Male Options

[VincentVaincroft]

After searching the marketplace and inworld stores for awhile, I've still been unable to find a look I'm 100% comfortable with. It's no secret that females have at least 10 times the amount of choices that men have when it comes to shopping, but here's what I have found so far...

Head: Probably going to go with one of the Catwa heads, LeLutka head, or the LOGO head. 

Body: Leaning heavily towards SIgnature Gianni or Belleza Jake. 

Skin: Still have no idea yet. I was looking into Tableau Vivant, but I'm not sold yet. I prefer pale or light tones that have a smooth stomach. Most of the skins I come across have muscles or abs that I'm not a huge fan of. Might head over to Stray Dog next. 

Shape: I'm still confused as to what this actually does. When I buy a shape it seems like to does almost nothing to change my overall appearance. It will look really good in the advertisement, but when you actually put it on, it does not look anything like what was advertised. Beyond that, is there anything that you are paying for that you can't do yourself simply by messing with the shape sliders?

Eyes & Hair: Any suggestions would be appreciated. 

Clothes: It's fairly easy to find good mesh clothes, but 99.99% of them seem to be different types of formal wear. Are there any stores that sell goth, punk, alternative clothing for males other than the few things I've seen at Razor, Rebellion, R3volt, FashionNatic, and Lapointe & Bastchild? Formal wear is nice, but if you are looking for good mesh clothes, that seems to be the only option males have. 

I've also spent some time browsing FlickR and different fashion blogs to get an idea for what I should buy. However, I have noticed an odd trend with almost all of them. They usually don't list the head, body, skin, and shape in their credits. The shape I can understand because it's probably custom, but is there a reason the head, body, and skin is not usually credited? I assume it's to prevent people from copying the exact look, but copying the exact look would make it easier to find a base that I can make changes to in order to make me look unique. Even stylecards usually fail to disclose everything, and the end result never looks like the advert. 

 

[TatianaNikolay]

I'd suggest checking out @Skell Dagger 's blog. He's a wealth of information in the men avi department.

[Chic Aeon]

Just a couple of comments as I am not MALE but I do have some male bodies that I blog with

Gianni has lots more clothes than other brands. That doesn't mean it is the best, it just has the market. Lots of pants and suits and some shirts will fit many of the male bodies but certainly not everything so finding a clothes maker you like and seeing what they design for is probably a good plan.

SHAPES.   OK.   I am having a difficult time wrapping my head around SO VERY MANY MALE SHAPES in events. I am currently in an event that has a ton of shapes.   First off most bodies (and heads if that is separate) come with shapes. They are most always MOD. That means you can adjust them as you like. To be fair some heads really need that shape for a starting place. I am not sure WHY but some head makers do some very odd things to their heads and the sliders need to be changed dramatically from anything close to standard for a legacy avatar. Others? They are fine as a starting place with your own shape. Learn to adjust your own shape. Many tens or hundreds of thousands have done this before you. It is NOT hard. 

 

Still the preponderance of male shapes in events is mind-blowing.  My assumptions are: 1. lots of folks want to get the products of others in the events (via group) and so they make shapes and pay the fees in order to grab the booty.  2. the event doesn't have enough people in it to fill the slots and so the owner makes alts and then make shapes (so not difficult to do) to have "products". This seems particularly true when all the vendor photos look similar (like how dumb do they thin we are? - rhetorical). 

 

It is REALLY tough for guys. Not new news. I have two different male bodies (one free,  one blogger and neither in the popular group). Appliers may or may not work, clothes may or may not work. I am so very glad I am not a guy.  YES there needs to be more for guys. If it was in my skill set I would make items for guys just because they are needed, not for monetary gain. But I have been down the rigging and weight painting road too many times and it is PAINFUL for me. So no help here.

 

The advice typically given --- and I think it is very relevant is to DEMO DEMO DEMO Get your body and skin applier (you may need omega relay at the moment even for testing) and shape and clothing all together. WEAR THEM for awhile (yes with the demo things floating overhead and the lines in the skin -- I have done this often on many grids) until you FEEL you have your look together. THEN buy. 

I also have to note that I did a lot of male shopping this month and found that a ton of skin vendor photos looked nothing like they do in "real life" so PLEASE DO DEMO!!!!!!

 

 

[VincentVaincroft]

@TatianaNikolay

Thanks! I will take a look and see if there is any useful information there.

@Chic Aeon

Yeah I walked around a few of these male events, and a lot of the "products" offered are either shapes or accessories like necklaces and such. In my opinion, a shape isn't a product, but that's another topic altogether. I personally don't like the default look of Catwa heads, however the default look of LeLutka's male head is a solid starting point. I almost always use the included shape and make slight adjustments to it. I bought a few shapes in my early days on here, and I always ended up disappointed because they looked nothing like the picture.

Skins are another thing that tend to look much better in the adverts than when you actually put them on. I learned this is mostly due to lighting and environment settings changes though. A little bit of photoshop editing also helps to cover up poor quality skins. Generally my rule of thumb now is that if it doesn't have a demo, I don't buy it. I believe that having a demo of your product available means that the developer is confident enough in their work, and knows that the quality will speak for itself. If they don't have a demo, I always think they are hiding behind something. 

 

[Alwin Alcott]

10 hours ago, VincentVaincroft said:

Shape: I'm still confused as to what this actually does. When I buy a shape it seems like to does almost nothing to change my overall appearance. It will look really good in the advertisement, but when you actually put it on, it does not look anything like what was advertised. Beyond that, is there anything that you are paying for that you can't do yourself simply by messing with the shape sliders?

just a shape will never show you what the advertising pic shows. That is always in combination with a matching skin for that look.

A skin is in general very important for the final result. This is why most shape sellers offer a package, containing also a brow shaper and stylecard.

A shape never comes with the skin as advertised.

Also note... you can perfectly make your own shape, you do not háve to buy one, often a base as mostly sold with the body or head is a real good start and you can adjust it as much you like with the sliders.

1 hour ago, VincentVaincroft said:

Skins are another thing that tend to look much better in the adverts than when you actually put them on. I learned this is mostly due to lighting and environment settings changes though. A little bit of photoshop editing also helps to cover up poor quality skins. Generally my rule of thumb now is that if it doesn't have a demo, I don't buy it.

This is one of the best lessons you learned already  ... demo... demo demo....

 

Be careful when you buy "total" avatar packages including also clothes and bodies.. thats often ripped content or sub standard old obsolete.

[AyelaNewLife]

10 hours ago, VincentVaincroft said:

Shape: I'm still confused as to what this actually does. When I buy a shape it seems like to does almost nothing to change my overall appearance. It will look really good in the advertisement, but when you actually put it on, it does not look anything like what was advertised. Beyond that, is there anything that you are paying for that you can't do yourself simply by messing with the shape sliders?

A shape is indeed nothing more than a set of slider settings. For that reason, a shape will be designed for a specific body; if you're trying to wear a shape that was built using the Signature Gianni body on a system body, it will not look right. Beyond that, maxed settings and the right lighting can make almost anyone look stunning, even if their "normal performance" body isn't quite as impressive.

Time has value. For some people, getting the hang of the sliders and spending the time to create a proportional, attractive shape isn't worth the effort when they can get a potentially superior end result for a dollar or so, if not less. Personally, I used the default body shape that came with my head as a base, and heavily tweaked it to my taste from there; each to their own.

[Maitimo]

Body- if you like a slimmer shape, try the Signature Geralt body as well as Gianni. It is new so there isn"t much clothing made for it yet, but it fits Jake clothes reasonably well.

Shape- the only thing you pay for is someone else's time and patience. Getting a bento face looking right is a pain in the proverbial, and a recipe for frustration. But you CAN do it yourself if you're patient and have a good eye. Or you can just skip the process altogether and do what I did... get a basic non-bento head that can't be modified anyway. The skin is just as, if not  more significant in determining how you look.

Skin- be aware that a large proportion of skin makers do Catwa only, they don't do Omega for other heads.

[Lillith Hapmouche]

Actually, I find the "Catwa only!" thing and the lack of Omega appliers a much bigger pain in the female department, whereas the m-alts do come across a number of Omega appliers.

Already mentioned them in another thread, but the style of Avi-Glam's skins might suit your preference of a smooth body in light tones. Their eyes are also pretty.

Also recently suggested in terms of hair: Lock & Tuft (or Turf?... umm) and Taketomi might be worth a look.

 

[Maitimo]

I looked at Lock & Tuft a couple of days ago and wasn't impressed with the texturing, it all looked very flat. Exile is much better, best men's hair on the grid, IMO.

[Nalates Urriah]

Shape...

Several have described what shape does... sort of. I'll explain it another way.

When you right-click the avatar and select Edit Shape the Appearance Editor opens. You can then customize your 'shape'. You can make your avatar taller or shorter, fatter or skinny, long nose short nose... and more. All of those settings use a numeric value. After you have made the look you want you can save The Shape, which writes all those settings into a file which the system sees as a Shape asset.

So, when you buy a shape, you are buying an asset that is a list of Appearance settings.

As has been pointed out, the skin and shape together form a look. 

The avatar has bones, in 3D modeling the skeleton is known as an armature. The skin is a mesh. I'll over simplify here and say each vertex in the mesh is related to a bone. Each bone is related to an appearance setting. The bone to setting part is built into the viewer and users cannot change it. But, the mesh skins we make relate each vertex to the bone or bones however we want. No one does it the same.

The result is a Slink head shape will not create the same look with a Catwa head. Different designers, different mesh, different bone relationships all mean your nose length setting for Slink will be a different length nose with the Catwa head. Shape and head have to match and while technically shapes are interchangeable with any head they aren't really compatible and won't look as one may expect.

I have a JIRA in to make some shapes issues easier to deal with. See 

 

The images show the incompatibility between the classic and GA.EG heads and two shapes, one for the classic head and the other made for the GA.EG head.

Edited June 5, 2018 by Nalates Urriah
minor