Bento Shapes Or Shapes For Bento Pandora Drezelan Reporting

I had always said that I would never mesh up my two alts that I created a few years ago however all of that changed when I was having a bored moment or is it a blond moment?

BJayy and Sindy were hardly ever logged on. They are only friended to me and each other. I guess they are my "me" time. As classic avatars I always made sure that they looked good with detailed skin and makeup. I hit the demos hard again and in the space of one day they went from being classics to Mesh with Maitreya bodies and LAQ heads like Pandora.

BJayy wore the Leia head and Sindy wore the Cherry head. I felt more than happy with the results. I logged them on one at a time every other day to tweak their looks and update their inventory. BJayy is a bit of a bimbo and is so easy to shop for. She wears a lot of pink or white as well as pastel colors. She never wears black. Sindy, on the other hand, has a very dominant look and is always wearing black so she is not so easy to shop for.

But people do get lucky, and I got lucky one day, when I had Sindy logged on and I decided to look in search for bento shapes which is something I don’t normally do.  I ended up at the LAQ commerce section of the LAQ Store where the LAQ compatible products are sold. It is a set up of stalls by creators such as Pink Fuel and Shiny Stuffs.

This was nothing new as I’d been to every level of the store before; except this time I came across something that I had missed amongst all of the other stalls. There was one that stood out from a bento shape creator by the name of WrenNoir Cerise.

For 399 Linden you get a folder with three shapes. Tall and slender as well as proportional and slightly curvy complete with style cards.  They are modifiable and copy. Each set of shapes has been specifically made for a certain LAQ head and there are demos available to try.
I went for the Cherry head shape demo straight away and tried it with Sindy. She looked great so I bought it. I then went on to buy shapes for Pandora and BJayy as well
.

Pandora wears the tall and slender shape for the Poppy head and I modified this shape. I kept my own head numbers and made the shoulders slightly bigger. The outcome was awesome.

Sindy wears the proportional shape for the Cherry head and I didn’t change her at all, she’s perfect just the way she is. BJayy wears the slightly curvy shape for the Leia head. I made BJayy’s nose and mouth a bit smaller but that’s it.

I haven’t bought shapes in a long time and these are the best shapes that I have seen lately in comparison to some scary ones that look nothing like their display photo.

This is going to be my ongoing learning experience as I have been experimenting with making shapes for personal use and trying different looks. Wren’s shapes are beautifully crafted and reasonably priced. Great for SL newbies and even SL oldies like me.

Wren’s Quote: "There is no such thing as a 'bento' shape. It is just a shape it’s the same as you would use with a classic avatar; however it has been fashioned for wearing with bento heads. This is because bento heads are "rigged" to the skeleton in their own way. So a shape is really made for a specific bento head rather than being a bento shape."

Very well said Wren and Thank you for all of your hard work.
None of the avatar photos have been altered they are as you see them. They’ve been given a soft glow and framed in GIMP both static poses and bento AO poses were used.

Wren’s main store: [wren’s nest]  
https://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Torver/186/214/22

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Finding Pandora - The Original Skin Pandora Drezlean reporting

Pandora’s Poppy became the new me. Changing over to Mesh had turned out to be quite a journey in the short amount of time that it took me to tweak my avi with the final touches.
Going fully Mesh wasn’t half the nightmare that I thought it would be when I got used to it releasing my creative side once more as I played with this new me, experimenting with different makeup and hair.
However there was no denying how much I missed my old face. I mean, I liked my new face, I created it but I just missed seeing the old Pandora.
LAQ has always been my go to place in SL when it came to skins and makeup they were my first choice. Their glow skins had always been so popular way back when and the first time I laid eyes on LAQ’s Lacie I knew I had to have that face.
I always visit the LAQ Store at least every two or three weeks for anything new or different. Then I found her. LAQ kept all of the older glow skins upstairs that now came in two parts. They were separated into head and body omega appliers. I had found my original Lacie.

One quick demo confirmed what I wanted to know and I teleported home to recreate my Pandora in Mesh.
With LAQ heads you can use either system or mesh eyes and so I chose to use the eyes that I used with Pandora’s old self. I wanted to keep something original about her.
Her skin isn’t as highly detailed as the newer skins. In fact she still looks a bit like a classic avatar and her makeup and eyebrows are already preset.

It’s fun to have two versions of me Pandora’s Poppy and Pandora’s Lacie. Poppy is like using a blank canvas where I can apply as little or as much makeup as I want to while Lacie has light makeup which I can simply add lipstick and eyeshadow to enhance her look.
Which avatar gets the most SL time? I think that they are pretty much on par with each other. Finding Pandora was like finding the missing piece of a puzzle for me. I had lived with that face for  almost nine years of my Second Life and I wasn’t ready to let her go.
The best part about all of this was … I didn’t have to.

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Getting A Head In Life Pandora Drezelan reporting

Okay, the last time that I wrote I had been checking out the Mesh situation in Second Life. I sampled a few demos and decided on the Maitreya Lara and Belleza Venus bodies.
I am currently wearing the Maitreya Lara body.
I liked both … it’s good to have a back up plan I guess.

The time had come for me to make a choice regarding my system head and this is where the problem started.
I really liked my system face … I mean like REALLY but I hated my actual system head. It didn’t look good with my new Mesh body no matter what I did.
I tried Mesh hair and Tattoo layer makeup I even bought a choker to hide the neck seam however there was no denying the way that I looked to ME.
Shopping wasn’t as much fun anymore. Everywhere I went I saw I lot of amazing makeup that I couldn’t wear unless I had a Mesh head.
This is only my opinion but unless you are really lucky then most system heads do not look good on a Mesh body. While the Mesh body is smooth wearing a system head with it doesn’t match up and may appear to have harsher edges.
I have always been a fan of LAQ. I’ve worn their skins for as long as I have been in SL. Two of my favourites were Lacie and Tasha so I decided to go back to where I started in the beginning and I purchased every demo that I could find.
I had five heads to demo. Sandy, Nyx, Leia, Neve and Poppy as well as skins and make up and the demo HUD.
I made a Project Folder for my demos and now the fun begins.
I demo’d everything to death for over two weeks and after many early mornings and sleepless nights Poppy won as my head of choice.
Then I TP’d back to LAQ

and bought EVERYTHING on my check list and straight back home again to get it all sorted. I had already tweaked Poppy’s head to look the way I wanted her to look. Now it was time for the final touches.
I made a folder for all of her body parts and named it Pandora’s Poppy. I made copies as well because I just make copies of everything. It drives me crazy that my inventory is so organised but I like it that way.
Now Pandora’s Poppy is complete. If you haven’t converted over to Mesh and you want to  then remember to demo EVERYTHING.
Make all the changes that you want on the demos. You can always take a break and start again later.
Converting from Classic to Mesh is your choice. It’s your Second Life not someone else’s so you decide.
I knew that giving up the face that I had known for eight plus years in SL would not be easy.
I was about to take on a whole new look and it would be worth it.

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