Second Life Starter-Up Basics
Second Life, like any other platform, takes some getting used to. If you are new or have no experience using Second Life then gather your patience, as you will need it to start your Second Life journey. Before anything, download FireStorm Viewer for Second Life; this is what you will use to play SL instead of the original SL Viewer.
Once you are logged into your Second Life account...
Step one: Buying Lindens (Money/currency) Small FYI, to reduce the amount of fraud, Linden Labs only allows your first few purchases of Lindens to be done in small increments of approx 5k per 24 hrs for the first 2 days, then the limit raises from there. Now, when I first began, that hiccup alone was a nuisance, so don’t let that deter you! To go around that (and this may or may not be a good recommendation so do it at your own risk), I made an alternate account and bought Lindens on that one to send to my main account. How to pay yourself? After purchasing your Lindens, go to Content>People>Your Main In-World name. Then, right-click your Profile>Open Profile> Pay.
Step Two: Removing all of your ‘startup avi’ clothes Now, for this step, you must locate your Inventory icon. To do so, go to Inventory>Wearing Tab. Once in the Wearing Tab, right-click each product and hit Detach. At that point, you should be good and nearly invisible. (To stay organized, I usually delete these starter products as they will only unnecessarily get in the way, further down the line)
Step Three: Buying your mesh body and head!
(Now I do want to let you all know that I specialize in female appearances, not necessarily males but I will guide you to the best of my knowledge).
For both guys and gals, Catwa is the easiest. There are other options like Lelutka, Fiore and Genesis, but if you are new and still getting a feel for SL, Catwa is the most versatile and easiest way to go. You can access the Catwa Store from this link, paste it into the firestorm address bar.
Once you are there, view the heads and try the demo of the head of your choice. Do not try it on yet, just accept it into your inventory once the options appear. Then, to try the Demo, you simply click or right-click the demo then a little pie menu will appear, at that point, press ‘Buy’ another pop-up may come up telling that it cost $0 or $1L and you are to confirm the purchase of the demo.
Step Four: Your Mesh Body! For guys, based on my research, the easiest and most compatible body is the Signature Gianni. It is at their Mainstore for $3000Ls. Here is a video of Strawberry Singh's review and walkthrough of it. There is also Slink male, TMP, and Niramyth Aesthetic body types; asimple search on Google will help locate them.
Now, for girls, for bodies, I always recommend Maitreya mesh body for beginners. In my opinion, it one of the most realistic body types; it is made slim and can go for skinny looks as well as just a normal, everyday woman. It is available at the Maitreya Mainstore for L$2750.
For other bodies, in my opinion, Slink Hourglass is really curvy and sort of reminds me of Instagram model body types. The waist is capable to get super slim and the breast and butts are able to expand drastically. Of course, you can slim it all down but most use it for its curvaceous look. Maitreya and Slink are the two most common body types. But, with Slink, it can be a bit expensive as you have to buy the body, the hands and then the feet all separately! Then, when applying the Slink skins to your body, you have to apply it all separately and, sometimes, even buy them all separately as well. Now, if you have the Ls to spend and you like the look, go for it! It is always beautiful once they’re put together but I wouldn’t recommend it for beginners unless you have one-on-one help. It is all available at the Slink Mainstore.
For more descriptive reviews of the mesh bodies, head over to Strawberry Singh's Youtube channel where she goes into greater detail about each one!
Step Five: Skin! Now that you have your head and body demos, we need to locate a skin to use for your look. There are tons and tons of stores for skins. For those who may want visuals, Strawberry Singh has awesome tutorials! This is a starter up tutorial!
Disclaimer: the personal views and opinions written in this post are from the writer and do not always express the professional opinion and views of Verve X Magazine.
