Marianne Little

I can wear a lot with the new body, because I own a lot that can use alpha cuts on the new body. Unsurprising, all lingerie, swimwear and tops with only straps over the shoulders do not fit. It was as expected. Lace tops that can not use alpha, is also out of the question. But I am the queen of sweaters and other "modest" clothes, so I can continue to use a lot of clothes. Auto alpha in the clothes is going to be a nuisance. I will have to make save sticks with the new alpha cuts, but I suppose I must click "show all" first in the Maitreya HUD and then use the save stick. I have not tested a save stick.

I am sure many male bodies will be in the Black Friday sale. Maybe not the Belleza Jake one, it is already so cheap, at 1500L. Jake is here on the right side of the picture. https://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Belleza/117/129/25 The Signature and the Legacy bodies could be in the Black Friday sale, and maybe as much off as 50%. Join the group for the stores, so he can be noticed if there will be a sale, and how long it lasts. If he prefer one of those bodies, it can be smart to wait in case he will save money. So ask him to pick up a demo of every body mentioned here, and find out what he likes. Remember that Legacy comes in the regular male body, and a more muscular one called Legacy Athletic. Pick up a demo for both.

I bump up the thread, because I am going to log in and buy these tomorrow: https://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/VELOUR/84/111/42 Fifty Friday, only 50L (Nov 17- Nov 19).

Naw, Jake will probably not be cheaper. I saw the three old female bodies was sold separately before, and then Freya cost 1750 L. Belleza keep changing the price for the old female ones. And the GenX female appear to be on sale often. A sale 3 months ago, and now a sale that has lasted since Oct 30th. I almost want it, but I believe Lara X will better for me. If Maitreya could finish it and release it!! /weary face I do not need mod rights on a body 99% of the time, but I saw that somebody linked deformers to a mod body. Mod body and mod deformers. And that sounded neat. They could include a box with the version in the folder. Few need it. But those who are furries and fantasy avatars, really like modify. And they will spread the news if Lara goes mod. I think there are some guys who like to be more flamboyant in SL than they can be in RL, and still use a male body. A small segment, but I have a feeling that they have money and shop more than the general male population.

Maybe it is derailing the thread further, but the last pages has been about avatar popularity, so I post this anyway. I was not aware that the poster for Jake in the Belleza store got a new picture. It is also released a new collection with clothes for the body. This release of the Caulfield Collection is very recent, November 30th. I will guess that Belleza has no plan to retire Jake, he is probably their most popular product. We with male alts should watch carefully for Black Friday. Maybe Belleza will have a sale, including Jake? That would be super affordable. Jake cost only 1500 L now. Their older 3 female bodies is now sold in a pack for 2200 L. I think they were sold separately before. The Premium versions of the Gen X bodies is 50% off, both Classic and Curvy. This mean they cost only 2750 L now. Imagine if they had started with this price. The Lite cost 3099 L and the Regular 3499 L. I can't see the point in 3 different versions. It reminds me too much of the way TMP sold their bodies. Bleh.

Ha ha! Copy and post the text without the store name? 😏

Since I own Lara, I can not reply to 1. But I think most of those who own Reborn, Legacy, Kupra etc etc, already own Lara. They got tired of it, and changed to another body. They moved on. Will they use Lara X now? Who knows. It has been some negative talk about Lara, that it is an old body and that newer bodies are better. Lara X will now be the new body, and I guess it can get people who never owned Lara, to buy Lara X. And it is said that Lara X will be easier to make a curved shape with. Maitreya will not raise the price too high. They will not do as Belleza and try to sell Lara X for 5500 L. Maybe the price on Lara X will rise with some hundred L. I assume Maitreya will have a Black Friday sale this year as previous years, and I think Lara X will be included in the sale. If it is not released for Black Friday, it will be a Christmas sale. All this is only me speculating. For your question 2, I will use both. I hope that creators will put Lara X clothes on the market quickly. But I doubt many creators will upgrade previous releases to Lara X. Maybe a few will do it with the latest releases. Not enough to make a difference. I have a lot of clothes for Lara, and will not dump them. It is said that Maitreya works with creators to refine the rigging and making it easier to work with. I have never tried to rig clothes, but I have heard that Lara is difficult to rig for. Lara X will be more creator friendly. Since I use Bom, and since it is a body with all in one, it is going to be very easy to switch between them. I do not need to use appliers, the Bom skin will work as well on both. I only use materials layers once in a while. Going between the two bodies will be as easy as changing hair.

I understand wanting a good return for all the hours put into creation, but: Sell 100 bodies for 5500 = 550 000 L Sell 1000 bodies for 1500, and make sure people know it is an introduction offer = 1 500 000 L. A person like me, who got a much lower income in RL the last years, would take a look at the price and think: "1500 L is like 3 fatpacks of hairs. I can spoil myself a bit, buy it now when I can get it cheap". And the added benefit of many more who own the body, and go to creators and ask for clothes for the body. When creators put the sizes in the clothing pack, it becomes "one of the easy bodies to find new content for" and that is very, very positive. Then you can set up the price for your body to "normal" and still sell, because just look at Lelutka. Lelutka store always has a lot of people. I was in the Genus store... it was some females, but I did not see a male avatar there, even if Genus has male heads now. In Lelutka it was 1 male for every 5 female (roughly estimate). And in Catwa? One green dot, in addition to me. Of course not all in a store spend money. Some pick up demos, some are there with friends or partners. But still. It is the popularity. The bigger crowd the store attracts, the better.

I only have Krita now, but I will try Photoscape X @Lunaea Lovely🥰

Wasn't it something about different prices too? Lite, regular, super and superduper mega? I saw they had a sale and was thinking: Hmmm.... maybe I buy it now? Then I saw the different prices and it was HELL NO. I was stuck between buying the cheapest one, or pay more for "advanced" ones. It gave me a headache: Do I pay more? Do I need layers? The add-on chest? I do not know what I will need. So I said no buy, Belleza are stupid. Just sell the body as classic or curvy, that is enough.

Peeve: It is sale on Marketplace in the weekends now. So we must go inworld to see demos. I have run into the problem more that once: I have to hunt down where the demo is. In some cases, I have not found it. For the love of sweet baby Jesus, set the demo next to the landing point, or a big sign there so I can teleport to the demo! I landed in a store, waited until it had rezzed, looked at the walls to see a teleport to demo, found a teleport to demo area. I went through six rezzers in that building store, and could not find the building that was on the Marketplace. It is like they do not want me to spend money. And while I talk about Marketplace, creators not bothering to inform about the land impact. I went to a store with potted plants and had to use area search to find them. Land impact is very important to me.

This was good to hear. I use many clothes that is covering my body more than the average avatar. It should mean that it is possible for Lara X to wear some Lara clothes. Unless it is tight clothes, bikinis, lingerie and such. And also gowns with bare shoulders, of course. It was smart of you, to wear Lara X demos and find out how close the bodies are.

I can honestly say that Belleza GenX classic is the prettiest body I have demo'ed. But as others have listed up, Belleza did not understand marketing. When people are all eager and exited, you do not price it way too high. You strike while it is hot news, set an introduction price so low that people feel they do not take a risk. They buy the body because it feels like such a good deal. People came and saw the price. "I'll wait and see how much content it is made for it". And then creators "Not many bought that body... I waste time rigging for it". Potential customer: "No one makes content for it. It's a shame, but I did not waste my money. It was smart to wait." And so it goes. The few who bought it, store it away and use another body instead. Creators look at surveys and statistics and does not bother to rig for it.

Yes, a new body, next generation Lara, with issues people complained about (Shoulders, abdomen, booty) supposedly fixed. It is said to be easier to rig for, on requests from creators. Yes, you will have to rig it separately, but shoes, nails and rings for Lara is said to be the same for LaraX. No changes made for feet and hands. No. If some creators got the kit, it is so they have new content ready when the body is launched. Those will be big serious brands, not some clothing template seller. The Petite and Flat chest versions will no longer be attachments, but full bodies. I, who own Lara and Petite, will get 2 Petite bodies in addition to the LaraX update: 1: One Lara with Petite chest, same rigging as version 5.3. All previous made Petite size work on it. 2: One LaraX rigged body with Petite chest.

"Modify rights only in fatpack" 😡

Not a hint of snow in RL, but in SL, I can make winter images. (I'm not roasting my foot!) I think I take a better image later. I throw in an unedited closeup. I do not do it often, but it turned out fine. Only a thumb in the hair. Only resized smaller:

I like the effect. 💓Do you know of a tutorial, or what should I search for so I can try it?

I overthink it, but it Quartz Mole said third party software, and it could be taken as all editing with third party software. I think @Scylla Rhiadrawrote it well, that he specifically meant AI editing software. But still, the thought linger: When is it "too much" editing? I like to have one thread to post in, because yes, I overthink things, and I can take things too serious. Do I post in the correct thread now? That is why I decided to pick one thread and post there.

I remember dramalama dingdong. Chic can not post information, how to find things, suggestions to update the avatar for free... not even set her signature on her images. I know it has been people after you, it is rather insane sometimes. It is strange that it is only ONE person who is doing it wrong. I use Flickr, and I like to put a signature on the Flickr images. If people click on an image, they come to Flickr. It is many others doing it and I really can not see wrong in that. It would be very little activity in threads.

I like what you did here.

I think your SL image is better. I saw nothing of you in the AI image, and I see your avatar in the long thread about your avatar. The AI image was not "Yes, that is Rowan". It was a stranger.

It was an image of AI created art in the "How does your avatar look today" that made me go back to this thread. How much editing is too much? AI is not the same as Photoshop - or any other program. Photoshop is way too expensive for me. Mostly I use color and light tweaking, and I love vignettes. I have also used frames lately. I used a green screen and a RL background here. Mostly because I did not find the background I wanted in SL. But the avatar is the avatar, with color and light adjusted and a lot of burn brushing around the edges. It is still SL? I do not ask in that thread. It is not a place for discussion, it often goes into bickering.

It's been a while since I posted, and I think I got better eyelids here. From left to right, top row: The second image is first experiment with color and shadow adjusting. In the third, the difference is the eyelids. No matter what I did, what kind of "eyelid layers" or "closed eyes"I use, I could not get the eyelids I wanted in SL. The fold was there, unless I used so bright light that all the other details was washed out. The second row is adding vignette, then adding a cracked layer to give the look of aging. Then a frame and signature. The major work is the eyelids. Also the rose in the original screenshot looked too dark. A small shadow next to the mouth was touched up. I am just an amateur. I think the finished image is not so different from the raw one. It is still a Second Life image. I use Krita and painted on new eyelids on a layer on top, before I flatten the image. I made some small work on parts like the side of the mouth. Light and color adjustment is made by duplicating the image and trying different effects and transparency on the top layer(s). Like screen, mulitiply and overlay. I also use a big brush and brush over parts with burn and color dodge. But I often do too much of burn and color dodge, and have to stop myself. It is easier to see the cracked layer here, especially over the face and chest:

Lelutka includes a lot of hairbases with their heads. It helped me a lot when no one had started making hairbases on the EvoX template. If Genus is smart, they include some basic hairbases. And I saw the male heads comes with skin.

I think stores benefit from sales. For example: I have an alt that I have wanted to buy gauged ears for, but I think 600L is much to spend on an alt. If it is a sale... I buy him the ears, and I buy them for another alt, or myself. The store get either 0 L from me if they don't have a sale... or 300 L, 600 L, maybe even 900 L in a sale. Same with other things. If it is full price, I may buy a single color. If it is a sale, I can get exited and buy the fatpack. The fatpack cost more than one color, so the store has profit even in a sale.