In this episode of the “For a Little Less” series I’ll be pushing the boundaries of what I find acceptable. To be honest, I have been spoiling myself with mesh heads in the L$5000 price range and now I find it difficult to be pleased with anything that’s available for free. However, I wanted to see what I could put together with around L$500 or less in the wallet. I’m using the Classic Meshbody again as shown in episode 4, which currently is available for free. That’s to say, you need to be in their group (there’s no joining fee for this group) and you pay L$1 for the body (I’m not sure if you get that Linden dollar back once the body is delivered)
Of course a body needs a head. I didn’t make up the rules, God did. Take any God of your personal preference and you will find that most of them will have put heads on their creations sooner or later. At Alantori you will find the Marco bento mesh head among their group gifts. The joining fee is L$50 and while you’re there you might as well grab some other group gifts. I took the beard home with me. She’s knitting a scarf and has a casserole in the oven for me at this very moment, but I digress. (if you didn’t get that, please look up alternative meanings for the word “beard”.) I’m not sure how long the head will remain a group gift. It’s also available on Marketplace for L$99 (temporary price). That’s a promo price too apparently. All the total prices mentioned below are based on the L$50 group joining fee.
Now you’ll be needing a skin, cause that’s another one of those creationist rules. You can’t walk around looking flayed or people will think you’re wearing a meat dress and such things are best left to Lady Gaga.
In Marketplace I found the Andrej skin by DNA for L$299. This skin includes a version made for the Legacy body which just happens to work on the Classic Meshbody without getting the gnarly toe look (more about that later). Eye brows are included too, but as a separate tattoo, which can be handy if you want to experiment with other brows. The Cole hair is a gift at Modulus and the hair base is a group gift at Dura (again, no joining fee here). A nice pair of eyes really makes a difference, especially for close-ups. I think the Avi Glam Fine Eyes are some of the best eyes you can get for L$10. Forget about eyes though! Damn it’s hard to find nice free or cheap underwear for the Classic Meshbody. The best I could do are these Umbrella beach trunks, which aren’t too bad for L$19, but they’re not really underpants. The head comes with its own shape, but I’ve made one myself. You can find the Mark shape in my Marketplace store for L$10. This brings the grand total for this look to L$389.
Remember the problem with the toes I mentioned above? If you don’t, you really need to get those memory issues checked out. This look uses a skin that really has gnarly toes on the Classic Meshbody. The toenail for your big toe is somewhere in the middle of your toe. Looking at it makes me feel a bit ill, to be honest. On the plus side, the Liam skin by 7 Deadly S[k]ins is only L$100, which takes us down to a total cost of L$190. Apart from the less than ideal feet, the rest of the skin is quite nice. The hair base, facial hair and body hair are all part of the skin and the box contains smooth alternatives without hair base or beard too. You can always wear the free socks from Vale Koer to cover up the issue with the feet, but oy vey, when they updated this gift to add more sizes, they took out the old TMP size for these socks! I’m going to ask the designer if he can put that back in. Meanwhile you can go on that show “Help, my feet are killing me”.
Note to self: I have to stop putting on daytime TV in the background while I’m working. It’s starting to seep into my unconsciousness.
Another thing you can try is using one of the original skins that come with the Classic Meshbody. In that case you abandon the idea of using Bakes On Mesh (BOM) on the body and you need to wear an alpha layer. Unfortunately the alpha that comes with the body will turn the Alantori head red, because it’s BOM. There is a cheap (L$1) solution for that with the Alpha Helper by Tuli. Once you’ve unpacked this product, you’ll see that it’s a hud that can deliver various alpha layers. You need the alpha layer for wearing a mesh body with (separate) hands and/or feet.
Then you apply the Classic body skin that is closest to the skin tone you are using on your head. Next you need to unpack the folder with the neckfades that comes with the body. What you are looking for is the box with neckfades tattoos. You then add the neckfade tattoo that corresponds with the body skin you are wearing. This is a bit tricky, as the fades are numbered and the skins in the body’s hud are not, so you need to count the thumbnails to know which skin you have applied. There are various versions of the same skin tones and each version starts with the lightest and goes down to the darkest, so you always start counting from 1 down to 36. I know, it’s tedious! The neck seam is definitely going to be less than ideal (it’s less obvious in my pictures than it is inworld), but the body skins are excellent and your toes will be perfect.
I’m using Bjorn by 7 Deadly S[k]ins for the head, which is just L$1 on Markeplace. There are plenty of cheap skins in Marketplace, but some of them make my spider sense tingle. I think there’s some stolen content there. At least with 7 Deadly S[k]ins you know it’s all above board. This combo will set you back just L$92.
Maybe now you can splash out on sexier underwear? In the context of this budget friendly post, the 4BIDDEN Red & Black Cut out Mesh Briefs are a bit expensive at L$249. Noche’s bottomless trunks are all kinds of sexy fun, but at L$275 they’re also stretching the bargain hunter’s budget somewhat. It’s ironic that I can put a free outfit together while there’s no nice free form fitted underwear for this body anywhere. The bomber jacket is part of a treasure trove of freebies at Kauna, the skinny pants are a group gift at Gild and the sneakers are a group gift at Versov. There are no group joining fees involved for any of these.
By this point rather bewildered newbies will have been wondering for quite some time now when the elephant in the room is going to be addressed, or indeed the Ken-smooth absence of any kind of trunk in the nether regions. Bad news kids, all the freebie male genitalia out there look diseased. So that’s where I draw the line. No free willy for Billy! Have a look around on Marketplace and see what you can find within the 100 to 500 price range. The really good ones are more around the L$1500 price range. Sorry to put a downer on it, so to speak. Good luck willy hunting!
Billy Beaverhausen 