Wanted: Skin/Clothing/AO advisor

I have been to a number of suggested stores (previous thread, thanks) to look at freebies, and for paid Skins, Clothing, AOs and etc

These shops usually have no one around to answer questions etc.

What I would like is if someone who knows men's stuff can advise me.

I don't know if it is allowed here, but I am willing to pay a fee for online consultancy.

You haven't been backward in coming forward, so far, in these forums. Why don't you ask those questions here?

Pep (It wouldn't cost you anything and you'd get a broader range of opinions as well.)

I am sure by posting here that you will soon have someone more than willing to help you

I don't know much about men's things but I know you will find the help soon

Thanks, and yes, I followed the advice given, but did not end up with anything either (a) useful or (b) that I could understand.

In one place I ended up naked, and had to struggle to get my old stuff back. I find that my clothing and AOs and stuff are all in different folders in my inventory, often incomplete now. Sigh.

When I get something, it's often in a box (why?) that I cannot open in the shop, and I have to go to a sandbox to open it, and then the pieces go into unknown folders which I have to search for. What a pain. Then I have to go back to a shop to look some more. Not Fun.

I don't want spend days with this, fighting and struggling. I am not a shopper... I know many enjoy this, but I do not.

now I KNOW you are gonna get help! JK

an option to needing a sandbox to open boxes is to wear the box on your right hand, edit it, go to contents, and drag the contents into your inventory.

Sounds like you need some inventory control advice, in addition to the shopping advice.
Caledon Oxbridge is offering a class in this...check their schedule to see when the next one is.

Meanwhile...

Handling boxed things. When you open a box, don't click "copy to inventory". Instead, first make a new folder in your inventory. Say you're opening a box of shoes. Call the folder "purple sneakers" or something. Now, highlight all the items in the box by SHIFT+Click. Drag the items into the folder you've made for them.

Presto. Now the contents are all in one place, and not scattered in folders everywhere.

Making an Outfit. When you have an appearance that you like, including clothes and AO and all, right click yourself and go into Appearance mode. Click on the Make Outfit button. Next, select all the little check boxes that have anything by them. Then give your outfit a name ("surferdude2" and save it.

If you ever wind up naked again, or just want to recover that appearance, right click the surferdude2 folder in your inventory and choose Replace Outfit.

NOTE: No Copy items will go into the outfit folder, and might therefore be hard to find when you go to look for them in their original location. Therefore, be careful about including No Copy items when you are making choices for your outfit.

What Lindal says about making an outfit is a great time/stress saver. Just putting together a couple of looks (a casual, a suit, maybe a theme) would help tons.

I love nothing better than styling avatars & I have ridiculously good memory for
shops, particularly cheap and free, yet quality ones.

If you still need or want help, I'll try to look you up inworld this evening.

Advance advice on what you might get taught in classes: call the folder with your default skin, shape, hair, eyes, clothes, huds and attachments by a name that begins with several exclamation marks so it is right at the top of your inventory when sorted by name and thus easily findable.

I don't trust the "recent items" filter so I move everything from the system folders into my own named folders (with a single exclamation mark in front of the folder description so they are above the system folders) which means that it is fairly easy to find new stuff that has been filed randomly among the system folders without you knowing it.

If you are like me and very lazy, with an antipathy to both shopping and the scathing comments of females who don't understand that if something is worth wearing it is worth wearing for months on end, join the male section of DSN which will offer you surprise gifts on a regular basis.

If you are going to buy *anything* at all (usually freebies are remarkably good value ) make sure you get a good pair of shoes. They are difficult to find, but makes all the difference. I have a pair from Kalnins that I am very happy with, but I have noticed a few more brands since I got them.

Pep (And I am not talking about trainers!)

See? How lovely it is to read your posts when you allow yourself the luxury of humorous self-deprecation! (And I mean that in all sincerity.)

"No-Copy" items... What can you do with these? Are they useful at all? What limits to I have with those?

I am who I am, whatever the words I post.

Pep (And *that* is my argument against those who post wishing cancerous death on others.)

I could probably help you out sometime and you don't have to pay me. I also wrote a notecard for newbies with a section specifically for where to find stuff for guys. I'll drop that off to you when I get in-world and I'm usually able to pop in after 3pm SLT or so. When are you usually around?

I make specific outfit folders using nocopy clothing, together with the remaining copiable components.

Pep (Men don't need to mix and match as much as women. )

Maybe, but IF so, you are adept at giving voice to some very different facets of the same personality.

I like THIS facet very much.

This is my main inventory organization method, for women and men. you can then easily scan down the inventory and if any system folder has items, they are new and need to be dealt with. Ditto for any new folder name.

The only limit is that you can only have one copy of it. This is only a problem if you make outfit folders and want that item in multiple outfits cuz it can only exist in one place.

I am extremely adept . . .

Pep ( . . . which is apparently particularly disturbing for others in an environment where so few appear to be able to demonstrate any of their undoubted complexity in their online personalities.)

PS Do you know *anyone* well, all of whose personality facets you like? I don't.

Fair enough. It is just your particular "gift" that some of the facets you display seem to evoke especially violent reactions. Why not focus on those that elicit positive responses? You'd be more effective in your critiques if you did, I'm sure.

I have a male friend who has been on SL 3 years. He owns 3 full outfits. He buys an outfit, new, every rez date. And wears it, til the next rez date. He has probably 10,000 scripts/textures other things in his inventory, and 3 clothing folders. I find this hilarious and rather endearing.

Do you really think you needed to specify that he was a *male* friend?

Pep (You should ask him why he is so profligate. )

In recent threads I have been labelled predictable, tiresome and boring. How does this accord with your suggestion that I "evoke especially violent reactions"?

Pep (I *do* focus on eliciting positive responses; it just depends on one's interpretation of the meaning of "positive". )

Oh, and VVV, don't bother with hunts unless you have infinite patience and a massive capacity for disappointment.

Pep (I thought I had both those characteristics, but I was wrong.)

There are often blogs (on my notecard i'll send you later) that feature the hunt finds, so what I tend to do is skim through them and just visit the places where I like the gift and let the bloggers do all the hard work. When you're new, there's a tendency to pick up everything but eventually you develop more discerning tastes.

OK, first off we need a basic idea of where you are headed. What look are you wanting? How do you want to look?

Most men want to look powerful, but that can be either Bruce Lee or Mike Tyson or Donald Trump. This also brings up the point that you can be any race you want. I would avoid the very pale or very dark ends of the scale because of shading issues, you lose a lot of detail on the body. You have mentioned collars and dominance before so you may want a mature Chinese master look or a large, bald black male. I ask because the bulk of SL skins run Caucasian to tanned Mediterranean. If you would like something else we would need to look at different places. There are some very good oriental skins, for example, but we would be traveling outside the english speaking grid so finding what you want becomes increasingly difficult.

Beside race and body size, how do you like to dress? Jeans and a t-shirt? GQ? Gangsta? Cyberpunk? Steampunk? Biker? Banker? Just give us a basic description of what you would find in your avatar's closet if he had one.

And finally ... what times are you online? That way someone who is willing to help would know if they are able to meet up with you.

Any other idea you can give us about how you want to portray yourself will also help.

Having a useful Inventory organization is really really helpful for your daily routines. Here's an example of what you can do to make appearance styling easier.

I use * Folder Name for folders I want to jump to the top of my inventory where they're easy to get to. The ones that I've created for quick avatar styling are:

* Basic Beebo: This holds my shape and favorite skin, hair and eyes.

* Basic Attachments: This holds my AO, and the tools I almost always wear on a daily basis (Hugger, radar)

In my Clothing folder, I've created a variety of folders that hold entire outfits so that with one click of a button I can be completely dressed. A typical folder might be:

Valiant casual: this has black slacks, white shirt, cuffs and collar, charcoal socks, Valiant vest, and a pair of grey Oslo shoes that match the vest.

A few judicious clicks and I'm ready to roll on the grid.