Ariel Vuissent

It's discounted, so they may well have removed it from the store since it's probably an older style.

True, but neither is a mesh body essential for experiencing or enjoying second life. It's frustrating to hear people ask for free things, then later complain about how terrible they are, so "you get what you pay for" is a useful reminder. (Not referring to you there, Annie, just that it often happens.) Though the bodies mentioned aren't terrible at all; just somewhat limited. In any case, as an intro to mesh bodies or for those who can't, or choose not to, afford other mesh bodies, those already listed are certainly top of the line for the price. For another head suggestion, while it's not free, a lower cost option is Utilizator's Normie. I haven't tried it myself, but I've heard good things, and at $500L, it's fantastically priced.

Wasabi, according to the blog post. Style is Joy (link to fatpack).

You needed the HUD appliers. This is layer clothing, not mesh. At a guess, they're either boxed - in which case, unpack the box, find the Maitreya applied in the resulting folder, add, and use - or the HUD applies item is, itself, a HUD, with all appliers for each body clickable directly from it. I'm betting the former, but could be wrong. You can also use the omega applier, but you need an extra item for that. You can buy the Maitreya omega relay (it's inexpensive) add it, and use omega appliers freely, rather than holding out for appliers specifically for Maitreya. (I'm on my phone, or I'd post links.)

Very true. Either extreme can deform, and on some bodies more noticeably and more quickly than others. Many don't do well with the breast slider under 30, for example; mine tend to swing sideways at that point, which is...not what I'm generally going for.

Nothing, and lots of things. Most (human-shaped) mesh bodies are pretty similar. Choosing tends to be more about personal taste. However, slink, Belleza, and maitreya were among the earliest released and the earliest to have developers kits for creators, if I recall correctly. (Maitreya may have learned behind a bit on the latter...) More simply, they're just the ones people buy the most, and so there's more on the market made to fit them. As mentioned, you can sometimes get around this, with things like alpha cuts (parts of the bodies you can make invisible) or simply because some bodies are very similar in shape. Whatever you choose, again, demo. Each body has its pros and cons, including the HUDs they come with. Also, each body adjusts differently, especially at slider extremes, so that's something to take into account if, for instance, you wanted to have very large breasts, or a very large bottom, etc.

Mesh bodies are generally fitted mesh, which means they'll resize with most or all of your normal body sliders in edit shape mode. (Right click yourself, choose edit appearance, then edit shape; or right click your worn shape in inventory and choose edit.) Bento is extra bones. Imagine a reality basic stick figure. That's essentially what used to be under the "skin" of your avatar. SL added more to it, so creators have more points to attach things to. For bodies, this means fingers! If a body is "bento," that generally means it has hands with fingers rigged to the finger bones, so with the right animation or AO, your fingers can move and be posed, instead of single, static positions. Check out meshbodyaddicts.com for some really great reviews on LOTS of different mesh bodies, and tutorials! And remember to demo, demo, demo. Also, check marketplace for a broad view of what's available for different bodies; Maitreya currently dominates the market, followed by Belleza, and Slink, I believe. But there are LOTS more out there, so don't limit yourself to those three if they don't work for you.

Top bodies are Belleza, Maitreya, and...Slink, still, maybe? Get demos of them, and any other bodies you like, and try them on with the Cherry Bombs. Check for gaps, and demo a few skins - you want the shading to match up in that area, so check for weird lines where the two meet up.

That, too! If the dress is too tightly fitted to work with mesh jeans or leggings, once again, you can go the applier route: appliers jeans work, but applier leggings can look really cute under a "dress" that feels more like a tunic length top. I don't actually wear appliers much, almost never on their own, but they are fabulous for lower layers.

I'd also recommend building up a decent base of quality applier tank tops/camisoles. They work well for underneath short tops, when you just don't want to show that much skin. Maitreya also has a tight-fitted mesh tank top that works well under some looser sweater I have, particularly if you have long hair to cover the shoulder straps (which are where I have the most trouble with the mesh poking through.) It can take some searching through stores; skimpy IS the most popular look, so many stores I've been in favor that style, but you can often find at least a couple of nice, more modest pieces in amongst the rest.

GAH! Teach me not to look at dates. Just realized this is a necro'd thread, but I'll leave the response up in case it's helpful later. Last names are left over from back in the day, when we had Legacy names. So mine is typically Vuissent, because I signed up way back in the way back. When LL did away with last names, there were a number of things set up within or to work with SL that still required first and last names be input, so everyone who joined after that point gained the generic last name of Resident. This is true even if you've set your name up to LOOK like a traditional first and last name, so if I'd signed up later and my username was ArielVuissent, without the space in between, I would be ArielVuissent Resident. Helpful reminder: Display names do not count for anything that requires a username. It must be the name you signed up with. Unless you signed up a very long time ago and there is a space in your name, your last name will ALWAYS be Resident. Your first name is your username. (The first and last name thing MAY change, in that LL might start doing Legacy names again. For a fee, I believe. But that's a different conversation.)

Sking requires Slink hands and feet, as it doesn't include its own and, as far as I know, is only compatible with Slink. Therefore, when you're looking for skins for it, you'll need to look for omega appliers and get the Slink omega relay, or look for skins creators that sell both Slink and omega appliers. (If you can't find Slink hand and foot appliers, Slink body appliers will work for the hands and feet, usually.) Head wise, it depends what you're looking for. Catwa had the most available for it. For customizability, bento is good; for price, if you can find something you like the features of out of the box, though, you can get non-bento cheaper, so shop around. Knowing what you're looking for in terms of style would help for other recommendations. Or ask inworld, in groups like mesh body addicts and skin addiction.

First off, trying on a Catwa head with a shape made for LeLutka will look VERY weird. Very difference bases, and the look is...not good. So that won't really get you close. You can still DO it, and then at least you won't have to mess with the body at all, just the head, but you'll need to do a fair bit of work to get something usable, in my experience. Generally the suggestion is to try on the head with the shape in the folder, and adjust from there. It's a good idea to see if you can find a close skin first, pick up a demo of that, and apply it to the head you're demoing. Skin and shape BOTH make huge differences. Putting a snapshot on a prim is also a good idea. Or, if you have a computer that can run two instances of SL at once, or two computers, create an alt. Get your alt a demo of the head you want to try, and stand it right beside your regular avi, then edit the alt's shape to see if you can get a close match that way. Only works if you can run SL in two windows, though, or two comps. Otherwise, photo on a prim is a good idea. Check a few key features right off - nose shape, for instance, doesn't really change that much. Size, width, yes, but if the nose is built with a wide tip, that's the silhouette it will always have even when you put it as small as possible on the sliders. Basic shapes won't change.

If you have, or when you get, an RLV enabled viewer, there should be a folder already in your inventory labelled #RLV. If it's not there, you can easily create it just as you would any other folder. You'll need to be put items you want him to have access to inside that folder, each in a folder of their own, generally. I don't recall how to do this correctly off the top of my head, but it's not hard; I know there are video tutorials on youtube, and you can likely find written tutorials through google. Or those who have experience may answer here, but google is great when you just can't wait You may also want/need to create another folder containing anything you don't want to detach when he messes with your outfit - your body, hands, feet, head, any HUDs you need. There's a way to do this, as well, in the RLV folder; I believe it involved how you name that folder. Again, google can help you, if you can't or don't want to wait for a more complete answer here. In fact, here's a promising looking resource to get you started: https://www.opencollar.at/outfits.html I may use that myself, later...I have a great closet HUD with RLV compatibility for which this could come in handy. Hmmm...Thanks for reminding me! lol

1. The heads come with two Alphas in case you wanted to wear the mesh head with your system body. Since you won't be doing that, you use the full body Alpha which will hide both the head and the body. This means you don't need to use the body Alpha that came with your maitreya body. 2. You can tint the catwa skin to match your maitreya body, or tint your maitreya body to match your catwa head. However, you can also get appliers to match one or both. The skins in the head are from the skinnery. The skins in the body are from Glam affair. You can get applier from the latter or a body applier from the former, or get both from an entirely different creator, like Deetalez, Pink Fuel, Lara Hurley, Pumec, or dozens of others. Appliers are more or less always the better option. You will never get a perfect match by manual tinting, because you are always starting with at least a slightly different base tone and shading.

Catwa has one specifically Asian head, the name of which I can't recall. You can also do a marketplace search for "Asian" or "Chinese" and narrow by shapes, and see what heads the shapes you like most are made for. Demo with an Asian skin you like, though. Also, check out Mayreal heads - the brand isn't add popular as some, but I've heard great things and, if I recall correctly, they have at least some that look Asian. Skin-wise, Pink Fuel has at least one Asian skin (Hanoko, I think?) and all of her skins have a monolid option. Deetalez also has some lovely Asian inspired skins. Honestly, many creators have at least one, though that style may not be their specialty.

Mesh heads, bento or not, do not work with the facial animations in most furniture. It sounds like you have an older, frames animated head from Catwa, so you'll need to see if they have an open-mouth animation, either included or available as a separate add-on. When looking for this animation, make sure you're not looking at anything Bento. Unless I am mistaken, Alice is not a Bento head, so Bento animations will not work. I believe you can only get animations for catwa frames animated heads from the Catwa store, if what you want is not included in the folder or on any of the HUDs for your head. You can also ask the Catwa group in world. People there are generally very nice and helpful, and the csr's are very active and willing to give help and advice.

Playing around with windlights for a biker shot inspired by an event: And accidentally turned my house into a cabin-in-the-woods style murder spot:

You're not going to get a perfect match across skin brands. Period. You can, sometimes, finesse things by manually color matching, but that's for tones that are already close and only need fairly minor adjustments, often in a small and not obvious place. What you have are very different tones, in a very obvious place, taking up a lot of surface area. Appliers are the way to go. The problem with combining multiple mesh body parts, however, is that you need appliers for each piece, individually. With popular brands, this isn't terribly difficult, but when you go into the niche market, as with V- tech, things get somewhat more challenging. You need to get either a body skin applier for Maitreya (and appropriate skin for the chest mod) from Lure, or a Lelutka head and Maitreya body skin appliers from pink fuel that will match the chest mod skin you already have. OR, you can go skin shopping from scratch, looking for a skin that suits and works with those three body parts. Clothing wise, any bottoms fitted for Maitreya should work, so you can look inworld or on the marketplace for androgynous or masculine Maitreya fitted bottoms. Tops, you need to look for applier tops that work for the flat- chested, or mesh tops fitted specifically for V-Tech. Again, you can do that on the marketplace, or inworld.

Pretty sure making a prim/sculptie body is a fairly different process from making a mesh body. I don't think going all the way back to the old school method of prims and sculpties will really help you if what you want to make is a rigged body. A rigged body is mesh, and one method does not necessarily translate to the other. If that's your end goal, I would suggest, as Chic says, getting Blender or something like it and practicing making mesh there. Basics first. There are, of course, still object being made with prims and sculpts, and you can look up how to do that and, again, practice. But if your end goal is learning mesh, starting with the old school methods, which weren't typically used for full bodies anyway, is pretty much going the long, long way 'round.

Okay, so now's a good time to get into Omega appliers. You need this thing. It may be cheaper inworld, but that's what you need to use Omega appliers. Wear it, then apply your skin. (When you do, make sure your body is NOT tinted. It needs to be back to white, no tint, or the applier won't really help much.) There is NOTHING you can do with an applier that cannot be undone. Worst case scenario, you get a free redelivery of your body, but generally, you can use the Maitreya HUD to fix pretty much anything, applier-wise. There's nothing to be afraid of, and if you DO manage something you can't fix on your own, the Maitreya Lara Friends group inworld is full of very helpful, friendly people.

Generally, the recommendation is to get an applier for your body that matches your head. Try the skin store where you purchased your current skin, and see if they make Maitreya or Omega body skins. If they do, you're in luck - buy, add, and click. (You'll need a relay if it's an omega applier; I won't go into all that now and you may already know, in any case.) If they don't make appliers, things get more complicated. The base Maitreya skins aren't white; even the palest is a light flesh tone, so you're trying to tint something that already has a tint. It doesn't work well. It's possible, but it likely won't ever be perfect. You may, with a lot of work, get close. Show Color Under Cursor allows you to find a specific RGB value from a spot on your skin. You can then enter that value into your Maitreya HUD to color your body, but again, the body is already tinted. This may help you get closer, but you'll still have to refine it. To use it well: 1. Choose a bright light setting, such as Nam's Optimal Skin, to remove shadows. 2. Stand on a pose stand to keep yourself still. 3. Chose a spot high on your neck with a tone somewhere between the lightest and darkest color of your classic head skin. 4. With Show Color Under Cursor enabled, hover your cursor over that spot and record or memorize the resulting numbers. Every time your cursor moves, the numbers change, because a skin is composed of many, many different tones. You're trying for a medium tone, not the darkest or the lightest spot on your skin. 5. Check your Maitreya HUD for a place to enter those numbers. There should be one, though I'm not inworld to check. 6. Fine tune using the color picker. If it's dramatically off, try again, using a darker or lighter spot on your skin, depending. Honestly, though, I can't stress the applier thing enough. Appliers are the only way to get that perfect match. If you can get one, it's 100% the best option.

Mesh bodies are generally fitmesh, which means you definitely can change your shape, in exactly the same way you do now - using the Edit Shape sliders. Each mesh body does have its own "base" shape, the way the body itself is formed, and those features can be softened (or exaggerated), but not changed. It's important to demo because of those differences. A recent topic (in an inworld group, I believe), pointed out one brand in particular for having, in their opinion, "upward-pointing" breasts no matter what she tried with her shape. Take note of those things when you demo, and if you have a modifiable shape, edit it to see how the mesh body reacts. (Heads are a different story, although bento mesh heads ARE customizable and if you choose the right one for you and edit it to your preferences, you'll still wind up looking quite unique.) As for "why go mesh," well, you've pretty much already said it! The system body is usable, but there are features on it that aren't terribly attractive, such as the shoulder blades, or the way it deforms pretty dramatically at some slider settings. Mesh hands and feet cover the worst two parts, but there's room for improvement with the rest, which is the purpose of mesh bodies. In a perfect world, LL would fix all the flaws on the system avi and make that itself better, but barring that, mesh bodies work nicely. As an added incentive, a great deal of - possibly even most - high-quality clothing is being made exclusively for mesh bodies, now, so switching to mesh gives you access to more high-quality clothing.

First: whenever you have an unwanted texture apply to your body, especially to only a part of it, it may be a layer other than your skin. So the first thing you try is to go to the second tab in your Maitreya HUD and clear all layers. This will remove anything that has applied to any of the three layers: tattoo, underwear, clothing. It will nor affect skin. Second: mesh bodies are objects. You cannot apply system layers to objects. When shopping for skins for a mesh body, the key word is "applier." Maitreya and Omega appliers will both work for you. Appliers will have a cube-shaped icon next to them in your inventory, just like any other object (your body, for instance, had the same icon next to it). If a skin you are looking at does not have the word "applier" in its description, or have the Maitreya and/or Omega logos in the ad image, it will not work for your body. When you buy an applier and add it (always Add, don't Wear), click it and it should apply (if it's a skin) or ask where you want it to apply (if it's a tattoo or an item of clothing). (Clothing does not have to be applier, by the way. It can be, or it can be mesh. If it is mesh, the key word is "Maitreya," or look for the Maitreya logo in the ad image. This will ensure it is fitted for your body, although not all are created equal, so always demo.) So, short answer: the skin you bought will not work as is. You will need to turn the textures you got into appliers, advice for which I'm sure you can get inworld. (Try the Maitreya group, the Mesh Body Addicts group, or possibly the Skin Addiction group.)

TMP products have a tendency to only work well with other TMP products no. That's not a hard-and-fast rule, but is often the case. Also, TMP is supposed to be rolling out in new line sometime in the possibly near future ( although I wouldn't hold my breath), so while their current line is heavily discounted and looks like a great deal, it's risky. TMP maintains their own system into which designers must load their products. If TMP ever discontinues and shuts down that system, existing products using it will become more or less useless. It could turn out to be a short-term waste of money. Vista heads are relatively cheap and quite nice; Catwa sometimes has deals on new releases for her heads if you join her inworld group. I'm sure there are others. Check for Omega compatibility with any head, particularly those not within the so-called major brands, so that you have more options for skin and makeup. That will also help you be able to match the skin for your body and face.