Otherworldly

The release of two mesh heads by Siddean Munro of Slink can hardly have passed anyone unnoticed. There is already a wide range of appliers ready from many different skin creators and more will undoubtedly be showing up soon. In this post I will be looking at the Becky head with the Amy applier from Adam n Eve, a Skin Fair exclusive for all those who love freckles. I will also be showing off a brand new release from Convair for the Liaison Collaborative.

The Amy skin from Adam n Eve features a new body which is slightly softer than the previous Adam n Eve body but still nicely detailed (sachi does the best bottoms). It comes in four tones, three eyebrow colours and with add-ons for push-up cleavage and for smaller breasts. For those who want to use Amy as a regular skin as well—and since she has a gorgeous face, why wouldn’t you want to do that too?—the Skin Fair pack includes two basic faces, bare and gloss, and add-on freckles. In addition to the applier HUD included in the duo pack, sachi Vixen has also released an additional applier HUD with more makeups.

The body freckles, and the freckles applied on the Slink hands and Slink feet, are a separate Freckles pack from Adam n Eve which can be used on any skin.

Of course, even if Amy is fully setup to be used as a regular skin as well, she was made with the intention of suiting the new mesh heads from Slink. Now, mesh heads aren’t without controversy, this is absolutely true. You cannot change any of their features (and no, fitted mesh won’t change this), though it will adjust to the size of your head so that it will fit any body size you choose. The only way you can make them look different is by using different appliers.

Does that mean we’ll all look the same? Well, yes and no. If two people use the Becky head and the Amy applier and exactly the same makeup options, their heads will look the same. But as the number of appliers grows, options to individualise your head grow as well. Add your own personal styling on top of that and you can still make a mesh head “your own”.

Now, as someone who loves making shapes—especially facial shapes—a mesh head can never be precisely what I want, in particular since my tastes in faces aren’t precisely “SL mainstream”. But, because I make shapes, I also switch shapes quite often, so I don’t have a single “me”. That means the mesh heads can fight right into that rotation of faces. Of course, each person has their own approach to this—for quite a few a single, identifiable shape and face is key to their SL identity—but I would urge people to at least try the demos and play around with the idea of a mesh head. If you do any sort of photography, you will definitely love the results from that aspect.

In addition to providing a much smoother and more realistic head mesh (just look at the profile in the previous shot) and superior texture detail, mesh heads also allow for some neat things that your regular head can’t do. For example, the lashes on the mesh head will blink together with the eyes. And there is an expressions HUD included with far more attractive expressions than what the regular head can manage. I am quite fond of this saucy little smirk myself!

As with all the other Slink applier products, the Slink mesh heads come with solid scripting and easy to use base HUDs. The applier HUDs are all designed by each individual skin designer, so will of course vary quite a bit in their setup. I haven’t actually tried anything but demos of the various other mesh heads on the market, though I did look at the demo from the Shops since I own quite a few of their skins. I find that the shape of the Slink heads feels more realistic and less exaggerated which is more to my tastes. The applier system for the Shops seems to use a central database and a single HUD for managing all different appliers, and while I can personally see the advantages in that, it does make the system more complicated to use. In that sense, simple and straight-forward is probably a good choice for Slink, even if it does mean I have to hunt around for a lot of different HUDs whenever I setup a new look.

Of course, that may have something to do with the chaos of my 130k inventory as well…

Finally, lets have a look at the location for these photos, namely our newly furnished bedroom in our Modern Villa by Trompe Loeil. We are using the brand new Minimalist Bedroom Set by Convair for this round of the Liaison Collaborative. The clean, elegant lines combined with the highly realistic texturing makes for quite an incredible look. Included in the set are bed, bench, bed tables, drawer, dresser, lamps and rug and it is available in dark (seen here) and light wood.

The set also comes in either Adult or PG and there’s animations in both the bench and the bed, with the latter containing 19 singles, 21 couples and 36 adult animations in the Adult version.

I was really impressed by the fabric textures in particular and that bed has to be one of the most realistic beds I have seen in Second Life with the way the covers are modelled. And at just 23 Land Impact for the whole set, this would be an excellent addition to any modern home.

If you’re still with me after all that text, let me just fill in that my hair is the new release from Magika, the adorable Shine style, and my eyes are once again from Mayfly.