Great EXpectations

Egoisme first started wetting my appetite for their mesh bodies with an advert for the “bento ready” EXMACHINA Mesh Avatar in the L’Homme Magazine issue of November 2016. Apparently this body had already been in the works for a while at that point but I’m not sure if they were fully aware that it would take them another 10 months to get it ready for market and that meanwhile Belleza and NX-Nardcotix were going to beat them to the punch.

My usual landmark for Egoisme took me to some kind of Gothic castle. It turned out that this oversized construction was floating not very high above the Egoisme sim. Next to the vendors for the mesh body you will find a handy sign with teleport buttons to the apparel and skin departments down below. In my opinion it feels like a disjointed dysfunctional disassociated shopping experience and a school example of poor marketing.

There is a free version of the EXMACHINA body which is little more than a demo, because it doesn’t include any kind of hud, so what you see is exactly what you get and there are zero options. Let’s move on to the full version, which will set you back L$3990. For that money you get a mesh body with a mesh head attached to it, which does make it different from all the headless bodies I have stashed away up in the attic… eeehm… I mean safely stored in my inventory.

To my knowledge no 3rd party skins have been developed for this body yet so you will be stuck with one of the 4 skin tones included. Luckily I rather fancy one of the medium tones so I won’t moan too much about it for now. The package includes a pair of rigged eyes which for me fall in the category of “nice try but no cigar”. While we’re on the subject of dodgy execution, let’s say that there is a lot of room for improvement in the ears department. Then again, that seems a recurring issue with mesh heads, almost as if the creators aren’t listening to our input or aren’t hearing us (see what I did there). On the plus side: at least you can hide them with the hud.

The head is less responsive to the shape-editing sliders than for example the Catwa mesh heads and I was particularly unimpressed with how the eyes responded to my editing exercise. However, in my opinion the head is flexible enough to create a look that is quite different from the standard shape without looking freakish. The hud does not offer any options for eyebrows, freckles or makeup and you really need to pick up the free hairbase when you get the body, because it looks like that is the only one that will work for now.

Moving further down, I appreciate the musculature of this body. The pecs are well defined without being droopy, though perhaps the nipples could have been slightly less pointy. The upper- and lower arm ratio is better than that of some other mesh bodies and the elbows have been nicely worked out without taking it to the point that they collapse when you bend your arms. If you push the muscle slider to the max, the top of the biceps gets an angular appearance, so for those wanting a very big and muscular look… stick with the Aesthetic mesh body. I would describe the abs as dreamy but if that doesn’t sound masculine enough for your hetero normative ears, let’s just say they’re “woof”!

The legs are slightly problematic. Only the calves seem to respond to the leg muscle slider so you will be stuck with swimmer’s legs. Personally I don’t think this is a bad thing, but it is a limitation. What is a bad thing however, is the visible seam on the shins. I find this unacceptable! This fault is somewhat lost in the shadows in the pictures, but at times it was very visible. I can be positive about the backside though. The butt is a nice little bubble and while this bit of junk-in-da-trunk won’t be winning over anybody with a serious fetish for big butts, it does stand out proud and perky. You can of course make it much flatter, if such is your fancy. Move all the way down to the toes and you hit another bump in the road, because the feet don’t respond to the size slider. What’s up with that?

Right! Enough with the gratuitous nudity, it’s time to swap out the nasty ears with nice Mandala “Steking” mesh ears, pop in a pair of mesh eyes from Catwa, put on the “Haunting” hairstyle from Stealthic and take a look at some clothes for this body.
Left: Egoisme has been releasing several items under the Exmachina label for some time now. I mistakenly thought these would automatically fit this body, but the Exmachine jeans did not include a size made for it. The small size is an ok fit though, with some minor tweaks to my shape.
Middle: This shirt, suit trousers and shoes are all from Deadwool. Of course these weren’t made for the EXMACHINA avatar at all, but it wasn’t too much of a hassle to make it work. Tim Gunn would be proud.
Right: This jacket and trousers from Kauna work nicely too, as long as you’re willing to get your tweak on.

For a more straight forward casual look I suggest the Montana t-shirt from Cold Ash, paired with Deadwool Broberry jeans and Chase sneakers.

I hope that EXMACHINA and Egoisme will keep the updates and accessories coming for this body and perhaps make the hud a lot more user-friendly. For now I think I would give this one a score of  a “soft” 7 out of 10.