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

Read More

Two Heads are better than one - Pandora reporting

I never thought that I would find my original Pandora especially not in Mesh and now that there were two of me I knew I would be in for a lot of work. Neither avatar wore the same outfit or hair as I wanted them both to have their own look and style.
Pandora’s Poppy really nailed it. She had the cute sexy thing going for her and it suited her perfectly. The new Pandora, which I simply referred to as V1, took on a more sexy,classy approach. Considering that was how she looked in her classic days it seemed like the obvious way to go.
Something was missing with V1 as much as she looked like the old Pandora I couldn’t work out what the issue was. Then I realised she needed a different head because the Poppy one wasn’t  exactly right for her.
I went to LAQ to get more demos. The story of my life these days or should I say my Second Life. I teleported back home to check out all of the demos. Finally I settled on the Neve head luckily this one didn’t need any further tweaking. I went to LAQ again to buy the head and then home to complete my project.

V1 had now become Pandora’s Neve. It’s as though I have this alt stuck in my inventory that I bring to life every now and then. Alts may have different personalities depending on their creators but two versions of an avatar? That is a whole new situation and one that I hadn’t encountered before let alone thought of. I have two alts already so having a different version of me can get complicated at times.
Pandora’s Poppy earned the nickname of V2 just to make it easier even though she was the first Mesh avatar that I created. V1 had been there since the days of classic avatars and I still have one saved version of her tucked away.

I am enjoying my SL this time around however a word of advice to the newbies out there. Don’t go making half a dozen alts or several versions of yourself just because it seemed like a good idea at the time. Trust me you’ll go crazy … I have and there’s no going back.

Read More

The "Shape Doctor" of SL- DoctorKaren Kanto Reporting…

On my travels through SL, I happened upon an individual, Pertinax Greggan, whose profile caught my attention.

He professed to having some expertise with female shapes in SL and I just had to find out what that was all about. Prior to the interview, I asked him what he thought of my shape (this was made easier by the fact that we were both at a nudist sim at the time), and he offered several "corrections" that, when I tried them out, all were small but significant improvements that I have retained.

Karen: Your profile says you are a "Shape Doctor, making realistic female shapes as a sort of hobby, not to sell... I give them away!" What do you mean by "Shape Doctor"?

Pertinax: Well, there are positively hordes of women out there in SL who have tinkered with their own shapes and ended with results that are less than anatomically plausible, much less aesthetically pleasing. I draw photo-realistically in RL and, so I have a good eye for form and proportion. ((points to a drawing on his wall)) That is done with pencil and charcoal and some chalk... it loses something from the scan to SL, though.

Read More