Please advise about child avatar

[KittyCharming]

Hi all,

A friend of mine asked me to find out more about child avs. I myself never use them, so honestly have no experience at all, unless I know child avs are prohibited many places around sl. and first question arises from this situation - does it worth it to play child av as you will be asked from so many locations? Of course I understand child avatars are not allowed at adult places, but if I am correct they are often banned from M places too, correct? So does it worth at all?

And if it does... what body would you advise? Honestly I am clueless... is there child mesh body at all? And which is not less important - clothes for them? I know some adult mesh bodies that I like and probably would buy, but not enough selection of clothes prevent me from buying. What about child bodies?

Another important part is skin... are there good skins for above hypothetical mesh bodies? which body has more choices?

Third question is about head... will this mesh body fit head? Standard one? what about mesh heads? and very important - is there any way to fix seam on neck? I remember titanic efforts for removing my seam, so please advise best way - in case you know.

P.S. important note - trolls can not bother - I am not going to feed them. Try me.

Edited November 4, 2017 by KittyCharming

[LittleMe Jewell]

I can only give info on the first part of your post.  Child avatars are allowed at Moderate places and they are actually allowed on Adult sims.  They just cannot be using any adult things or around any adult activities.  Due to that, many adult places post notices saying that children are not allowed.  Most child avatars prefer to not subject themselves to such stuff anyway.

[Ariel Vuissent]

Technically, child avatars are allowed anywhere on the grid. Practically, they can't be near sexual content of any kind, so while a child avatar can wander an adult sim, the amount of sexual content on them is generally prohibitive. Also, most adult sims tend not to be of interest to most legitimate child avatars. 

That being said, many sim owners will ban child avatars in general in order to protect themselves from any potential issues that may occur. If a child avatar is found acting inappropriately (specifically near or accessing adult content) on a sim, the sim owner can be held liable and have their sim closed, and/or be banned entirely. For many, it's not a risk they wish to take. Most General sims allow child avatars without question; Mature sims may or may not and many don't; Adult sims often don't. Your friend needs to consider what areas they'd like to have access to in order to determine if being a child avatar is too limiting.

Really the best way to have a good child avatar, that I'm aware of, IS with a mesh body. The standard body has a hard time getting that small. The one I've heard the most about is Toddledoo, but there are others; check the marketplace for what's available (although not everything will be listed there), ask in inworld child avatar groups, and do a google search for blogs about child avatars. The same advice goes for skins and clothing - do some research. Also narrow down an age range, as the results will differ depending how young your friend wants to be - toddler, preteen, teen?

(As an aside, relating to clothing available for adult mesh bodies - the more popular brands, such as Maitreya, Belleza, and Slink, have TONS of clothing available. In fact, many high quality creators are making clothing exclusively for mesh bodies, so check that out, as well; Mesh Body Addicts is an amazing resource there. She doesn't blog about items for child avatars, though.)

Although I believe in most cases you can probably use a system head even with a child mesh body, it's probably worth it to get a mesh head for this purpose; they'll be more realistically childlike than the default head. Brands there, I'm not sure, but again, do some research and see what out there. In fact, searching "child" or "child avatar" under skins should pop up a load of results. Looking through those results, you'll find a bunch that say they're for "______" head or body; then you can look up those heads and bodies. It's a good way to find bodies and heads that aren't for sale on the marketplace.

[KittyCharming]

Thanks for useful information everybody.

It seems child avatars/bodies are not so much popular. I've searched marketplace and found only two bodies so far. One of them (with bento support ) - tweenster looks more promising. One can use fitmesh outfits with it (of course, after trying demo first). Found some skins too - not too much, but still some. Although not sure has this body omega support or not.  For testing purposes I took a demo and tried it with my lelutka head and neck matches perfectly (meshes). Not sure about neck seem although. 

I understand there are different kind of children starting from toddlers and ending teenagers may be.  As far as I know she wants to make 10-13 years old av. If somebody has such av, please share experience.

Edited November 5, 2017 by KittyCharming

[Viviana Baguier]

Hello, I wear SMB and Tweenster body for big kids or pre teens, both are good, but SMB is out of date, so Tweenster is better, you have omega, bento hands, but you can try the demos.

Free bodies for boys are Punk and Loki.

https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/PUNK-Mesh-Replacement-Body-V6-Small-Avatar/10765375

Loki inworld store

http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Escapades/182/37/3130

 

[KittyCharming]

Viviana Baguier

Thanks for very useful information.

[HarrisonMcKenzie]

I play an 11 year old. Child avatars are pretty popular, although baby and going child avatars are far more popular than older children. There just isn't a lot of variety because there doesn't need to be.

For mesh, Tweenster is the new hotness. Punk is new, but the creator is still working on dev files, so there isn't much support for it, and Loki didn't seem to catch on very much. SMB was the go to for a long time, but the creator is no longer in SL. There's also TotsiTween (from the creator of the smaller child avatar TotsiPop), and Tweenedoo (from Toddleedoo), but the later also seems to have no support and few users.

[CassieMaia]

I play as a child inworld, generally as a 5 year old, but sometimes as an older child around 9 or so.  When I play as an older child I generally wear the Tweenster body, which I really like a lot.  

[KittyCharming]

Thanks HarrisonMcKenzie  really helpful information. I like Tweenster most of them too.

 

Thanks Cassie Maia.

[HarrisonMcKenzie]

11 hours ago, KittyCharming said:

Thanks HarrisonMcKenzie  really helpful information. I like Tweenster most of them too.

 

Thanks Cassie Maia.

Glad I could help. What age is your friend looking to play?

[Vanagew]

I play a 10 year old with the SMB mesh right now but I agree that Tweenster is the way to go. Depending on your budget you may want to check out Vicarious Youth, Meshmerised and Xeolots for some good skins and the SMB mesh still works. I am new though so I don't know all the ins and outs like Harrison does.

[Callum Meriman]

SMB (is now now free) https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/SMB-Mesh-Body-for-Kids-Freebie/4736390 but more improtantly the dev kit is openly available.