Just Starting Out: Part I

February 20th, 2008 at 02:01pm Express Zenovka

To start off, I figured I’d do a two-parter post where I go back to the basics. When I first jumped into this virtual world, I followed a few online guides to help me “get started.” Two stores always came up as the places to go: Free Dove and GNUbie. These two places are are pretty solid start. I’ll focus on some of my favorites at Free Dove in this post, and follow up on my favorites at the GNUbie store in the next one.

Free Dove is organized as a bunch of tables with signs on them. The store is pretty self explanatory and everything is free — zero lindens. “Men’s Clothing” and “Men’s Shoes” are both to the left of the teleport spot. As a word of warning, Free Dove, unfortunately, is for “humans” only so if you’re trying to be a stylish anthro make sure you throw on a normal skin before you go there.

Good shoes are hard to find. Actually, that’s a lie. There are quite a few nice shoes coming out for guys, especially recently. But finding freebie shoes for guys is tough. Luckily, Free Dove has quite a few offerings. My favorites are the canvas Jpet jsneaks from Janey Suen. This line of shoes seems to have long left the grid except for the one pair available at the Free Dove men’s shoes table. Now I’ll admit that these shoes, especially the larger size, are very chunky. But remember that they are free (as in beer, not freedom). You’ll find that in practice quite a few pants cover up the shoes’ imperfections and reveal only the front bit, which looks pretty decent.

The small size is designed for tiny feet, so I’ll take a moment to remind y’all about the importance of having different “alternate” shapes. If your shape is moddable, be sure to take advantage of it so you can fit your clothes better. A “zero size foot” shape is good for those times you want to wear shoes but your toes pop out the front. The “zero size butt” shape is good for those jackets that come with a skirt piece, to prevent the skirt from poofing out in back, while a “zero size ear” shape is good for all those neko or other animal guys who want to wear animal ears and cover their normal ones with hair. While it may clutter your inventory, these shapes are handy to have around so you can toss them on when need be.

But back to the shoes. In real life, I get by with a single pair of shoes: a nice black pair of sneakers, since “black goes with everything”. While the canvas sneakers do look good, there’s a chance they don’t fit with your outfit. Luckily you’ve got more options at the freebie table. For example, Steve Hansen offers his Primero sneakers in black with bronze trims. These shoes could have been my favorite pair at the table if it weren’t for a bling script they come with. The shoes default to having bling on, which means they’ll start blinging every time you log on with them. Steve, if you’re reading this, do the grid a favor and at least make the default on these shoes be “bling off”. If someone wants the bling, they’ll figure out how to turn it on themselves. Stylewise, these shoes are definitely less chunky than the jsneaks. The “bronze” is a little strong and closer to safety orange, but shoes are still dark and can be worked into quite a few outfits.

The table has a few other options, varying from dress shoes and other casual shoes, so pick up any you like for fitting with other outfits you may come across down the road.

A few tables over, tucked into the corner, are the Men’s Clothing tables at Free Dove. There are a bunch of clothes there, ranging from a free cape and free bracelets to full boxes of outfits. One small box I happened to like are Renegade Retro Guy’s Shirts. This small pack of four tshirts were the first shirts I ever “bought” in SL, and I wore em for a long time. The jokes on them are old (Napoleon Dynamite, anyone?) but they’re still good for a chuckle. The shirts have decent texturing, featuring heavy wrinkling and creasing, and come in different colors so you can change up your wardrobe. The sleeves are a bit short for my taste, and these shirts are only distributed on the jacket layer, but like everything at Free Dove the price can’t be beat. The three other styles are here, here, and here.

I wasn’t particularly enamored by any of the pants I found at Free Dove, but I realize I can’t really leave y’all pantsless (what will the children think?) till I finish my next article. One pair I didn’t dislike too much are the black jeans from SteubenStuff. These are available in a box of SteubenStuff clothes on the table there. My main complaint with these is that the texture is a bit blurry and I find myself thinking I haven’t rezzed properly. Out of the box, the jeans are a bit tight looking, but they are moddable and thus you can “stretch” them out a bit. However, there are a variety of clothes available so hopefully a guy can find something that fits his personal style. If not, check back every month or so because new items do appear.

Visit Free Dove at Gallii (113,53,33).

Disclosure: Seen in World: Yes | Review Copy: No | Friends List: No

Notes: On Express: "Antonio Dark - Stubble" skin by Funk Schnook (FNKY!).

Entry Filed under: Free Dove,Freebies,Pants,Shirts,Shoes,Urban