MaximusBond

Skin wise it´s a bit hard to give a certain advice since it´s not really clear what you are looking for or if you intend to keep your system head or not. Especially if you consider not buying a mesh head it limits your options, since a lot of designers stopped including system layers. And since mesh heads are another serious investment you really should demo them first until you find one you´re really comfortable with. In my experience there are not many omega compatible head skins in the male market, so going with everything besides a catwa head will probably limit your options again too (at least I head trouble finding another skin for my head, others may have made different experiences). Skin makers out of the head and in a random order that come to my mind: 7DeadlySkins (may even sell system skins), Birth, ClefdePeau, Sessions, Vendetta, notfound, StrayDog,TableauVivant. And i probably forgot a few. Hair makers: Dura, Steahltic, Modulus, Volthair, Doux, Aggrace, Nomatch, Deadwool (has only one but the slicked back hair is looking rather nice)

The Session skins look nice and fit very well with the Clef de Pleau skintones. But I assume that the Robert skin also doesn´t come with a "no brow option", like the Leon skin (which I own). Which is sort of a bummer. I prefer to have the choice. If you´re searching for a more "aged" look you could give the skins of Concord or Aeros Avatars a chance. I personally don´t like them too much, but your mileage may vary. The later tend to be more fantasy like. But as Skell already mentioned there are ways to apply a more mature look on younger skins through appliers to mesh-heads. For example I got those from Izzies, and they work very well, especially through the blending options of the head I can vary the intensity of the wrinkles to my liking. But be aware they can be a pain in the a** to make work properly if you are about to use other additions like beard, brows, moles and hairbases to the head (also I can only speak for a catwa mesh head myself). I have to mention, that I am not sure if those above mentioned creators still offer non-mesh appliers. Especially a mesh head is a major investment, so that may be something to consider first. Definitely demo everything before making a purchase decision, because going mesh, especially head wise, can be an expensive endeavor. If you want to stay away from a mesh-head first I can recommend 7 Deadly s(k)ins. At least in their in world shop they should have older skins which still come with a system head (which you still can wear with your mesh-body). Good luck in meshing up regards M. Bond

For the hair choice i would throw Stealthic in the ring. Also no match and the slicked back hair from deadwool. Regarding the skins you could take a look at stray dog, clef de peau (only inworld afaik) and eventually the skinnery. Not sure if they still sell classic skins so. Alternatively take a look at 7 deadly skins. At least the older skins are available in classic form. In the past they had nice offerings for group members frequently. Not sure if that is still the case. If your´re looking more for not so ordinary skins Aeros avatars and Concord comes to mind, too. Also they are not cheap and the range of available skintones are a bit lackluster (imo). Regards Max

The Jake hands are indeed not animated by default. They probably forgot to add that or didn´t bother. Officially the body is still in beta, we will have to wait and see I guess. But as you already found out, using a bento ao "cures" that stiffness. For dances I haven´t experience your said problem yet. Also it just may be harder to notice because of the movement. If you´re using the Firestorm Viewer I can recommend a solution I followed myself lately. Utilizing the in build AO. I got the Vista Bento AO myself first, but never really liked all the animations in it. So if you are already considering building your own AO the Firestorm one get´s rid of the requirement of a HUD occupying space. It´s essentially drag and drop and allows different sets. Depending on your commitment you can easily build different "sets", for myself I only bothered making a default one and dances. This way I got rid of unwanted animations and can easily add new ones on the fly if I find one that catches my interest. Probably could have saved a lot of money if i did that from the start, because I probably got rid of more than half of the animations. There has been a thread about a calm AO somewhere, in which another male bento AO was mentioned (the included walks I didn´t like, but the more idle standing animations I did like quite a lot.) Regards

Thanks for that "warming" welcome

Isn´t that what it should be about, well the loving yourself part?!? Being happy the way you are, content with yourself, even with your little flaws. What use is the most beautiful shell if you feel rotten inside? In my opinion your attitude towards yourself and others does play a great part in how attractive you are in the long run. Happy post Christmas everyone...

Regarding the video card the 960 was/is a good gaming card if you´re not aiming for a resolution higher than 1080p because of the limited VRam. 2GB is definitely on the lower side. Maybe take a look at the newer 1050ti which performs close to the 960 and should be around the same price range. There is a non-ti and a ti version. The non-ti is subpar to the 960 so. Be aware to look for a card with the TI Chipset on and not just being called TI. If you have the cash to spare take a look at the 1060 or even 1070 Nivida cards. It seems that AMD is catching up in that area, but I am not sure how well they perform with SL. There have been driver issues reported back then, not sure if those are fixed yet. So can´t comment on that. What really boosted my SL performance was the SSD card. Moving the Cache to it made loadtimes a lot faster. Granted this only counts if you frequent the same places regulary and have the size set reasonable large, but it is a noticeable improvement. Not sure how it will effect the longevity of the SSD so, but that´s a bullet I am willing to bite. I probably wouldn´t recommend installing the operating system and important documents on the same drive as the cache so.