Minimal L spent - AVi essentials

[Karina Leborski]

Just a random discussion. If you had a very limited budget and wanted to go all mesh and look really nice, what are the minimal things you were willing to spend Lindens for?

For me it a mesh body + head, some nice skin + hair, basic high quality wardrobe items, that go with everything, maybe some nice tattoo, a pair of good shoes that fits almost any outfit. Interesting to hear some thoughts on the matter. 

[Cindy Evanier]

For me minimal requirement would be mesh feet, a pair of jeans, a nice top and a bikini.   I could handle everything else but don't take away my feet!

[Catrie]

22 minutes ago, Cindy Evanier said:

For me minimal requirement would be mesh feet, a pair of jeans, a nice top and a bikini.   I could handle everything else but don't take away my feet!

The feet are kind of essential, especially if you want to wear quality shoes.  I'd also add that a mesh body,head and hands are essential.  There are places you can join to get free gifts of quality skins, hair and clothes.  Spend your money on the base and everything else you can slowly build up.  

Edited February 24, 2018 by Catrie

[Cindy Evanier]

18 minutes ago, Catrie said:

The feet are kind of essential, especially if you want to wear quality shoes

I don't lol.  I am always barefoot by choice.  Pretty much have been since back in 2009 when I realised bling shoes were not a good fashion statement 

[Claireschen Hesten]

I have an alt I like to apply this very minimal spend to, it already had a decent freebie skin to modernise it to mesh I got it the free body from TMP it's an absolute shower of s*** from the shopping experience to the HUD but tolerable for an alt got it some free hair from Truth a free/L$1 dress off the market place and used a pair of boots my alt already had. If I was going to use it as my main I'd get a set of mesh feet a pair of jeans t-shirt/top sweater and swimsuit in addition with a long term goal of getting a better body

[Maitimo]

Minimum for me would be, and actually was for a long time, mesh hands (well, one hand - pity I couldn't get just one for half price) and feet with classic body and head.  Mesh hair and clothes of course. As a guy, I can get away with just a few basic outfits; my usual casual one (patchwork jeans, white shirt, black vest, red chucks). And a good quality suit and dress shoes for formal occasions. Some swim shorts for the beach. I don't really need much else.

When I did decide to upgrade to full mesh, I chose a good body mainly on the functionality of the HUD. I actually liked the Slink body better for my body type than the Gianni I eventually bought, because that Slink HUD broke my brain. When I went for a mesh head I tried a few and rather fortunately, the one I liked best was a non-bento head at just L$900.

It's much cheaper being a guy.

Edited February 24, 2018 by Matty Luminos

[Bree Giffen]

I would buy a mesh body, head, skin and hair. Then I'd get a casual styled top, bottom and shoes. These are what I'd consider essential.

I would then look for free items to expand the wardrobe but I've found that you really need to buy things to get the look you want.

[LittleMe Jewell]

3 hours ago, Catrie said:

  I'd also add that a mesh body,head and hands are essential. 

I really don't think a mesh head is an absolutely essential. I still have my system head and have no plans to change for a while.  Depending on one's style and if they never got naked with others or wore super skimpy / revealing outfits, I might even go so far as to say that only the feet and hands are truly essential.

If I decided that I really had to go full mesh and was on a limited budget, I'd probably start out by trying some of the super cheap options out there.  While the cheap/free body-head combos have limited options, they are definitely good enough to work with on a limited budget.  As to the other things, there are some good quality freebies out there.  You can even get some good quality skins for free if you manage to join some of the groups during their free promo periods.  The hardest thing with freebies is whether or not they work with whatever style you prefer.

 

So, the minimum for me would be some sort of mesh body (with feet & hands).  Then I'd hit the Free Dove for a few basics and carefully watch some of the freebie blogs to add more items. There are a couple of good skin stores that offer free or super cheap join fee now and then, so I'd keep an eye out for that ond join one of those as soon as possible.  The one group join that I'd probably fork out the money for right away would be Truth.  I love the hair and you get a new one as a gift every month, and the gifted one includes a complete fatpack of colors.  There are a few other groups that are worth the join fee, even on a really tight budget, just because of how much they gift their members.

 

[Catrie]

16 minutes ago, LittleMe Jewell said:

The one group join that I'd probably fork out the money for right away would be Truth.  I love the hair and you get a new one as a gift every month, and the gifted one includes a complete fatpack of colors. 

Truth hair is my staple hair.  I have purchased other brands, but Truth is the one I go to time after time. In fact, if you look at my pics, they all feature Truth hair.  When I first joined SL,  a friend gave me some Truth hair and I've been hooked ever since.  There are a couple of brands that I just absolutely LOVE and this is one of them.  I recommend it to EVERYONE!!  

[Cindy Evanier]

 

28 minutes ago, Catrie said:

Truth hair is my staple hair.

I am loyal to Truth too.  Back when I started SL they were they only blonde hair that didn't glow in the dark.  Love their stuff

[Catrie]

1 minute ago, Cindy Evanier said:

 

I am loyal to Truth too.  Back when I started SL they were they only blonde hair that didn't glow in the dark.  Love their stuff

When I have friends start, I give them Truth hair. I won't even introduce them to anything else, at first. lol   It's the only brand I use on a regular basis, especially now that they have Rainbow colors.  

[Bebe Bunny]

Honestly, at this exact moment, I'd use TMP because The Shops seems to have given up their revolutionary beta bodies and are selling everything for 500L, it's been 3 days and it's still impossible to teleport to their land.

Edited February 24, 2018 by Sylvannas Zulaman

[LittleMe Jewell]

22 minutes ago, Sylvannas Zulaman said:

Honestly, at this exact moment, I'd use TMP because The Shops seems to have given up their revolutionary beta bodies and are selling everything for 500L,

Not only are they selling all bodies and heads for L$500 each, but all of the clothing is free - and maybe other items in The Shops also.  Just know that the extreme lowering of prices, coupled with pretty much no development in a long time, likely means they are pulling out soon.  Because of how their stuff works, if they shut their servers down, none of their stuff will work anymore.

 

22 minutes ago, Sylvannas Zulaman said:

it's been 3 days and it's still impossible to teleport to their land.

Premium membership helps.  Also, they have a mirror sim next door - sim name 'TheMeshProject'.  You could try that one also.

Edited February 24, 2018 by LittleMe Jewell

[Bebe Bunny]

2 minutes ago, LittleMe Jewell said:

Not only are they selling all bodies and heads for L$500 each, but all of the clothing is free - and maybe other items in The Shops also.  Just know that the extreme lower of prices, coupled with pretty much no development in a long time, likely means they are pulling out soon.  Because of how their stuff works, if they shut their servers down, none of their stuff will work anymore.

 

Premium membership helps.  Also, they have a mirror sim next door - sim name 'TheMeshProject'.  You could try that one also.

I tried! I won't pay premium, it's not worth it  but even that sim looks like it's full to me.

[LittleMe Jewell]

1 minute ago, Sylvannas Zulaman said:

I tried! I won't pay premium, it's not worth it  but even that sim looks like it's full to me.

Could be.  At some  point in the last 12 hours they have bumped the avatar limit on the main sim, The Shops.  Yesterday, it was not allowing my premium alt in when the sim had roughly 50 people.  Today there were 68 when I last checked and the premium bonus would not give them that much extra.  It could be that the mirror sim has been bumped up also for the max avatars.  It could also be that many folks don't know about the mirror location and thus it might not be getting hit as hard with constant TP attempts.

[Lillith Hapmouche]

It would probably be wise to stock up on tissues / handkerchiefs to pass around to folks who bought into that system at this point. I can't help feeling extremely sceptical about the offer...

Anyway.

Add the Teleporthub.com website and/or inworld group (10L joining fee, me thinks) to your freebie scouting. There are some pretty nice offers - right now, for example, Altamura offers a full mesh body to male characters. There is also a sign in their store pointing to an offer for a female body, at a place which appears to be some kind of newbie welcome center.

[LittleMe Jewell]

3 minutes ago, Lillith Hapmouche said:

It would probably be wise to stock up on tissues / handkerchiefs to pass around to folks who bought into that system at this point. I can't help feeling extremely sceptical about the offer...

 

I went to a Facebook page that discussed the current offer.  Many of the those that paid full price are pissed as hell right now.

[ChinRey]

6 hours ago, Karina Leborski said:

Just a random discussion. If you had a very limited budget and wanted to go all mesh and look really nice, what are the minimal things you were willing to spend Lindens for?

Mesh hands are essential - Slink or Maitreya. Mesh feet are essential too unless you're planning to always wear sneakers or boots.I would probably want a Maitreya or Slink mesh body and that's it. I wouldn't want to use any of the current mesh heads even if I got one for free and clothes and skins and such are easy enough to find as freebies.

[Bebe Bunny]

35 minutes ago, LittleMe Jewell said:

I went to a Facebook page that discussed the current offer.  Many of the those that paid full price are pissed as hell right now.

I've bought the standard female body when they were still new and I agree that the honorable exit would be just closing down, but I also see it as a chance for those who can't afford a 1k+ body to get started on the mesh life and leave the classic avatar behind.

[Pixie Kobichenko]

9 hours ago, Karina Leborski said:

Just a random discussion. If you had a very limited budget and wanted to go all mesh and look really nice, what are the minimal things you were willing to spend Lindens for?

Not being a pill, but "limited budget" is subjective to each person I think.  For me tho, I bought mesh clothes first of course, then hair (I get eye twitchy over flexi hair clipping into bodies), then slink feet for the shoes, slink hands (just discovered I've had a bento update waiting on me a long time there) and a loud mouth set of lips.  I was gifted my catya bento head- I doubt I'd have ever bought it for myself due to price- but I love it.  This has been a slow process over probably five years to go completely mesh- even down to my eyeballs and ears.  

With so many decent freebies available, and blogged about- if you can take the time to look for them, you could possibly put together a very nice avi including an AO for about 1KL if you caught sales & gifts...    But for me, I think the most important part of my avi for me is my head.  Even tho I said I'd not have spent the money to get it, it is my fave part  I just don't foresee a situation where someone would buy a bento head and then go about getting freebies to put the rest of the avi together- unless its for an alt- which I have made alts but never feel like "me" and abandon within days.... 

[MegaRose]

I've only ever put $5 USD into SL, and I have an obnoxiously huge inventory of free stuff, much of which is actually pretty nice.  The only big important expensive mesh items I own were gifts.  If you're willing to forego Omega compatibility you can do the free TMP or eBody meshes and pick up tons of free mesh clothes almost anywhere.  I've also been fortunate enough to slip into some really good shop groups during free membership periods.  So factoring out gifts and factoring in group fees, you can do a lot with like...$500L.  Like, I own multiple mesh heads that were Akeruka or Altamura group gifts.  Being cheap pays off!

[LexxiXhan]

38 minutes ago, MegaRose said:

I've only ever put $5 USD into SL, and I have an obnoxiously huge inventory of free stuff, much of which is actually pretty nice.

Very similar here, although I invested slightly more ($15 that I found in one of my freelance site accounts that I got for some proofreading/ editing work I'd forgotten I'd done ).

Having found so many good free items out there, I figured the main purchases to use L$ for were a mesh body and head (I now have several - thank you Altamura!), somewhere to live (optional, but I'm giving it a go), and maybe launching an SL business.