On 17th June I celebrated my second year in SL. Just like everybody else I started out with one of the standard avatars. I fancied something quite different from the real me in SL, so I went for a somewhat scrawny red head. I thought he was rather good-looking in his own way, but that’s before I had seen all the much better looking avatars. I soon learned about mesh bodies and also about mesh heads. Linden Labs most probably was already working on the ‘bento’ project back then, but it wasn’t available to us yet and with very little customization options for the shape of a static mesh head, many people preferred to stay with their system head. I too for a while used my mesh body combined with a nice system skin.
That’s how I discovered the Birth skins. Their Highlands Tone went very well with the #20 skin tone of the TMP mesh body. Birth had several good-looking skins and I went for the youthful but mature Rufus with a very light stubble and well pronounced cheekbones.
Then the bento skeleton hit the grid and as we could start shaping mesh heads into something more personal, this meant the beginning of the end for system skins. These skins aren’t totally out yet because some people don’t want to ‘invest’ in a mesh head or find them too complicated. For a short while Birth was gone from the scene… Only to reemerge quickly with beautiful new appliers for mesh bodies and heads. I was quite happy to see Birth had made this transition and kept thinking that I really needed to get myself a Birth skin again. Just as I found myself staring at their latest male skin at Men Only Monthly, someone told me that they were looking for bloggers and that’s how I find myself now being part of the Birth blogging team.
If you like very well defined abs than the Birth body appliers will definitely be your thing. They come with a number of built-in body hair options to chose from ranging from smooth to ‘gorilla’ (their word). I like the manscaped look, fairly hairy but trimmed and I think I’m in love with that belly button… Okay, that sounded weird. Moving swiftly on to a technical detail: Belleza, Omega, Signature and Slink appliers are included.
You can make separate body hair choices for your torso and legs and it all comes in black, brown, blonde and red. You can keep it as smooth as a baby’s bum or go for a bit of bum fluff.
The handsome and slightly weathered looking ‘Winston’ applier from Birth for Catwa mesh heads is currently available at the Men Only Monthly event until 15th July and at the Birth store after that of course. If you don’t like faffing with the shape sliders than it will be reassuring that this skin comes complete with a shape and brow shape. Of course I love shape editing so what you’re seeing here is my own work. It’s easy to get a good looking result with a skin as nice as this one. Go on, have a go at those sliders! Just make a backup copy of your shape first.
Credits
Billy Beaverhausen 
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