*eyeballs the sartorial darlings*
Y’know how much I dislike mesh heads, right? All samey-samey, android-like perfection or rugged machismo dude, yeah?
Right.
*cough*
So… Berry blogged the new CATWA ‘Jackson’ mesh head the other day, and I was intrigued enough by it to consider demoing it. It actually looked pretty damn good, includes makeup layers, and… well, rather importantly for me, it isn’t a TMP head. I’ve made my feelings very clear in posts on this blog about TMP, and how I disagree with certain of their business practices.
Anyway, I hit up Marketplace to pick up the demo of this head. I tried it out, and fuck me backwards, it actually looks quite a bit like Skell. Well, it looks quite a bit like Skell when he’s in full-on macho mode, but still… I was astonished enough to think, “Yeah, okay. I’m going to buy this one.” So I did.
Of course, being rigged mesh, the underlying bone structure helps to make the head ‘look like’ the avatar beneath it, but I was pleasantly surprised by this head. It’s not android-perfect. It’s characterful (which is a BIG plus point) and, well yeah… it’s damned handsome.
As far as I can tell no creators (apart from CATWA and L’Etre) have made appliers thus far for this head. There are a few small issues for me, notably around the neck join (the head has a very light section of skin under the chin on one side, which I had to blend for these pictures (so please excuse my crappy Photoshop skillz) and it took a few minutes of puzzling before I figured out why the area of beard-n-tache around Skell’s lips remained white when the rest of his face fuzz was black, but I sorted it out in the end.
ETA: There’s an appliers list on the CATWA blog, here.
I feel like it does need some different options for the mouth, as that’s the one part where ‘Jackson’ differs from Skell. Skell’s got a broad mouth, whereas ‘Jackson’ has quite pursed lips. It looks a little bit sardonic (which I actually like) and that’s without using any of the optional animations (check out Berry’s post for a video showing those).
So yeah. I went and bought a mesh head. And I wasn’t even really kicking and screaming. Yeah, Skell, you give that ironic little smirk, you smug little shit :p
Credits
Head: CATWA – Jackson
Coat: Body Factory – Classic Coat
Hair: Exile – Akio (raven)
Eyes: IKON – Hope Eyes (storm)
Rings: Kibitz – Rosie Rings
I think it really suits you!
So does Daros, which means I’ll have to start wearing it more often! XD
Looks great!
Thank you! I was honestly very surprised by how much it resembled Skell, given that all of the other mesh heads I’ve seen (at least, the male ones, which can’t be customised half as much as female heads by way of makeup etc) seem to be much of a muchness. Most of the guys I see wearing the TMP heads look like some Beautiful Brotherhood clones: perfect, smooth-skinned androids. It’s not that I don’t appreciate the beauty (because I do!) but more and more of my Flickr feed is starting to look very very… same-y.
Awesome coat bro.
What pants and boots are you wearing with that, if you don’t mind me asking?
Thanks! I didn’t mention the boots and pants because they actually were leftovers from a previous look that I blogged a couple of weeks ago. If I’d cammed out to show them (the boots, at least) then I would have been a horrendous mishmash of styles! I only wanted to take a few quick pics of the head, but – given the join issues at the neck with the skin I was wearing – I needed a top with a high collar of some sort. It took so long to find one that I liked, I had no time to change the pants and boots. Since I was wearing the Slink male mesh body, I was wearing Omega applier pants by Sn@tch – Second Skin Leather Pants – and knee-high, high-heeled Rock Boots by Pixel Box. Full-sized pics of both of those can be found in the post before this one on the blog.
While I was at the Body Factory buying the coat, I also picked up a nice pair of combat pants & boots in black. Worked out very nicely.
I will also check your post as well.
quote | (the head has a very light section of skin under the chin on one side, which I had to blend for these pictures | unquote
The cure for this is in the main hud. In the Hide/Show section hide the first two. (the skulls)
I’m really glad you wrote this post, I’ve had the same misgivings about mesh, because the majority of the mesh avvies I’ve seen just all look alike. The whole point of SL is that you can be whatever you want to be, and I just don’t want to be the same as everybody else, all wearing the same few choices of expressions on their faces. But you’re right, he does look Skell-y. Love that bottom photo, mostly because of of your ending sentence: “Yeah, Skell, you give that ironic little smirk, you smug little shit :p” Yes, I laughed at that, because the pic was exactly that, lol. More importantly, it means that a mesh head wearer managed to get across a specific thought and expression. Kudos. I still have a love-hate relationship with the mesh – love the smooth texture and quality of creation, hate the cookie cutter factory-ness. But I’m getting closer to the inevitable “give it a try.”