‘runs’ or routes within a six-mile radius of Charing Cross, together with the thousands of roads and landmarks within that area. And when an experienced SL resident is hand-holding a complete newbie to Second Life through not only customising their avatar but also understanding why – when they click this button on the HUD for their mesh body or head, that weird thing happens, and how to get everything looking back to how it did before they accidentally clicked that button –  they are relying on something that I’ve long referred to as The Knowledge of SL.

I view Second Life’s resident ‘Knowledge’ as its greatest asset. Between blogs and videos and one-to-one guidance, it’s SL’s resident community that has given the leg-up to put newbies on the first step of that all-important road to finding their place in this world. That first step is finding yourself in this world. For most people, looking out of place makes them feel out of place. Once your avatar represents you in a way that you feel comfortable inhabiting for a while, you can then turn your focus outward to find out what else the virtual world has to offer.

The default Senra avatars are starters. They’re the bicycle with training wheels, where you wobble along, unsteadily learning how to put on and take off clothes, skin, hair, shoes, and how to edit shapes and whatnot. But everyone around you is riding a Ducati Streetfighter, and you don’t want to be pedalling around on your training wheels any longer than you have to. So you find out there’s a half-price sale on Legacy bodies, and that Lelutka are giving away a free mesh head at Christmas. You pick those things up, you unpack them, and you’re met with a whole bunch of stuff that makes no sense. Just a tiny little handful of the possible confusions include:

• more boxes inside those folders that need unpacking for extra stuff
• a skin that only goes on your head and you’ve no idea how to get your body looking the same
• you add the eyebrows but they end up on either side of your chin and your nose is on the back of your head
• there’s this thing called a HUD that you’ve no idea what to do with; you figure out how to add it and you start clicking things, and suddenly your mouth is open wide and your whole head looks like you fell into a vat of oil
• where the hell are your ears?
• you add the shape that came with the head and it makes your body look odd but if you add the shape that came with the body it makes your head look really weird
• and once you figure out how to add all the important bits you now seem to have two heads and two bodies

We won’t even look at how your inventory is now a mess of unpacked and unfiled folders. Sorting all of that is a joy reserved for future-you, if you stick it out here. (Hello to my 250,000+ inventory that I am still wrangling after 17 years inworld.)

So you hit up your favourite search engine and you find blogs like mine, or you go to YouTube and search for videos that explain how to put together your avatar. You might figure it out on your own, you might find the Second Life University videos, or you might find some helpful SL resident to take you under their wing and get you set up and on your way. We’re here. We’ve got you. But it will take persistence, a bit of hard work from you, and not a little stubborn bloody-mindedness. But finally you’ll be up and running.

But that’s just the newbies, and Philip Linden ain’t no newb.

What most ‘oldbies’ want when they consider updating their system avatar to mesh is to keep the look that they’ve become attached to over the years that they’ve been inworld. And, in many ways, this is harder than helping a newbie. A newbie is, for lack of a better word, more malleable. Sometimes they’ll arrive inworld with a screenshot of their character from Skyrim or IMVU or The Sims, and ask how they can recreate that character in SL, but most newbies only have a vague idea of what they want to look like. Once they settle on something they like, they might change it around a bit early on – especially if a new mesh head gift hits the grid and they prefer it to their previous one – but eventually we all settle on ‘our look’ in SL. And, once we have, it can take a lot to budge us from that.

Trust me: I was there, once:

How do you feel about mesh bodies in general?

Ambivalent, veering toward very very wary. I dislike intensely the way that mesh bodies are homogenising SL avatars, especially when combined with mesh heads (NONONO!). If I bought a mesh body then the vast majority of my inventory would be useless, I would not be able to put together anywhere near  the number of individual looks that I currently can, and I would blend in nicely with the rest of the “normal”, perfect population. No thank you. I’ll stay lumpy, flawed, “standard”, and proud of it. […] If there’s one thing I absolutely rail against in SL, it’s sameness. We can be whatever and whoever the hell we want to be here, so why would we all want to look the same? Mesh clothing is edging out fashion creativity and individuality enough as it is (just a glance at the average Mens Dept collection will show you the kind of mesh that’s being made for guys: hoodies, jeans, and sneakers galore), without mesh bodies and heads smoothing us out even more into bland perfection.

— Me, back in 2015

Dear god, who’s that grumpy, angry little arsehole? Yeah. Look at the difference in me now compared to then. I even work for a mesh head creator, so I think I’ve matured a bit from when I was behaving like a teenager kicking over the traces! (Mind you, I’m still complaining about the state of menswear in SL…)

But I know why I was behaving that way. It was because inevitable change had arrived, and – at that time – I wasn’t ready to embrace change. Nobody actually enjoys it when a big change comes along, especially if other people seem to be embracing it while you actively hate (or even fear) it. But in the years since that 2015 quote I’ve come to understand that – personally, at least – I cope with change better if I go along with it rather than kicking against it. I’ve learned to recognise when I’m digging in my heels and am about to go into full Stubborn Little Shit mode. That’s when I do my research and give the change the proverbial good old college try. And, inevitably, I end up enjoying that change. Sometimes I’m even in a position to influence it.

So, onto the topic of your request, Philip…

You asked for ‘suggestions on shopping or approach’ to update your avatar while remaining ‘recognisable as your old avatar’. Just the phrasing of that alone is enough to make anyone who wants to help you update your avatar breathe a sigh of relief. As a CSR for a major mesh head brand I’ve encountered many people over the years who want their mesh head to look exactly like the system head they’ve grown accustomed to. On an old post, quite some time back, I addressed this:

Can I replicate my system head with a mesh head?

While you won’t be able to replicate your system face exactly it might be possible to replicate it close enough that it will pass your own critical inspection. Just how close you’ll be able to get depends on a number of factors, not least of which is what your system head actually looks like. If you have specific features that cannot be replicated by a mesh head, then you may get close but not quite close enough for your liking. Only you can decide whether that’s worth the work, but it is worth a try.

You need to begin with a head that has a similar base shape to your system head. For example: if you have a very pointed system jaw, you may struggle to get the same jawline from a mesh head that starts out with a strong square jaw. Don’t forget that—just as with system heads—the right skin and any accompanying additional layers, such as makeup, freckles, age lines, etc. can alter a mesh head, to the point where ‘almost-but-not-quite’ becomes ‘well damn that’s close enough for me!’

I’ve come up with an analogy that works for me: I look at moving from a system head to a mesh head as akin to growing older in real life. My reflection in the bathroom mirror these days isn’t the same as it was back when I was 20. I’ve matured, and – while my general features are still recogniseable – I don’t look the same. In turn, Skell has just evolved and grown older in Second Life.

These days, I have more than enough hard-earned skill in shaping a mesh head to be able to ‘find Skell’ in most of the mesh heads that I try. And I’m sure that someone will help you to ‘find Philip’ in whichever mesh head and mesh body you end up with. But that someone won’t be me.

Why? Well, for one thing, I don’t do makeovers. But that’s not the main reason. I know that many people will already be scouring Marketplace to find the exact handlebar moustache, a mesh hairstyle that’s close enough to your spiky system ‘do, and a Velour- or Not Found-matching tanned skin that replicates your system skin well enough. And very possibly there’s some clothing creator out there who is already rigging some chaps and a t-shirt for all the major male mesh bodies and trying to finagle that honestly bloody iconic codpiece onto the front of some black jeans to go under said chaps (seriously, mate, don’t do away with that; keep it in some form, even if it’s sparkly PBR sequins!)

The main reason I won’t be joining in with this is because I’ve seen the posts you’re making in various places – touching individually on all the locations where Second Life’s residents gather, both internal and external to the platform – and I feel that each of those posts potentially has more behind it than it first appears to. I don’t think you’re just asking where you can get that handlebar moustache. I think that you also want to know where the pain points are when it comes to avatar customisation.

And I think you’re about to find out. Because here’s my advice:

You’re in a unique position. You’re not Mr Noob McResident, who has neither the clout nor the fame/recognition to draw tons of SL’s residents to help him out. But, contrasting that, your avatar is so recognisable and iconic that you can’t ask for an update to it without people knowing it’s you (i.e., no rolling a new alt to pose as a newbie).

However, I suggest that you do roll a new alt, preferably a male one, since – as I stated at the beginning of this post – SL really is a woman’s world when it comes to shopping and avatar customisation. It’s a great deal harder to put together a male avatar, especially if you’re trying to do so on a budget.

Go it alone before you go walkabout with the Friends of Philip group next week. Do the same kind of research that everyone in Second Life has to do when it comes to updating their avatar to a more modern mesh look.

Start with Senra Blake and figure out demoing stuff. Try the Legacy, the Lelutka, the Jake, and the Catwa. Add the HUDs and click stuff. See what the different shapes (head vs body) do. Find out what EvoX is, and why almost every skin, hairbase, facial hair, etc released these days is EvoX. Shop for clothes, understand buying for your specific chosen body, and the fact that the clothes won’t necessarily fit perfectly right out of the box, and what you need to do to fix that. Try on a PBR necklace while you’re outside, and notice how – even though it might be gold metal – it’s actually a shiny blue because you’re not standing inside a reflection probe. Consider what your budget might be; can you afford the latest stuff or are you going to wait for the Christmas giveaways or use some of the freebie mesh heads and bodies? Ask yourself if you want a wardrobe of clothing – even if it’s only two or three outfits – or are you going to be happy if you can get just one outfit looking right?

Second Life’s resident Knowledge is out there. We’re here. We’ve got you. But I think that it’ll really open your eyes if you go it alone in figuring out how to update your avatar, even if only for a day. Think of it as a side quest, because for most residents that’s exactly what it is.

Good luck ‘finding Philip’.

 

P.S. This post isn’t as coherent and well put together as I’d like it to be, but that’s mostly because I’m feeling sick and under the weather right now. I did my best with it, because three offline IMs just can’t be ignored.

P.P.S. I mean it about the sparkly codpiece. If you make me rewrite my (S)Lord’s Prayer I may just cry…