I Took the Plunge #2

In the last post, I left off wearing the Maitreya body and a preset GA applier that was close to my current skin.

So what’s the next step when wearing a mesh body?

Well, I still need hands and feet.

The Maitreya body says it will work with XS SLink hands and feet (bonus – since I already own those!), but I wanted to try the feet and hands that came with the body first.

The WowMeh body had weirdly skinny ankles, so I was curious to see how the Maitreya feet would look.

The SLink hands are very nice, but many people seem to have problems fitting them and/or matching their skins well, and I often see lines or gaps where the SLink hands join the SL avatar.

So I was also curious to see how the Maitreya hands looked.

You do have to ‘add’ the hands and feet to the body, but once you do that, it’s a breeze to change everything else with the HUD.

Here I am with feet and hands:

Once I added the hands and feet, it was a few clicks to apply the right skin preset and some pretty nail polish.

At this point, I have to admit, I stopped and took a few minutes just to admire the body.

Hubs was watching and he, too, was impressed with the way the body looked.

Sure, the skin tone isn’t an exact match, but it is still a damn good looking body.

And it’s mine!

Feeling pretty pumped about my decision to purchase this body, I needed to soldier on.

For my readers, of course.  Not just for myself.  😛

As I was doing 360 cam circles around the body, hubs suggested I take a shot of the back.

Doh!

I forgot to do that with my SL avatar.  But not this time.

Here is the new me from behind:

When I first tried the demo on, I wasn’t sure I liked how the butt of the body looked.

It’s grown on me.

I love the two dimples right above the buttocks.

I think this was hubs’ favorite view.

After a few more moments admiring my new curves, it was time to get back to work.

I’ll get back to the hands and feet in a just a moment.

I thought it might be helpful to put the ‘before’ and ‘after’ shots next to each other, so it would be easier to visually compare them.

So here they are – the ‘before’ and ‘after’:

The skin tones are not quite the same, but the boobs are much rounder and perkier.

I’ve lost a little definition between my waist and hips.

And the feet and hands of the new body win, hands down.  (See what I did there?)  😀

My shoulders seem a little curvier.

I’ve lost that weird ankle bulge (thank goodness!).

The legs and arms are much smoother.

Definitely an improvement.

So, back to the hands and feet.

Sure, they look good from far away.  But how well do they stand up when you get close?

These are pictures of the front and back of the ankle.

See the seam?

Me either. 😀

I have a nice ankle and pretty nail polish.

These pictures are using the mid feet, but the flat and high feet were just as seamless.

Plus, it was only one click of the HUD to change from one set of feet to another.

Yay!

So the feet are clear winners for me.  But what about the hands?

I put them to the close-up test as well.

If you look really, really, really closely you might be able to see a seam.

I couldn’t.

Not at all.

Woohoo!

The Maitreya currently only comes with one set of hands.  (These pictures show the short nail length.)

However, I have read that if there is a demand for other hand positions, the creator is open to adding more hands later.

If they do, I sincerely hope you will be able to change the hands from the HUD with one click, like you can the feet.

I’ve made it through so far with only one pair of SLink hands, so I’m not concerned with having only one set.

But options are always good. 🙂

Speaking of options, you can also change the nail length on the hands (like you can with the SLink hands).

Using the HUD, you can change the nail length from short, to medium, to long.

I generally leave my nails set to long.

Did I mention I love that you can choose from 19 different polish colors from the HUD?

One click and you can make your nail polish match pretty much any outfit.

Very convenient.

Much faster than searching through my inventory and through all my SLink nail appliers, trying to remember which ones look like what.

Options are good, but convenience counts too.

Ok, so the Maitreya hands and feet are amazing.

But the information with the body says I can wear my SLink hands and feet.  Can I really?

Let’s find out!

I normally wear the medium size SLink hands and feet.  So will they work?

As you can see, there is a noticeable seam on the ankle.

Most of this is due to the fact that the skin tones don’t match.

From the front, the ankle seam isn’t horrible.

It is a little worse from the back, but I could probably get away with wearing the feet.

The hands, though.

Ack.

No hiding that gap.

So clearly, the medium SLink hands don’t work, and the medium SLink feet aren’t perfect.

No surprise, since the information says to use the XS size of SLink hands and feet.

I don’t have the GA appliers for the SLink hands and feet, so there will still probably be a seam.

But hopefully there won’t be any gaps like you see with the medium hands.

Let’s find out!

Here are close-ups of the XS SLink feet:

You can still see the seam, as I expected.

But the size of the feet matches the size and shape of the ankle.

So if I got the correct appliers to make all the skin tones match, I’m set!

Which means that I can wear not only my SLink feet, but all the SLink shoes!

My SLink shoe collection isn’t huge, but I do often have to wear them as part of costumes when I dance, so having the option is a huge plus.

Now, what about the hands?

Can I get away with those too?

Again, the mismatched skin tones create a visible seam.

But with the right appliers, I am definitely able to wear the SLink hands as well.

Yippee!

I hate wasting money (even virtual money) and being able to use my SLink hands and feet is a definite win.

Not to mention the L$ I’ve spent on SLink shoes and nail appliers!

So I’m very happy to learn that I don’t have to just toss all of those items.

However, I can definitely see myself using the Maitreya hands and feet instead, just for the sake of the convenience.

The last couple of items I want to cover in this post are the neck seam and the thigh area.

Because you are using your system avatar head, it’s important that the skin colors match in order to hide the seam between the body and the SL avatar.

I am not using an exact skin match, so of course the neck seam was visible.

See it here:

You can clearly see the seam at the back.

The front seam blends a little better than the back, but is still visible because of the mismatched skin.

However, there is a neck fix option on the HUD.

I looked to see what the setting for body fat was on my shape and then picked the appropriate neck fix.

One click of the HUD.

Again, the fix is visible, but I am confident that once I get matching skin tones, the seam will be invisible, even without the fix.

After I applied the fix, the neck seam looked like this:

With the fix on, there is a tiny piece that sticks out a bit from my neck.

However, the size of the fix is spot on.

Plus, I think with a different hairstyle, one that falls around the neck and shoulders, much of the seam would be hidden.

I am still debating about skin options, but I am definitely going to play with the RGB settings on the HUD to see if I can find an exact skin match.

If I can do that, then I’m all set!

One of the things that I have always disliked about the SL default avatar is the ugly black smears that appear between the legs.

When you do certain dance moves, those shadows of the skin texture do weird things.

I once stumbled across a supposed ‘fix’ for this – it was an underwear layer texture that was supposed to get rid of the ugly smears.

It sort of worked.

But it was still weird looking.  And I often find myself avoiding certain dances because they have moves that highlight that very unattractive sight.

Brace yourselves.

It’s hideous, I know.

There’s no way to make that look good.

And when you’re trying to do a sexy, sensual dance – ick.

As I said, I would avoid dances where this area was highlighted.

Also notice the distortion of the right leg and buttock area.

It looks like I have a skin flap or something hanging down off my thigh.

Gross.

Thankfully, with a mesh body, all this is fixed.

Voilá!

No ugly inner thigh smear.

No distortion of the leg or buttock area.

Just smooth curves.

A much, much nicer line overall.

I am completely in love with this body.

I love the overall curves and how it looks.

I don’t even mind the slightly mismatched skin tone.

I’d still wear it, even like that.

So now we’ve seen how the body looks with hands and feet, both the Maitreya and SLink options.

We’ve looked at the neck seam and the problem thigh area.

What’s next?

One of the other big questions I had was whether or not I could wear any of my current mesh wardrobe with the body.

In the next post, I’ll show you how I fared.

As always, please comment away and let me know whether you’ve enjoyed reading these posts and whether the information is helpful to you.