Skell Dagger

No they won't be outdated; you'll still be able to use them if you want to. There are people even now who haven't updated from the very earliest versions of Catya, for example. In fact, you can use BoM right now with Catwa heads and any other Omega-supported mesh head or body, even if it's not been updated for BoM (although you'll look rather odd to most of the grid, until the majority of them are all using BoM viewers). I've spent much of today putting together a tutorial for BoM (as best I can anyway; I'm still learning it myself). Have a read of this and hopefully it might answer a few questions for you.

I think they've done it this way for now because this is a 'test version' of the body. They've put it out as quickly as they can, and right now there's still so much content on the market that makes use of alpha cuts that they were probably hedging their bets. The menswear market is lousy enough right now, so I'm glad that they've offered this as an option, at least initially. The CI of the body has still reduced drastically, even with the alpha cuts still in place, but I doubt that we'll see a sub-100 complexity Signature body any time soon.

Finally had the chance to sit down for a few hours with the Linden Bakes on Mesh viewer (dear god, was I ever reminded why I dislike that viewer..) and promptly added eight layers of makeup. Oh, and wrote up a beginners' guide to using BoM, so if you need a bit of guidance this post might be useful.

If you have a lot of texture-heavy HUDs on, remove any that you don't need on all the time. Your Kathy head has animations installed into it, so if you're running those you don't need the animation HUD on all the time. Likewise any makeup storage HUDs, or the Catwa Master HUD.

Yes, it is. The HUD has been reduced in size, but the auto-hide still works and all the alpha cuts are still present, as before.

Absolutely sure. The images were uploaded to Flickr on 10th July 2011 and my partner and I had visited the place the night before. If I upload images of places to Flickr I always note down the name of the region or location as it appears in the viewer's address bar, so that's what I would have done then.

Catwa doesn't make skins for mesh bodies. The only male skins at her store are the ones in that Male Body section, and the demos in the side wing outside her store on the opposite region. They are all by other creators. (The female body skin appliers are similarly located, and also all by other creators.)

Reminds me a bit of Dreamer's Paradise. I have some old screenshots of it on Flickr:

Signature has just sent out an auto-update for Gianni that contains a v4.8 'Bakes on Mesh test version'. (Most likely Geralt has also been updated, but since I was wearing Gianni when I logged in that's what I received the auto-update for.) The included notecard gives details of what currently works and what doesn't: I won't have time to test it more thoroughly until the weekend, but I did quickly wear it to compare the CI against the current v4.7 non-BoM version. From the mention of specular maps still working in this they have probably reduced the layers to two: one base layer for BoM and one additional for specular/materials etc. This is a quick Excel comparison of CI (as reported in the Appearance > Wearables window on Firestorm) between the two versions. It's a huge reduction:

Stray Dog creates skins for Catwa and Lelutka. Make sure that you're using the Catwa demos, and not the Lelutka ones. Catwa skin HUDs will have a white 'cat head' logo on them, whereas Lelutka skin HUDs will have a white circle containing a female face on them.

If he wants to upgrade then he's going to have to put in the legwork to do so. It's his head and body, and he's got to live in it. The decisions of how he looks should be his. Alyona's suggestions are all sound ones. Signature Gianni is the most created-for body out there, but it will take some work to reduce the upper arms. He's going to have to get cosy with a pose stand and spend some time on his shape. To tone down those upper arms from 'prizefighter' to 'man in the street' this is what I had to do: zero the sliders for pectorals and shoulders (yes, it looks bad to start with) nudge each of those sliders up in small increments, one after the other and comparing them, until the shape is less bulky Signature also has a fantastic HUD with a lot of great alpha cuts, and most clothing rigged for it fits it very well. Be aware that some clothing has those bulky upper arms built into the mesh (so even if he's reduced those upper arms, the sleeves of some clothing will still look huge) but those items are few and far between. If he can't be arsed to put in that slider work on the shape, the next most created-for body is Belleza Jake. If he's not a fan of bubble-butts then he'll still need to pull the butt size slider in a bit, though He's also going to want a Bento AO if he opts for Jake, otherwise he might end up with his fingers splayed out all the time (no idea why that's a thing that happens with that body, but it does). I use Vista's 'Gerard' AO, which is a calm Bento AO without too much pacing around. For heads, seconding Catwa. (Disclosure: I'm a CSR for Catwa. I'm also the guy behind the Virtual Bloke blog that Marianne linked to.) Catwa simply has the most appliers created for it, and he'll get great results matching it to either Gianni or Jake. If he opts for Jake as his body, it comes with a matching Catwa head applier, so he could be all set up with just two purchases. Second head option for availability of appliers would be Lelutka, but be aware that both of Lelutka's male bento heads are created to fit perfectly only with Belleza Jake (although they will fit with most other male bodies; demoing is always important, but it's crucial if opting for Lelutka). Clothing is a different matter altogether. There are six monthly menswear events on the grid at the moment, but they tend to be hit and miss with regard to what's on offer. If he loves sweatpants, sweatshirts, sweatshorts (sensing a trend here?), hoodies, baseball caps, tank tops, thick tattoos, sneakers, and sportswear then he's all set. If not, then he'll need to look around for something else. If you give us an idea of his style (e.g. casual, or biker, etc) we can recommend some stores. Suggestions for various body-related appliers: Skins (assuming he doesn't opt for Belleza Jake with its included Catwa head applier) - Stray Dog, Birth, Vendetta, Aeros (pricey body appliers, but they match the Aeros genitalia, if he's going to buy that), Amias, Avenge, Clef de Peau, L'Etre, 7 Deadly Skins. Hair - Stealthic, Bad Hair Day, No Match, Doux, Dura, Exile, Modulus, Vango, VoltHair, Tram. Facial hair (if required) - Mister Razzor, Volkstone, CDC Creations, Beusame.

The inworld store would be the most likely spot to search. https://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Clef de Peau/144/142/22 SEARCH IS YOUR FRIEND. Just an additional note to this: the skins in Catwa's male Bento heads will only match to Gen1 body appliers by Clef de Peau, so in this instance (and for once!) Search is not your friend, because those Gen1 skins are now only available at the Catwa store. Clef is currently on Gen3 of his skins at his own mainstore, and those will not match at all. The OP has found the skins at Catwa but to anyone else: take the 'Mesh Body' location on the teleport board, turn around until you see the 'Male Body' sign to the left of the arch, then walk in that direction. The Catwa-compatible Clef de Peau male body skins will be through that arch, on the right.

Ditto. I've been wearing female hair for years in SL. Sure, it sometimes digs in between the shoulder blades, but it's worth it. Likewise shoes; there are now socks (made by Riot) that allow male-bodied avatars to wear heels that are rigged for female bodies, and before those came about (back in the days of shoes with added feet, and any kind of boots at all) I would still wear female footwear.

Two more from last night's shoot:

If you're using Singularity viewer, read the thread below:

7 Deadly Skins appliers tend to be Omega ones. You need to be wearing the Omega relay for Maitreya that Matty has linked to.

More to follow from this one later today.

Freakin' EPIC. This is trance... metal

I'm so glad that Syd is happy to wear colour; makes a change from Skell's usual black-all-the-time

Bye-bye, valued member of the Second Life community! I'd ask if I could have your stuff (something of a tradition when someone flounces) but you and I evidently have very different tastes. Have a good one, bud! You'll be missed around here...

I haven't used my (male) Lelutka head for some time now, but my suggestion would be to clear the 'tattoo' and 'face' areas of the head. That looks like a demo overlay that's been added to that area instead of being baked onto the skin.

Did you try sizing the head up in the slider options? I find quite often that - for some strange reason - some shape-makers like to give us small heads, so I usually end up having to make the head bigger to fit the overall size of my shape.

Couldn't resist these sunglasses.

Disclaimer: I'm a CSR for Catwa (also a regular on this forum in every respect, so I'm not one of those store representatives who only posts to shill on behalf of the brand I work for. I try to help out whenever there is a Catwa question here, but - as my post count will attest! - I post a lot in general, too) but I'm not here to "sell you" on that brand. I'll just give you the basic facts. This assumes - since you were considering the cost - that you're looking for a female Bento head. Catwa also has non-Bento heads, which start at L$900, but the full Bento heads cost L$5,000. Catwa currently has 27 female Bento mesh heads to choose from, everything from little pixie faces to wide-eyed Jessica Rabbit to angular Angelina Jolie styles. All Catwa Bento heads have two layers (upper and lower) which allows for a lot of customisation and layering of appliers, and each layer has 8 areas: hair, mouth (for teeth and tongue appliers), lashes, brows, eye makeup, neck tattoo, blush, and lipstick). Each head comes with 24 full face expressions and 16 full-face motion capture AOs (the latter are currently being updated from 30 seconds in length to 60 seconds, as all of the heads are moving from v3.2 to v4.0, at a rate of roughly two per day, in release order). You can choose to hide or show the following: top left side of head, top right side of head, brain, upper teeth, lower teeth, left ear, right ear, caruncle (the pink inner corner of the eye), upper lashes, lower lashes, uvula (the dangly bit at the back of the mouth), and tongue. You can tint the following (some on both layers, and some are a single tint) - skin, teeth, uvula, brows, neck tattoo, caruncle, lashes, tongue, lips, blush, ears, hairbase. The Master HUD has 10 save slots for different tints. You can adjust the gloss levels in the skin, and on the upper and lower layers of the lips. The new 4.0 updates also have materials support for things like smooth skin, pores, wrinkles, etc. Lashes can be applied separately (upper and lower) so you can mix and match. The new gift HD lips will be included free with all the 4.0 updated heads. The 4.0 head updates also include a new eye applier, which doesn't only apply the Catwa default eye texture options, but also allows you to resize and move any appliers on your Catwa eyes, as well as clear specular and materials shine that may cause issues in certain lighting. Demos are - of course - free (they each feature a small strip of 'missing pixels' to discourage copybotting) and I strongly suggest that you try them before making any decision. Default skins in the female HUD are by The Skinnery, and (new to the 4.0 releases) by DeeTaleZ. Inworld purchases give you 5% store credit (note that Marketplace purchases do not). Any purchases made both inworld and on Marketplace can be redelivered in the store if necessary. (When a Catwa head is updated we ask that you go to the store to redeliver (there are a lot of scammers around, giving out "Bento head updates" so - for your security - Catwa doesn't send automatic updates. All updates are free and it's easy to move your entire look from an old Catwa head to an updated or new one using the gift Bento presets HUD.) 24/7 support in the Catwa Head Friends group, and there is also a Discord server being set up. We have 5 CSRs (myself included) and we cover almost all timezones. If no CSR is present then the group is incredibly helpful and will often know the fix for many issues, having seen us guide people step-by-step many times. There are numerous free gifts in the store, including (but not limited to) - additional save slots HUDs with multiple pages of saves for all layers - including special ones for eyeshadow and blush so that eye makeup covering both those areas can be saved in a single HUD (also includes a lot of free makeup) Bento presets save HUD, which will save the appliers, tints, and specific layers on your head (I use mine for saved outfits; save the entire facial look for one outfit on its own HUD in the outfit folder) HD lip add-on (just released) unrigged Omega mesh eyes additional lashes HUD numerous Bento animations, including five sets of 12 (60 total) animated lip 'moods' (Please note: you will only be able to get the free gifts if you are wearing a Catwa Bento head when you click the gift bag in the store.) Those are the facts, off the top of my head. That said, your purchase should ultimately be your choice. If you decide that you prefer Genus, or Lelutka, Akeruka, or LAQ etc over Catwa then I'm certainly not going to try and change your mind. I hope you find a head that you're happy with. If/when you do, please share some pics in the How Does Your Avatar Look Today thread. We'd love to see you in there

It may not be quite as mussed as your examples, Resi, but I'd suggest Tram as a starting point. Some of their hair is a little more on the cutesy side, but they have some lovely wispy, messy styles like the ones below: