Sleepless

Sometimes, I just like to plug a random word into Second Life Search and see what turns up. The word in my mind today was "sleepless" and it yielded some surprisingly good results.

I narrowed the results to Places, and the first place I landed was in the middle of the TonkTastic store, in the heart of the Sleepless sim. I've known of TonkTastic for a long time (the now-defunct landmark I have for it dates back to 2008) but the shop had somewhat fallen off my radar. The richly detailed "Legend" flight jacket and the rigged mesh Gumboots that I landed in front of made me glad that TonkTastic is back on my agenda.

I resisted the lure of the boots (though many Lindens will undoubtedly be spent here soon) and selected the next promising location in the Search results.

Which was somebody's house. Not wanting to be caught trespassing, I hurried on, but not before peeking in the open windows. The inhabitants may be low on furnishings but they are high on mushy family photos, which made me smile.

The next hit I clicked on was Sleepless Nights, and the view I saw when I landed would make staying awake worthwhile.

This looks like art. It's actually a shop. I followed the line of falling down power lines to the Fiction & Chaos store which boasts a selection of women's and men's clothes and hair in the punk/neko/goth/rave styles. Wandering through it, I happened on the main store of House of Usher and admired the carefully crafted gothic furniture that would be at home in any remote and foggy palace.

The last destination I selected was a sim called SleeplessMUSIC. It also happens to be the main store of Connors Clothing.

I had heard of Connors but it's not very familiar to me, so I lingered briefly, checking out the casual styles for men and women and made another note to spend some more time (and money) here later.

At this point, I ran out of sleepless locations and time to visit them. I headed back home, pleased with my discovery of some new and new-again places and secure in the knowledge that shopping is the cure for insomnia.

Make Your Noob Friend (or yourself) Hot (on a budget)

Ginger is just one of the options, too.

It's been a while since we've shared a way to look great without spending a lot of Lindens. However, October's Trending Fashion Center provides some options for men to look great on a budget. Simply join the group and search for treasures. Amid the dresses and skirts and blouses, Egoisme's Alessandro skin is available for just L$150 in three different tones. This skin isn't a new release, but with the sexy nipples, abs, and navel, it's a great upgrade from an older skin or a perfect skin for those just starting out in our virtual world.

Good Hair at your fingertips!

Hi everybody! Nath again, here to tell you that he's a hairoholic. As someone people think is something of an Authority on men's hair, I often get people coming to me and saying, "Where do I get good hair, Nath?" I find the question very pleasing, honestly! I enjoy helping people find a hairstyle that suits their avatar, and I'm enough of an egotistical jerk to enjoy people giving a nod to my knowledge. I wound up becoming a coiffureista (it's like a fashionista, but with hair) because early on in my SL experience, I bought what was Completely The Best Hair Ever, in my view. It's an oldie but goodie, Naughty's "The Outsider"- currently, Naughty's closed for renovations, but I'm sure Lost Thereian will bring the shop around again. 

It was 4 years ago.

  And in one of those accidental errors a newbie makes, I accidentally deleted it. Oops! Oh well, so I went back to the store to buy it again... and the store had stopped selling it in the lovely blue-black that I loved. Or grey-black. Or red-black. ALL THE BLACK VALUES WERE GONE!!!

NoooooOOOOooo! 
For most of a year then, I went around in SL trying to find a hair I liked as much. I tried many, many hairs at many, many stores... and finally the original shop got a customer support person. I mentioned the problem to her, asking why it wasn't available, and within about 30 hours, the hair was again on the shelf, and I could wear it again! And, within about 20 minutes of that, I decided I was done wearing it. But! There were some important lessons I learned from this experience.

More Mesh Hair

Yes, I fell in love with it the minute I saw it.

The Fantasy Faire yielded much more of interest to me than I expected, including this sexy new mesh hair from Wasabi Pills, a Fantasy Faire exclusive. The Teeloh hangs naturally down one side while showing a sexy shaved skull on the other. Included hair bases provide a realistic look to the style. The Gingerbread color (one of the demos) is such a gorgeous color that I'm almost tempted to go red.

Freaky Freebie -- er, Thursday! Also known as: The Crazy Hair Hunt

Oh hello! Wasn't I going to be doing a regular column on Fridays, about nice things you can find for free in SL? I think I was... uhm, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.

Recently, I found a hunt dedicated to the idea of hair in SL that simply Could Not Happen in RL. There's a few styles that are pretty androgynous; a male could wear them, easily. So, here's my Freebie Friday post about the third Crazy Hair Hunt.

I found a lot here that would be FABulous for a a woman on a runway or for a drag look. The first that crosses my mind is from Evie's Closet, who brought us an updo littered with butterflies (Butterfly Effect is its name).
However, there are a few mohawks in the hunt that I've gotten plenty of compliments on.

Noob Beautiful

Older Second Life residents still cringe when they recall how they looked when they first arrived on the grid, with bad hair, clothes that looked like they were applied with a paintbrush, and the ubiquitous duck walk.

And this isn't even the worst of the early appearances.

Springtime at the Parish

After months of being extremely busy, I suddenly found myself with nothing to do last night. I stared at the almost finished issue of Blithe SL Magazine, wandered around kicking a few stones, and pestered a few friends with cries of "I'M BOOOOORRRED!" Finally, it dawned on me: I hadn't fully explored Menswear Fashion Week. Excited and ready to do my part to help the Second Life economy, I tped over and wandered the stores. Honestly, if you haven't been to Menswear Fashion Week yet, you need to go. It is full of the best designers for men.

I've been searching for new spring-wear as warmer weather approaches. It's been difficult to find as designers hold on to the winter styles, but at Menswear Fashion Week, I discovered what I'd been looking for.

An open shirt says, "Bring on the sun."

Mesh, Part 2: The Controversy

I fell in love with mesh hair at first sight (or first wear). Done right, mesh hair has beautiful shape, fabulous textures and the added function of moving with the avatar, rather than poking through the shoulders. This is an example of rigged mesh. Creations that are rigged are designed to flex and bend as the avatar moves, so it works well for hair and clothing, adding to the clothing options in Second Life.

Dragon Mesh Hair from Wasabi Pills

Wasabi Pills's Dragon Mesh Hair (and other mesh styles) demonstrates how mesh hair wears and moves. See that curve in the hair? While the lower part of the wig stays still, the rest of the hair moves as the head moves. This eliminates the hair-through-the-body problem that comes with prim and flexi hair.

Freebie Friday!

Hello folks, Nath here again. Merrick and I were talking about forthcoming columns and it occurred to us that, what with the stereotyped perception of gay men being clothes horses, it might be useful to help our readers find good clothing. There's a lot of bad freebies out there, it bears note- some of the worst being what we're handed by Linden Lab when we first rez.

Yes, we all have these outfits. No, nobody really likes them.

But because of how advertisment and promotions work in SL, there are several ways to get nicer freebies than these, with very little effort. Several clothing designers have a section of clothing they deliberately offer for free, to let you see what you think of their offerings. Others have lucky chairs, midnight mania boards- all ways to get more avatars into their shops to look around, and while some shops treat their freebie boards/chairs as a place to offer something substandard for free, there're plenty of shops who offer nice things for free on their lucky chairs- simply things that are a bit dated, or no longer selling as they once did.

However, on this Freebie Friday, we're going to focus on another means by which designers give away their goods for free: the hunt. In a hunt, one person gets several vendors together (sometimes more than a hundred), and gets them each to donate an item. They place the item and the LM for the next shop in the hunt in an Easter egg, which is then hidden in the shop. A lot of hunts will have a web page where hints or updates about the status of the hidden prize can be posted- as well as SLURLs so you can go to a specific shop if you want. Some bloggers put together a page where photographs of the items they've found can be shared, too.

This week, we're going to talk about the Jack or Jill hunt. This hunt is organized by Depraved Nation. It started with 50 shops in it, and the male path (this is a hunt with a gift for the ladies, and a separate gift for the men) currently has 48 vendors. There are a lot of very talented folks offering things for the hunters- including a full shape and skin! The 'easter egg' you're looking for is a small gray disc with a male symbol (♂) on it, and there are hints at http://depravednation.com/jack-or-jill for the various locations in the hunt.

Everything in this picture is from the hunt:

What, doesn't everyone put on a mohawk to go skiing?

Skin & shape: Michael, from Ispachi
Hair: Destroyer w/ Razored Hairbase, from Raw House
Sunglasses: Sofian Mesh, from Kumaki Glasses Style
Jacket: Down Jacket, from Gabriel
Shirt: Drape Shirt (brown), from Gabriel
Scarf: Scarf Be Men, from *** Just You Jewels ***
Pants: Solemn Jeans, from Travisty
Belt: Belt-Duality *MESH*, from [ JP ]:dsg.
Shoes: Fulham Riding Boots, from LOORDES OF LONDON

The hunt starts at Razorblade Jacket's shop, and continues through several others- Gabriel, Nikita Fride, Ispachi, to name some of my favorites. You can get to Razorblade Jacket to start the hunt by clicking on this SLURL: http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Depraved%20Nation/140/157/70 There are a wide variety of designers in the hunt, and quite a lot of terrific gifts they're sharing with the hunters. If you're looking for a new skin, new shape, new eyes, or winter clothes- and especially if you're looking for free ones- I really recommend participating in this hunt!

Hat Hair is Not Your Enemy.

Hat Hair is Not Your Enemy

Hi, I'm Nath, and I am a hairaholic

(Hi, Nath). 

I have far too many different hairs - and the ones I wear most often, I usually have three versions of: one that I have done nothing with, one sized to fit properly on my avatar's head, and one which I have edited to make into hat hair. The purpose of this article is to teach you how to easily make your hair into hat hair. After all, if the hair is hidden by your hat, why waste the Avatar Rendering Cost on flexy prims and hidden locks?

I'm going to assume you already know how to size a hair up or down - just like any prim / multiprim object. If you need help with that, there may be another column coming!

In RL, hat hair is what happens when you've been wearing a hat for a while, and your hair's gotten disheveled by the hat. It has a very different meaning in SL, though!

What is hat hair?

This is NOT Hat Hair

This is not hat hair. See how there's hair poking through the hat everywhere?

This IS Hat Hair

This is hat hair. While it looks a little weird without the hat on, notice how none of the prims are poking through the hat? It is a little finicky to make hat hair, but once you've made it, you can use it with all kinds of different hats.


STEP ONE:
ALWAYS DO THIS WHENEVER YOU DO ANYTHING TO EDIT YOUR HAIR. ALWAYS DO THIS.

First thing, copy and paste the hair into your inventory. Let's say you're using EMo-tion's hair 'Rick', like I am in this tutorial. First thing to do is copy it into your inventory- then rename it. I name one copy (it doesn't matter which one), 'EMO-tion Rick [unmodified]'. This way, if I completely screw up the hair resizing or modifying it, I have the basic hair to go back to, instead of having NOTHING to go back to.

STEP TWO:
Now, put on the hat you want on your avatar. I'm going to use Hatter is Mad's awesome Mad Hatter hat, simply because it seems appropriate. You'll see some locks poking through near the sash on the hat- especially if you've taken the time to size the hat to fit properly on your avatar's skull (see NOT hat hair example above).

STEP THREE:
Get onto a pose stand- this will hold your avatar still, which you'll appreciate when you are not chasing your avatar's head around to click on your hair.

STEP FOUR:
Now look at how that hair's sitting. See all the little locks poking through the hat? That's not hat hair, not at all! Right-click anywhere on the hair, and select 'edit'. On the edit menu, select 'edit linked parts'. This will let you select individual pieces of hair and modify their position relative to the rest.

STEP SIX:
You have a few choices, now. You can either:
A: select a lock that's poking through the hat and drag it upwards, away from your head, or
B: you can tilt it, so that the lock pokes out at a different angle from beneath the hat's rim. Also, you could
C: move the hair downwards slightly, so that the lock still pokes out as it did, but from below the hat's brim.

I usually combine all 3 methods: on this hair, I moved the bangs down slightly in front, tilted some locks on the side, and dragged locks that were on top up and off.

STEP SEVEN:
Take off the hair. Then, rezz it on the ground nearby. You'll see it there with the locks floating above it. Ensure that the Edit Linked Parts box in your building panel is not checked then select all the floating locks over your hair and delete them.

Voila! Now, you have hat hair. The best part is- you can usually trade one hat for another and another and another, and the same hair will work with them all!