How does your Senra look?

[Vanity Fair]

Okay, I have been spending the evening trying out old SLUV skins on Senra Blake, and one thing I can tell you is that the old Belleza male skins are the BOMB! There are only two problems: one, the fingertips will be a different colour (see image one), so you will need to use something like Sweet's free tintable Quick Nail Cover Fix on the SL Marketplace (see image two).

The final three images are the final look for my avatar. *chef's kiss*

Oh, and the second problem? When he blinks, the eyebrows get deeper LOL! Something you can't tell from a still photo...

[TadNoodle2]

Sorry, I'm kinda stupid but what is the difference between an SLUV and Senra? And what would I look for if I were looking for skins that would work for Senra? I have a Maitreya body and Genus head (that I don't understand how to use lol) but I wanted to try and play with the starter avatars

[Belephannt]

...

Edited August 6, 2023 by Belephannt

[BobbieEarhart]

Izzie's inworld store has boxes of old skins and makeups, 10L each, on the second floor.

[Persephone Emerald]

1 hour ago, TadNoodle2 said:

Sorry, I'm kinda stupid but what is the difference between an SLUV and Senra? And what would I look for if I were looking for skins that would work for Senra? I have a Maitreya body and Genus head (that I don't understand how to use lol) but I wanted to try and play with the starter avatars

Wear the Senra avatar the way it's explained in Boston Blaisdale's video about them. Then just try on other skins that are not EvoX and see how they look.

Most skins in SL that are not EvoX skins are basically SLUV skins. There are small difference between skins for different bodies - mostly at the fingers, toes, nipples, butt, crotch and knees. There are small difference between skins for different heads - mostly at the lips & eyes. Genus mesh heads seem to be pretty close to the original standard heads, and look ok on Lelutka heads too, imo.

Because the Senra heads are new, there's no strong concensus yet as to which skins work best with them, but the skins that come with them are too flat and unnatural-looking, imo.

[Istelathis]

1 hour ago, BobbieEarhart said:

Izzie's inworld store has boxes of old skins and makeups, 10L each, on the second floor.

Thank you!

I'm already experimenting around, there is so much stuff that there is no way I will be able to get through it for quite a while. This is the first skin I have tried so far, along with some makeup and freckles tattoos.  

 

I'm enjoying my jacket which was in one of the boxes, also the fingernail fix on her store is free so it worked wonderfully.  I know Senra is not really popular with many people, but I have been having a great time these past couple of days just playing around with it.  

[Dagger Faulkwing]

Personally speaking, I find the Jaime head impossible to use. So I've dug out my Lelutka Kaya head which fits perfectly on the Jaime body and created 2 versions of Kaya. One is set to Evolution and the other set to Evolution-X. This gives me the best of both worlds and pleases my cheapskate soul as I got the Kaya head for free. On the other hand, I find the Blake head much much easier to use and it looks good straight out of the folder with Blake Shape 1.

[Raindrop Drinkwater]

6 hours ago, Istelathis said:

I'm enjoying my jacket which was in one of the boxes, also the fingernail fix on her store is free so it worked wonderfully.  I know Senra is not really popular with many people, but I have been having a great time these past couple of days just playing around with it.  

Which size do you use?

[AnaDuarte Xue]

Was just trying Senra to see how it was, first, they should put a warning on the website to turn on Hardware Acceleration, if this option is off in the web browser the creator is almost unusable.
Second, right now in the viewer when we go to Choose Avatar we get the previous old avatars selection, it would be nice to open in the viewer the same window we have on the web browser.

With that out of the way, I was trying to shape the head and unfortunately is doesn't seem like there's a lot of margin to it, you really get the Altamura feeling from it, i.e. doesn't manner how much you move sliders around you can't get away from that look, I tried all starter shapes that basically had the same face, then I tried shapes made for other heads, which predictably had to be fixed and once that was done, there it was again, Senra Jaimie looking at me.

Here pictured I used a 2020 skin, I did try a 2014 skin, and it did work, but it was just too... 2014 so it didn't make it into the photo. Also pictured is a 2014 hair. My idea here was to show how content creators could bring back their old assets and offer them at a very reduced, or even free price to make new comers to SL have more options and an easier way to get started, all these mid 2010s products could really get a second life.
I also tried some old Standard Size clothes and they really didn't work that well unfortunately, I'd think that would be one thing LL might target with these, since back in the day plenty of people made Standard Size content and some of it can still be found today, for free even, going  into a totally different direction with Senra just doesn't feel like the powerplay move to me.

I did like the fact the head and body are separate, so people can potentially upgrade their avatar piece by piece over time, instead of having to spend too much money all at once, but the neck joint doesn't really fit any of the modern heads that well, so...
I also didn't like the fact the body does not include an alpha HUD, yes it is made for BOM alphas, but lets remember for many many years those weren't a thing, we had them in early days of mesh then a big gap, now they are slowly making a return, anyone finding free gifts that weren't delivered with alpha layers might not be able to use them when they otherwise could.

I think more than anything in will fall on LL to keep making clothes for Senra and adding them to the system, it should be an easy job now and over time they could build a sizable wardrobe. Beyond clothes they could add accessories such as glasses, bracelets and even freckles and other skin blemishes.
When I first saw the number of shapes I thought they'd have to add more soon, but after trying it out the head doesn't lend itself to much creativity, so maybe in the future we might see other starter heads from LL.

For current users that are still on old starter avatars, as I've mention, they could really make use of a creator window inside the viewer itself, having to hunt down assets on the library is just too much for most people and I am speaking here from a place of hundreds of hours of helping people sorting themselves out in SL.

 

[Dagger Faulkwing]

59 minutes ago, AnaDuarte Xue said:

I did like the fact the head and body are separate, so people can potentially upgrade their avatar piece by piece over time, instead of having to spend too much money all at once, but the neck joint doesn't really fit any of the modern heads that well, so...

I have the Lelutka Kaya head that was given away free a couple of years ago at Christmas and, as the pic below shows, it fits perfectly with the Jaime body. The head in the pic is set to the old Evolution UV but it also fits as well set to Evo-X.

[auntiemisha]

On 8/2/2023 at 9:45 AM, rasterscan said:

Ok. Head and mouth is hard work. Bit o' stubble (DS tattoo layer) helped. The 'Hair' folder for blake shud be called hair bases. Using hair from no.match. All clothes are senra

Where are the cute dogs from?

[Istelathis]

2 hours ago, Raindrop Drinkwater said:

Which size do you use?

The upper portion is BOM, the sleeves, collar, and bottom section are separate and can be resized, so it is one size fits all.  One thing I have noticed is that my head will clip through the collar if I turn my head.  Being a MMO player, it doesn't really bother me since I am used to having swords, staves, and just about everything clip through my body 🤣  

[rasterscan]

1 hour ago, auntiemisha said:

Where are the cute dogs from?

Jian dogs on MP. Tried Sweets dollarbie skins for BOM on my senra today. Awesomes. Heaps better than delivered skins and a simple double click apply. Layer clothes, no match hair, coupla tatts.

[rasterscan]

oh and we made our own nails today lol came out quite good given this was the test crop ....

awesome on the toes not so brill on the fingers. Toes are Aux2 and fingers aux3 in edit mode of nails

Edited August 5, 2023 by rasterscan

[MissSweetViolet]

Tried out Blake today on my male alt, the body does seem a bit easier to shape then Jamie, the head though, couldn't seem to get a look I liked; First just the stuff from the Blake folder; 

Then I replaced the head with Lel Logan, head skin from Clef De Peau, custom shape, body skin from Velour [Eros Lite], Eyes are still Blake (they actually did some pretty nice eyes with both avatars), hair is Raven Bell Ren, and Clothing in the bottom two pics from the outlet at Gabriel (with a frick ton of alpha'ing from LBD and Blimey, it took forever to finely to get rid of the rear!)

I noticed one odd thing while doing this, and don't know if it's the skin or the body, or a combo of the two, but there are these odd lines with the Eros skin; 

I also saw that while a Lel head fit nicely on Jamie, it does not on Blake, these are with the Moth and Moon body plus head skin same tone [cause their the only matching body/head skin I had, my male doesn't have a ton of skins yet, lol]; 

Edited August 5, 2023 by MissSweetViolet

[rasterscan]

3 minutes ago, MissSweetViolet said:

Tried out Blake today on my male alt, the body does seem a bit easier to shape then Jamie, the head though, couldn't seem to get a look I liked; First just the stuff from the Blake folder; 

 

Then I replaced the head with Lel Logan, head skin from Clef De Peau, custom shape, body skin from Velour [Eros Lite], Eyes are still Blake (they actually did some pretty nice eyes with both avatars), hair is Raven Bell Ren, and Clothing in the bottom two pics from the outlet at Gabriel (with a frick ton of alpha'ing from LBD and Blimey, it took forever to finely to get rid of the rear!)

I noticed one odd thing while doing this, and don't know if it's the skin or the body, or a combo of the two, but there are these odd lines with the Eros skin; 

I also saw that while a Lel head fit nicely on Jamie, it does not on Blake, these are with the Moth and Moon body plus head skin same tone [cause their the only matching body/head skin I had, my male doesn't have a ton of skins yet, lol]

Like that look right there

[MissSweetViolet]

5 minutes ago, rasterscan said:

Like that look right there

Thank you very much!

[rasterscan]

3 minutes ago, MissSweetViolet said:

Thank you very much!

re skins - dunno but trying skins lying around in inv some seem great but lil imperfections here and there. Ive not studied close this sweets dollarbie bom skin but at a glance its the best i tried yet

[BJoyful]

1 hour ago, rasterscan said:

oh and we made our own nails today lol came out quite good given this was the test crop ....

awesome on the toes not so brill on the fingers. Toes are Aux2 and fingers aux3 in edit mode of nails

This one turned out so well I'd better get some more nail polish and a tiny camera tripod for some nail modelling!

[Sparkle Bunny]

1 hour ago, rasterscan said:

Toes are Aux2 and fingers aux3 in edit mode of nails

I have no idea why they did it this way round. EvoX ears use Aux1, so I assumed we were working our way down the body, and most people keep their fingers above their toes. I also have no idea why the Senra nails use 1024 textures for such a tiny area.

(I have given up on the Jamie head; whatever I do, she has ducklips.)

[rasterscan]

Just now, BJoyful said:

This one turned out so well I'd better get some more nail polish and a tiny camera tripod for some nail modelling!

On a more serious note, why didn't the unneeded edge bits show on the actual fingers or toes ? It was a 'bonus' I did not expect

[Istelathis]

I was having fun earlier, trying out different outfits and wanted to see how well everything looked in speedlight.  Not too bad, while we are at it I thought it would be pretty cool to have a side by side of the older avatars near the newer.  I really wanted to change avatars on my alt, but I can't find the library in my inventory on speedlight.

First is from speedlight, the creator has done quite a lot to improve the viewer, it renders a lot better than it used to.  The shape doesn't really come through though.  Still, considering just a few months ago we only had stick figures this is really nice.

 

A little blurry but considering it is through the web, I'm impressed.

From Firestorm, same hair, different avatars 😜 My Senra mesh avatar is on the left, using both Senra head and body.

And for my swimwear, and duck pool

Edited August 5, 2023 by Istelathis

[rasterscan]

7 minutes ago, Sparkle Bunny said:

I have no idea why they did it this way round. EvoX ears use Aux1, so I assumed we were working our way down the body, and most people keep their fingers above their toes. I also have no idea why the Senra nails use 1024 textures for such a tiny area.

(I have given up on the Jamie head; whatever I do, she has ducklips.)

Skins ! Try a dif skin then battle the lips. BOM skins double click and they're on ! I like mine so much now I could kiss meself.

ps great piccys, Istelathis

Edited August 5, 2023 by rasterscan

[Vanity Fair]

14 hours ago, Persephone Emerald said:

Wear the Senra avatar the way it's explained in Boston Blaisdale's video about them. Then just try on other skins that are not EvoX and see how they look.

Most skins in SL that are not EvoX skins are basically SLUV skins. There are small difference between skins for different bodies - mostly at the fingers, toes, nipples, butt, crotch and knees. There are small difference between skins for different heads - mostly at the lips & eyes. Genus mesh heads seem to be pretty close to the original standard heads, and look ok on Lelutka heads too, imo.

Because the Senra heads are new, there's no strong concensus yet as to which skins work best with them, but the skins that come with them are too flat and unnatural-looking, imo.

Yes, that's the word I was looking for, "flat". I don't like the included skins for Blake at all.

I spent the afternoon trying on free/dollarbie skins from Belleza, BROX, and Sweet's on the Senra Blake mesh body, and the biggest problem I have discovered is that the eyebrows move on them when the avatar blinks (I fiddled with the eye and eyebrow sliders, and nothing fixed this). There's something about the way the Senra body is designed that is just different enough from the SLUV to cause a problem.

I wrote up yet another blogpost about my skin testing for Blake this afternoon, including a short video so that you can see the problem with the eyebrows yourself. I'm starting to think that this is a serious emough problem that it might not allow users to use any older skins with Blake.

My blog address is in my signature line.

Edited August 5, 2023 by Vanity Fair

[Istelathis]

1 hour ago, Vanity Fair said:

Yes, that's the word I was looking for, "flat". I don't like the included skins for Blake at all.

I spent the afternoon trying on free/dollarbie skins from Belleza, BROX, and Sweet's on the Senra Blake mesh body, and the biggest problem I have discovered is that the eyebrows move on them when the avatar blinks (I fiddled with the eye and eyebrow sliders, and nothing fixed this). There's something about the way the Senra body is designed that is just different enough from the SLUV to cause a problem.

I wrote up yet another blogpost about my skin testing for Blake this afternoon, including a short video so that you can see the problem with the eyebrows yourself. I'm starting to think that this is a serious emough problem that it might not allow users to use any older skins with Blake.

My blog address is in my signature line.

I'm not sure if this will work for you, but I gave an eyebrow concealer a try on Jaime and here were the results

First I applied the concealer 

Then I put on eyebrow tattoos 

There is still slight distortion, but I only notice it when really up close.  The distortion is not nearly as bad on Jamie, but I do see a little bit of stretching with the skin I am currently using when there is no concealer.

The demo I used was here:

https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/Izzies-DEMO-BOM-Eyebrow-Concealer/20393879

 

Edited August 5, 2023 by Istelathis