Anybody still use Catwa heads?

[Stephanie Misfit]

22 minutes ago, Janet Voxel said:

The morph head is actually pretty good. I could see myself playing around with it in the near future.

I have it and really like how it looks, but all those attachment points it uses sucks.

[Maitimo]

On 4/14/2024 at 4:15 AM, Bdobson said:

My first Mesh Avy I had a catwa Justin head and an Adam body. Now I use a Lelutka head and Signature Gianni Body. Lelutka.Head.Guy 3.4. yeah I know, OLD but I like it so why change?

 

Catwa Justin was my first (and favourite) head with my original male avatar. I'm 99.999% certain it's directly based on Ian Somerhalder's face.

 

[InnerCity Elf]

On 4/8/2024 at 7:03 PM, Ayashe Ninetails said:

I also think Catwa ages up a lot nicer. 30s-40s is so easy to pull off with them for me. Funny enough, the male Lel heads age just fine, too. It's only the female Lel line I can't get into my preferred range.

May I ask how you do the aging up of the Catwa head? I've tried several wrinkle/dark under-eye circles/aging add-ons that I found on marketplace, but even with high transparency, didn't really work. I'm wondering if it's maybe a "skin incompatibility" and I'd need to find a good skin/aging add-on combo (don't want a new skin but might for a really nice aged result).

 

Yes, still Catwa, using two accounts, and my main still has the first and only Catwa head that I bought her, and no other heads. I take ages to decide on head, body, skin, and then cling to them for ages. I switch hairstyle and clothes sometimes for a change, and I have a lot of AOs and single animations.

The other account, I don't actually know which brand head, I'd need to log in and check, but think it's evoX. I like the other account's head/skin/shape-fiddling combo better, actually, and was thinking about getting the same for the main account 😅 Come to think of it, my main account still has separate Slink hands and feet 🫣. It's not the money, I happily pay for other things, or tip, maybe I identify too much with my avis' general look to want to change major things.

Edited April 20 by InnerCity Elf

[Ayashe Ninetails]

25 minutes ago, InnerCity Elf said:

May I ask how you do the aging up of the Catwa head? I've tried several wrinkle/dark under-eye circles/aging add-ons that I found on marketplace, but even with high transparency, didn't really work. I'm wondering if it's maybe a "skin incompatibility" and I'd need to find a good skin/aging add-on combo (don't want a new skin but might for a really nice aged result).

For human avatars in the 30s-40s range, I don't use wrinkles. I don't have wrinkles in RL, so they will absolutely not, either! 😂 I don't use any aging layers, either, other than age spots in place of freckles because I love how cute they look on my skin.

For me, it's all about head choice, shaping, skin choice, and makeup. The absolute foundation is the head itself. If it starts off looking very young or too round-ish (like Lelutka Prim or Catwa Yuna), I don't even bother. I look for heads that start off with a defined, mature base (Catwa Jade, Catwa Freya, and Catwa Queen are what I've used) and shape very easily on the sliders. From there, I focus primarily on the cheekbones, as those tend to be a bit more prominent in older black women. Once I get a good base to work with, I'll go skin shopping and strongly, strongly prefer skins that provide enough highlight and shading around the cheek area and some flattering shading overall. Many skins come off just too.. flat with too much light, if that makes sense. I like skins that really settle into the face and emphasize certain regions, like the nose, cheeks, eyelids, etc. 

Once I've got all that set, I play with eyebrows and makeup. I generally go a bit bonkers on the makeup side as I really love dramatic theater/stage makeup at times, and I'm not exactly a standard-looking avatar, so I don't worry too much about keeping things realistic. Hair is the final touch - since I'm generally heavily pierced and tattooed, I favor hairstyles that compliment that (and show off the head tats), and that can throw a few years on if done well.

It also probably helps that I take a LOT of style and fashion inspiration from Grace Jones, so I'm always approaching things from that angle.

[InnerCity Elf]

40 minutes ago, Ayashe Ninetails said:

For human avatars in the 30s-40s range, I don't use wrinkles. I don't have wrinkles in RL, so they will absolutely not, either! 😂 I don't use any aging layers, either, other than age spots in place of freckles because I love how cute they look on my skin.

For me, it's all about head choice, shaping, skin choice, and makeup. The absolute foundation is the head itself. If it starts off looking very young or too round-ish (like Lelutka Prim or Catwa Yuna), I don't even bother. I look for heads that start off with a defined, mature base (Catwa Jade, Catwa Freya, and Catwa Queen are what I've used) and shape very easily on the sliders. From there, I focus primarily on the cheekbones, as those tend to be a bit more prominent in older black women. Once I get a good base to work with, I'll go skin shopping and strongly, strongly prefer skins that provide enough highlight and shading around the cheek area and some flattering shading overall. Many skins come off just too.. flat with too much light, if that makes sense. I like skins that really settle into the face and emphasize certain regions, like the nose, cheeks, eyelids, etc. 

Once I've got all that set, I play with eyebrows and makeup. I generally go a bit bonkers on the makeup side as I really love dramatic theater/stage makeup at times, and I'm not exactly a standard-looking avatar, so I don't worry too much about keeping things realistic. Hair is the final touch - since I'm generally heavily pierced and tattooed, I favor hairstyles that compliment that (and show off the head tats), and that can throw a few years on if done well.

It also probably helps that I take a LOT of style and fashion inspiration from Grace Jones, so I'm always approaching things from that angle.

Thanks! Yes, I don't have actual wrinkles in RL either, even though over the 30-40s range, but that's what the "aging options" 😂 I found, so I tried those. I've had decent success with "older" skin before mesh heads, but not since. As for hair, I do get more greys now RL, but in SL, I always see dark roots, light rest, and even in "blacks/whites/greys" packs, makes sense for the "dyed my hair!" look, but not for mimicing, e.g., greying brown hair... Well, I'll try my "luck" 😄 with age spots, thanks for the idea, and some more head/skin trial and error.

[Ayashe Ninetails]

15 minutes ago, InnerCity Elf said:

Thanks! Yes, I don't have actual wrinkles in RL either, even though over the 30-40s range, but that's what the "aging options" 😂 I found, so I tried those. I've had decent success with "older" skin before mesh heads, but not since. As for hair, I do get more greys now RL, but in SL, I always see dark roots, light rest, and even in "blacks/whites/greys" packs, makes sense for the "dyed my hair!" look, but not for mimicing, e.g., greying brown hair... Well, I'll try my "luck" 😄 with age spots, thanks for the idea, and some more head/skin trial and error.

You're welcome! For age spots, I use these from Izzie's - https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/Izzies-Age-Spots-BOM-Omega/21685079

I don't use greying hair much myself. I will use straight up grey or white accents for funsies, though. If not that, then I'm usually wearing some kind of dark reds or ombres or some wild color like yellow or something. My RL hair is black (now featuring grey), which is impossible to dye any other color but black, so I tend to play around with hair color a lot in SL!

I also highly recommend finding a good RL model to work from. You can jump into Google Images and search around for a model or work from a celebrity or someone in your preferred age range. From there, try finding a head that can get into her range without too much fiddling and mimics some of her facial features and bone structure. You don't need to make yourself look exactly like her. You just want to target the overall look and styling.

A lot of the women I use for my style inspiration are 50+ years old, which doesn't really matter TOO much since heads in SL do skew a bit younger, so getting into the 30s and 40s isn't overly difficult starting from that base. 

 

Random examples of looks I've worn using some of my own style icons as inspiration (Missy Elliott, Grace Jones, Björk) -

Catwa Queen:

 

 

 

Catwa Freya:

 

Catwa Jade:

[Love Zhaoying]

5 minutes ago, Ayashe Ninetails said:

You're welcome! For age spots, I use these from Izzie's - https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/Izzies-Age-Spots-BOM-Omega/21685079

I don't use greying hair much myself. I will use straight up grey or white accents for funsies, though. If not that, then I'm usually wearing some kind of dark reds or ombres or some wild color like yellow or something. My RL hair is black (now featuring grey), which is impossible to dye any other color but black, so I tend to play around with hair color a lot in SL!

I also highly recommend finding a good RL model to work from. You can jump into Google Images and search around for a model or work from a celebrity or someone in your preferred age range. From there, try finding a head that can get into her range without too much fiddling and mimics some of her facial features and bone structure. You don't need to make yourself look exactly like her. You just want to target the overall look and styling.

A lot of the women I use for my style inspiration are 50+ years old, which doesn't really matter TOO much since heads in SL do skew a bit younger, so getting into the 30s and 40s isn't overly difficult starting from that base. 

 

Random examples of looks I've worn using some of my own style icons as inspiration (Missy Elliott, Grace Jones, Björk) -

Catwa Queen:

 

 

 

Catwa Freya:

 

Catwa Jade:

I'm glad you don't post pictures more often, my poor heart!

[Ayashe Ninetails]

3 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

I'm glad you don't post pictures more often, my poor heart!

Am I scaring you? lol

I used to post more in the avatar photo thread, actually, when I took more photos. I'm lazy these days.