Skell Dagger

Inventory diving, I'm afraid. I think that pose was from their Gabriel set. Thanks! Limited edition of 100 about three years ago, and boy did I hammer the TP into the sim to grab a pair

Today's mood? Bookish Credits Ascend and Stray Dog for Man Cave, ::K:: and Kokoia for The Mens Dept, plus a new mainstore release from Exile, which is a female style but fits male heads nicely. Jacket: Kitt Ragu for ::K:: - Levi Hacking Jacket (herringbone tweed - black) Pants: Cold Ash - Dean Chinos (black) Hair: Exile - Autumn Breeze* Gloves: Ascend - Trevor Bento Gloves (Slink & Signature, Jake to follow) Glasses: Cubic Cherry - Jamison Glasses Piercings: Artificial Hallucination - Casual Goth Bento Piercings Skin applier: Stray Dog - Franceso (tone 04) Eye appliers: Avi-Glam - Vivid Eyes (summer) Eyeshadow applier: Clef de Peau - Urban makeup (Omega) Head: Catwa - Daniel (Bento) Pose: Diesel Works *review copy

In my case, I'll mainly be sad if he does switch to female stuff, purely because he was one of the very, very few male stores that actually sold androgynous items. It's difficult enough to find them as it is now (and most of them create for the more bishonen 'boi' avatars, which is not a direction I intend to take Skell in) so losing one of those rare creators to an already-saturated female clothing and accessory market will hit the genderqueer and androgyne community pretty hard.

Clover, I suspect that - given his more recent (if sporadic) output - he'll probably be switching to female fashion, since - apart from the nail appliers (of which he was incredibly generous to his bloggers; my entire nail applier folder is hundreds deep, and about 70% are from him) - he mainly sent out ladieswear. I hope he still offers stuff for us guys with the new brand, but to be honest, I'm not holding my breath

Deadwool is so worth it, even if you're not going full-formal. Actually, what I consider 'formal' is a tuxedo - or at the very least Black Tie - whereas Deadwool's suits are just excellent daily tailoring. Regardless, FashionNatic have some fantastic stuff and at really great prices. I'll tip you and the other guys in this thread off regarding another great store that I recently discovered: ROC. They have male footwear from 99L per pair, and it all looks good quality. LOL! Now you've done it. I'll call you 'Bette' from now on I just logged on to a notice that one of my oldest favourite stores - A:S:S - is closing down. A:S:S was the alternative store for freaky boys back in the day, and Pho Vinternatt was the first creator who sent me things for my (then Flickr-only) fashion pics, along with a bunch of other people whom he considered either friends or those whose work he enjoyed. I've never forgotten that kindness. He's starting a new, smaller brand, called Vinternatt, so I'll be following his work there. Just four of my many old androgynous looks made possible in some way or another by A:S:S - And A:S:S also made what are still my favourite mesh apron-n-strap punk pants in SL -

LOL, no worries. I'm back in black again Credits Giz Seorn for The Mens Dept, plus Stray Dog and VoltHair for Man Cave. Shirt: Giz Seorn - Rick Shirts Pants & Boots: Giz Seorn - Rick Pants with Boots Hair: VoltHair - Felix Hair V2 (black) Skin applier: Stray Dog - Francesco (tone 04 - Catwa) Necklace: RealEvil - Bones Necklace M2 Eye appliers: Avi-Glam - Vivid Eyes (summer) Pose: Momomuller

Brace yourselves... Skell's wearing colour Credits Amias, BlankLine, and Not So Bad for The Mens Dept. Skin & Shape: Amias - Eben (ivory - for Lelutka) Jacket: BlankLine - Rider Jacket (black) Pants: BlankLine - Tight Color Pants (red) Boots: Not So Bad - Andy Desert Boots (black leather) Glasses: Avenge - Retro Skull Sunglasses (black and tortoise) Hair: Moon - Pop Rocks (B&W) Head: Lelutka - Andrea (Bento) Body: Belleza - Jake Pose: KZ Poses

Are you applying the eyebrow to one layer (upper or lower) and then applying the eyeshadow to the other layer? All Catwa Bento heads are 'segmented' into areas and have two layers: upper and lower. What's happening here is that both brows and eyeshadow are applying to the lower layer (it's where they will go by default on the Catwa bento heads), so - since they overlap - the alpha section of the brows (on the brow segment) is removing the upper part of the eyeshadow that also applies to the brow segment. Step-by-step how to fix: Wear the brows and save them to the Catwa Master HUD Clear the brows and wear the eyeshadow. It should default to the lower layer Check the upper layer on the brows section of your Catwa Master HUD and apply the brows from that HUD That should sort it out. If you need a visual guide (which is for adding eyeliner on top of eyeshadow without removing the eyeshadow, but the principle is the same) then click here.

A very interesting (and - in my view - balanced) article. As to the AFK-in-real-life thing, I do that every time I meditate. Sure, my real life body is sitting there in the room, with all of the external sounds and stimuli going on, but my mind goes AFK when it turns inward, and I think that a lot of this identification with the avatar (and, thus, 'sticking with SL') is down to how individual minds work, which is why some people 'get it' and some people don't. Different people 'get it' in different ways, too. Those of us who have stuck it out have all found something here. With particular reference to this part of the article - - I've had many discussions about self-identification with the virtual avatar, and how - for me, at least - it's perfectly possible to lounge in a virtual hammock beside a virtual shoreline with the sound of distant waves and chilled-out music coming through my headphones, and actually feel my tension slip away. I don't need to smell the ozone or the sunscreen, but possibly I have a mind that can more easily associate seeing something happen with experiencing it myself, without needing other sensory stimuli such as the olfactory input of sunscreen and ozone. Is it a kind of virtual empathy? (After all, the author of the article certainly felt embarrassed in real life when her avatar did something daft.) I don't know, but that's where these kinds of discussion turn into things that go on until the wee small hours, accompanied by a few good drinks. I guess you could also correlate it with some people preferring to read books and identifying with the characters as they depict them internally, and others preferring to watch movies and be entertained by someone else's depiction of those characters. (And, yes, some people like both, but how many times have you read a book and loved it, but been disappointed by the movie version?) For me, the crux of SL is summed up in the penultimate paragraph of the article: As I said: lots to discuss, since the whole subject of self-identification with online depictions of oneself is a wide-ranging one. But, as also said, it's best discussed at 2am with a good drink in-hand

With anything like that, yes, you need to alpha out your arm and hand (or remove the hand if you wear Slink or Vista hands). I did that with both arms and hands for this coat:

/me sighs. Some practicalities, viz.- The most popular male mesh bodies, according to build: Adam - slim, soft, 'metrosexual' - clothing and applier (skins, etc) support is not great but is Omega-compatible Slink Physique - Slender (can be bulked considerably using body fat), great shoulders, 'swimmer's torso', requires separate hands and feet - clothing and applier support is excellent, also Omega-compatible Signature Gianni - buff, heavy on the biceps, deltoids, and triceps, 'gym body' - clothing and applier support is excellent, also Omega-compatible Belleza Jake - Between Slink and Signature in build - clothing and applier support is pretty good (it's a much newer body), also Omega-compatible Niramyth Aesthetic - extremely shoulder-heavy and muscular, 'bodybuilder' - clothing support is decent, applier support is almost non-existent, also not Omega-compatible (despite what the Marketplace ads say, there is no Omega relay for Aesthetic) There are other mesh bodies available: NX Nardcotix (low-to-average clothing and applier support, but is Omega-compatible), The Mesh Project (barely supported anymore, proprietary and runs on its own external server system, not recommended), Ex Machina Davide (brand new and proprietary, no external support outside the store that makes it as yet), and others. The main list is of the bodies that are relatively well-supported and popular enough that you'll be able to put together more than a couple of outfits (although Aesthetic is far more limited when it comes to skins and appliers). Mesh heads: I wear both Catwa and Lelutka heads. I own heads by GA.EG, Altamura, Akeruka, Adam, and LOGO, but I always come back to Catwa (which I find is the most responsive to sliders, although the various HUDs take some getting used to) and Lelutka (easier to use, but allows me to indulge my more androgynous side). As to skins: Skins are a personal decision. You'll probably find something to create the avatar look you're after at Stray Dog, but just grab demos from as many skin stores as you can. I can't tell you which is 'the best' skin, because - as I've already mentioned upthread - 'best' is subjective. A composite of some examples from the past three months of my Flickr:

2007: a cruel year to be a noob The first pic was taken immediately after I discovered the camera controls (which was immediately before I went shopping!)

The thing with descriptors such as 'best looking', 'handsome', and 'hot' is that they are entirely subjective. What I find hot will be a complete turn-off for someone else. Likewise, 'rough' and 'muscular' have their own scales of definition, with (for example) the latter going from 'tight and buff' all the way over to 'steroid abuse'. In short: your spec is too broad. We can't even begin to help you with creating your hot male avatar unless we have a bit more to go on. What age range? What ethnicity? What build of body? What kind of face shape and general features? What clothing style? Give us some real life examples of the kind of guy you want your male avatar to look like.

Scruffin' it up a little... Credits Jacket: Native Urban - Howard Shirts (plain version) Glasses: Native Urban - Toolroom Glasses Jeans: Legal Insanity - Dirk Jeans Boots: Hoorenbeek - Biker Boots (black) Rings: Absolut Vendetta - Icarus Bento Rings Earrings: RealEvil - Savage Ear Piercings Hair: Exile - Unravel* Skin applier: Stray Dog - Lewis (tone 04) Facial hair applier: Beusame - Beard V32 Head: Catwa - Daniel (Bento) Poses: KZ Poses *review copy

When you've spent several years inworld on the same avatar, lounged on beaches with chilled-out music playing and waves crashing and felt your real life stress levels decrease, had wide-ranging conversations about every subject under the sun while sitting around a campfire with a bunch of people from all around the world, danced for hours in a club to music that gets you pumped in real life, and many of the thousands of other things you can do in SL... your avatar becomes you. It's an extension of you that reaches into the virtual world. That's not projection of personality or personification; it's other people who have had those same experiences acknowledging the you in your avatar. That's not human-looking art; it's being human in a virtual world.

Another misconception: "Oh, he looks stylish? He's got to be gay." True in some cases but not all. Not by a long stretch. Some of us who blog male fashion are trying our damndest to dispel the very common fallacy that Marianne mentions there, of most men not being interested in (or even capable of) creating good-looking avatars.

Here's the thing: it's perfectly easy (if one takes a little bit of time and effort, and - of course - money) to create a nice-looking male avatar. However, few people will walk up to a nice-looking male avatar and compliment them on... well, how nice-looking they are. What they will compliment you on is - as @JackSinned pointed out in his post - if you've done something different than nice-looking-and-normal; if you've pushed the boat out and don't look like all the other nice-looking male avatars in SL. Even if that pushing-out of the boat is simply accessorising well. Case in point: I rarely go around and walk up to random nice-looking female avatars to tell them how nice they look (quite apart from the fact that I don't want to appear to be coming on to them). The ones that I do take a risk on complimenting are the ones who are different; who have stepped up their fashion game and are rocking the hell out of whatever they're wearing. Whether she's kawaii and dressed from head-to-toe in unicorn stuff with a group tag that states "I fart sparkles" (seriously, how could I not tell her how awesome she was?!) or whether she's classy and elegant like some 40s starlet, coiffed to perfection. To me, Second Life fashion is an art form. It's a form of artistic expression that I enjoy. So I get where the OP is coming from when he regards his avatar as a work of art. It's a unique take on the SL avatar, but - as already stated - most other residents see us as people and not an art form.

Awww, Rhonda. Thanks

And yet one of the things I hear most from women I talk to (or overhear in group chats) in SL is that they wish their own menfolk would bother to get dressed rather than just get dressed. In other words: take the time and a little pride in dressing their avatar, rather than buying one t-shirt and pair of jeans and calling it done. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

Yeah, a lot of the male fashion market is a bit bland and (for want of a better word) 'normal'. Sometimes that's great, but there are only so many hoodies, jeans, and baseball caps that one can own (if that's even your style, and it sure as hell ain't mine). You could try checking out back issues of L'Homme Magazine to see if any designers there catch your eye. The November issue has just come out, so it's worth a look.

Not sure I want to make recommendations for tops @tomfrostt Depends what style of top you want. Most of the main designers now include Jake in their sizing, so check out the four main male events in SL (The Mens Dept, Men Only Monthly, Hipster Mens Event, and Man Cave). Sometimes they're a bit hit-and-miss (the new TMD, for instance, which went live today, is a bit hoodie-central this month, which is... disappointing, if you're not a fan or collector of hoodies). As to me, well if only changing hair colour IRL was as hassle-free as it is in SL:

Couple of other things you can try, if you use the Firestorm viewer: Avatar > Avatar Health > Refresh Attachments Pull the animations out of it and put them into the built-in Firestorm AO (three-part YT tutorial begins here)

Finally completed my collection of Catwa male Bento mesh heads today. Credits Skin applier: Avenge - Alex (peach) Shape: Avenge - Alex for Catwa Stanley (modified) Hair: Stealthic - Like Lust Sweater: FashionNatic - David Sweater Gloves: L'Emporio - Fingerless Gloves (Slink Dynamic Male) Eye appliers: Avi-Glam - Elysian Eyes (fjord) Head: Catwa - Stanley (Bento) Poses: KZ Poses

Fantastic lighting in this shot

Playing around with Weekend Ruiner goodies.