Where to get free hair, skins, and shapes?

I've brought a number of personal friends to Second Life, whom I have set up with skins, hair and shapes to replace the grotesque Help Island avatars they typically start out with. I'm happy to take care of my friends, but I keep encountering newbies who are desperate to change their looks but don't yet have enough Lindens to acquire a look they're happy with. I show them where to get free clothes, housing, gadgets, and vehicles (the Junk Yard, the Forest, etc.), but it's very difficult to find even marginally attractive free shapes, skins, and hair it seems (especially for women). There seem to be quite a number of free furry avatars available at these places, but most of them are male, and I really haven't found any non-gimmick human avatars there.

Can anyone list places they know of that have these sorts of non-demo items for free or VERY cheap? (Even if some store just has one freebie.) I'm all for supporting Second Life's community of artists (and believe me I support them on a daily basis) but having an avatar people connect with aesthetically early on seems to make a big difference on their decision of whether to commit more time/money to this game/platform/metaverse.

Thanks!

Unfortunately my similar searches have not turned up any free male skins. I found a couple of places that offer free female skins, however, such as Odds & Ends (Adriana Caligari's store).

PixelSpa and HoseQueen both offer skins (both genders) in the $250-350L range, and they're not too shabby for the price. Buyers have to realize that they're not getting the same fine quality as they would with a skin priced at over $1000L, of course.

Call me shallow. But I'd never marry a girl who was wearing free hair and skins. I want a girl who is worth a million dollars, Linden dollars.

Celestial Studios made one of their female skins (I believe the tan Passport one) a freebie, which is of very excellent quality. Most Mentors should have this one by now in their freebie toolkits, so just ask one. High-def free male skins? Hmnn.. still haven't found any.

The Korean Welcome Area (in sim 'Korea 1' I believe) has freebie complete male and female avs that come with free prim hair, complete with alpha textures. Very well made too. There is also a freebie female prim hair pack that covers some basic styles like ponytails and pigtails in non-alpha. Again, most Mentors have picked this up by now.

Free shapes? Hmnn.. no, can't say I have seen freebie shape packs yet, but I think it would be a good idea. Perhaps some of the helpstaff can get together and donate some of their current and past Shape objects- enough to aggregate a shape pack. There is also a large library (something like 18 folders) of free furry av's (including some older Luskwoods) that are great for new furry residents.

You can get some free hair at the GNUbie store in Indigo.

There's a store called the Free Dove that has a small selection of free skins, and I think an offer for free hair for newbies. It's primarily a free clothing store, designed to have good free clothing instead of the usual ugly stuff. I also know ETD has newbie hair for something like L$60, but that may be too expensive still. I don't know of anywhere you can get free shapes.

About the L$250-350 skins: if these don't have a demo, I don't recommend that newbies buy them. Or anyone, really.

If I have a skin and want to change the head tattoo... is there any way to mix and match the tattoo from another skin without actually having the texture?

Without a deviant and evil hack, no. If the skin is modifiable, you can drag your own head texture onto the skin editor, but you'll probably forever lose the original head texture.

Speaking as a skin designer, I may at some point offer a few free skins at the point when I might naturally discontinue the particular design. However, knowing how much work that goes into skinning, I would definitely want to recoup my time and effort before giving something away.

Admittedly, its horribly unorganized, but feel free to browse the freebie table at the Shelter. I'm not sure about skins, but I'm fairly certain that some content creators have donated free hair and shapes (and a landmark to where you can browse their other items). I know Hosequeen was very generous with us in the past

If you search on the Shelter and teleport in - its a table right in front of you with chairs around it.

Good luck!

Travis, I stopped by the Shelter the other night to see if they had any, and was told they didn't offer any free skins for newbies. More's the pity

That said, I have a folder of landmarks I drop on newbies all the time and it includes Yadni's, the Shelter, GNUbie and a couple of other places.

There's something satisfyingly deviant about helping new people clutter their inventories on their first day. Bwahahaha!

Thank you, thank you for all the ideas. I forgot to make my own contribution in my original post. SLExchange has a female skin called "The Judy" for $1L. The face is very pretty in my opinion although the rest of the body is kind of unevenly textured. (Works fine if you're clothed though!) It's classified as a 'mature' item, so I won't link to it here.

Gurl 6 offers new hair for newbies, just go to the store and grab the voucher which contains the information on how to receive your hair.

I believe the person has to be within 2 weeks of creation. But then they get to go thru the store and pick one hairstyle they like.

I know ETD has low priced newbie hair too.

*huggles*

Ash

Myself and another are working on updating the freebies over at TeaZers. Female skins are in my list of "already got it" but male skins are proving to be tougher to come by. The voucher that Gurl 6 offers is an excellent idea that we're starting to pitch to other designers (with her permission to use the idea of course).

Shapes are something else we'll have out as well as clothing, hair, prim shoes, etc.

I have a few free female shapes, I suppose I should work on some more!

I have boxes of freebies at Spend-Less, Skins & Shapes, Male and female outfits and accesorries, 100% Free.

Nat

ssh, top secret: the Stylehive show featured freebie totebags from each of the designers in the show, one of which included six free Hosequeen skins...the totebags are STILL THERE at Stylehive (or were yesterday when I was there)

I have a bunch of free hair (default textured hair, not prim hair) available in my freebie vendors in Freelon and Aqua, and also available on Help Island.

Hehe - I'll see if I can bug a few people to see if they have any skins they'd be willing to share. I was given 3 skins a while back, but they were no-copy, and to be given out to 3 new residents individually... so that supply was fast exhausted.

From what I'm reading, however - all around it sounds like Skins aren't something often given out as freebies (legitamately, at least) due to the amount of effort involved.

There are some really talented new folks that have come through lately - maybe I'll pose the challenge & see if any of them are interested in making a couple for freebie purposes. At the very least, it might help a budding designer get their name out there

You're shallow

Would anyone posting their freebie locations here object to us including them and/or giving a notecard of the locations in our freebie section when we're done with it?

I'm not talking about the usual freebie stuff that's been around for a year or two or was a 'first attempt', I'm looking for the good stuff from people that really want to help new residents get immersed into SL sooner rather than later.

June Dion at BareRose has made three or four skins available at her shop for $1L. GURL6 has a new resident's hair coupon good for someone who has been a resident 4 weeks or less (I think).

The one I saw was 2 weeks. She may have changed it to 4? I'll check the package she gave me to be certain the next time I'm in-world.

I have created a plethora of what I call "Starter Avatars". They are individual people, some modeled after RL people I've known (or wanted to know!)

They are completely modifyable and are available at the New Citizens Inc. (NCI) for 1L each.

You can get the avatars, chuck the rest of the parts and just make use of the shape if you like. They were created to give people options on looking different from the noobie avatar.

There is also a selection of ethnic avatars as well, and I also tried to make each avatar look "like themselves" ie individual people.

From height, body shape, facial features etc.

You can find the New Citizens Inc by using Find - Places, or teleporting from my profile picks.

Enjoy!

Wow Brace that is great! Can you send me a landmark when you are in world please, I can pass it around to some noobies

Sure! But in case I forget - you can click on this picture while logged in and teleport right to the NCI Plaza in Kuula sim (I think!) LOL toss me an IM anyhow if you don't hear from me.


(behind my left shoulder is the Brace Coral Collection - the 1L Avatars/Characters/Costumes and Clothing)