It was time for another one of those posts in which I wonder out loud about what the heck is going on with the male TMP mesh body.
About a year ago I was quite excited to finally see some changes at TMP’s store “The Shops!“. Nothing has changed since then though. You still enter the place in a sort of anteroom where you can buy their “new” bento hair. From there you can teleport to an area where the good old TMP bodies and static non-bento heads are sold. The biggest change of course was the massive price drop from 5000 to 500 L$ for their bodies and heads.
Meanwhile there still is a lot of unclarity about what would happen to the body if TMP would ever take their servers offline. Styling options for this body are saved in a special styling hud and your settings are then saved to a TMP server. It has been said that if that server would go offline, you’d be stuck in one skin or maybe the alpha hud would no longer work. Then again, 500 L$ is 2 USD (not counting the transaction fee when you buy lindens) so we’re not talking about a huge risk. Sadly the body was never upgraded to bento, so the hands are static. Another sad thing is that it was never made Omega compatible so you are more limited in skin choices and the number of creators that make a TMP applier is dwindling rapidly. But let’s look at one of the latest pieceof eye candy I’ve put together using this body.
One way to minimise the risk of wasting your money, is to only invest in body skin appliers that also can be used on other bodies. Egozy is a good example of a skin creator that makes appliers for the Catwa and Akeruka mesh heads and includes TMP, Signature, Slink and Omega body appliers. This is their Tiger skin in the golden skin tone on the Catwa Stanley head with the TMP body. I’m quite pleased with the nearly invisible neck seam you get on the combination of this head, body and skin. Don’t use the neck sheath for TMP bodies in the Catwa hud, as it actually gives you a less good result. This Egozy skin is 800 L$, which is pretty good considering all those body appliers are included. I jazzed it up a bit more with the add on mesh nipples from Noche.
If you are feeling brave, you can do something silly and get the Vista bento hands for the TMP body. These are 700 L$ and if the body would indeed become useless at some point, then you wouldn’t have much use for these hands either. The omega applier that comes with the Egozy skin works on these hands, but you will need to get the Omega relay from Vista. The result is nearly seamless, depending on the windlight. The package includes a simple bento fingers animator, which is ideal if your main AO doesn’t have bento hand animations. There is also a larger hud with hand poses and all the built-in skins and fingernail options.
Of course there’s always the question whether there are still any new clothes available for the TMP body. It definitely has been dropped by some creators. It’s difficult to find any nice new underwear or swimwear for it, but there is a back catalogue of items in that array that still don’t look outdated. Take a look around at Noche’s store and you will find their Essential Jockstrap, Metalic Thong and Bottomless Trunks on the 3rd floor. Always demo items first to make sure the TMP size is included, as Noche stopped supporting TMP a while back.
Some of you will want to venture out into the big wild grid with a bit more clothing, so I took a quick look at some of the styling I have been done with other bodies and recycled a couple of looks.
Ladies and gentlemen, we have a winner! The blazer with t-shirt, slacks and Oxford shoes from L&B work just fine with the TMP body if you use the Gianni size. You can pop off your feet as they are totally covered anyway. You can play with your shape a bit to tailor the suit and make your feet a bit smaller so it doesn’t look like you’re walking around with snowshoes and then save that shape to wear with this outfit. (SAVE AS! Use SAVE AS! You don’t want to ruin your perfect naked shape!)
For something a lot more casual, you can find the “Strong” jeans and tank top at Invictus. They come in TMP size, so you’ll be able to go topless, but I did notice a tiny bit of clipping at the ankles. The Deadwool Chase sneakers are a good option with this outfit.
That’s it for now. TMP remains very quiet, with zero changes to the store in about a year, obviously no new releases and definitely no mentioning of an update or new body. I think at this point it’s mainly alts, collectors, newbies and very late converters that are buying it. Oh well… Still looks hot though.
Billy Beaverhausen 