Men's Second Style

I’m still exploring the Wonderful World of Mesh, slowly but steadily. It’s interesting and encouraging to see the increasingly polished and sophisticated design work being done. Of course here I’m thinking specifically of clothing items, but I’ve seen some remarkable pieces of furniture and other creations as well. Although opinions vary and mesh is by no means a magic bullet for any of the clothing issues we’ve grumbled about for so long, I think it has some great features. Properly rigged, mesh garments are able to move impressively with your avatar—and neither skin-tight, like garment-layer clothing items, nor segmented, as prim or sculptie attachments that span joints necessarily are. I also love the level of textural detail that’s possible, which far surpasses what can be done with garment-layer clothing textures.

OnO Zinner’s shop Neurolab Inc. presents a wide range of highly detailed, carefully designed designs with distinctly futuristic cyberpunk styling. His recently released Mesh Baggyz, while they can certainly be worn in a cyberpunk setting and fit in quite well, are a bit more conventionally styled than most of OnO’s other designs. As a result, they also work beautifully well in non-themed ensembles, for contemporary casual wear. They’re impressively detailed and precisely rigged for a “look and feel” that’s completely realistic. From the patch pockets to the perforated leather inserts at inner thigh (for durability) to the super-slouchie cuffs to the fabric texture that looks somehow deep, they succeed on every level.

Hopefully it goes without saying that even jacket-layer shirt garments will appear to be tucked into these pants, for reasons that I’m sure are obvious. I must also offer the frustrating but necessary caveat that others can’t see your mesh clothing properly unless they’re also using a mesh-compliant viewer. If that’s the bad news, then the good news is that the official viewer has been making slow but steady improvements in speed, stability and interface and is, for my money, much more enjoyable and less frustrating to use. In particular, the recent update that got rid of the fly-out inventory panel in favor of customizable sidebar controls and movable windows seems sent from heaven.

OnO’s Mesh Baggyz in the Camo style are available in  Black,  Brown,  Green,  Jungle,  Pink,  Sand,  Urban, and White. You’ll also find solid-color “Uni” and more cyberpunk-y “Electro” styles, similarly constructed but differently detailed. L$600 a pair at Neurolab Inc. (NLAB Inc 198, 125, 30); some are also available in packs.

The skin here is “eep 001″, which (you will be not at all surprised to learn) designates it as the first and so far only skin release at eep. This is a handsome skin, with a good-looking, straight-up masculine face, muscular but not at all overdone torso, and smoothly executed artwork. The musculature is just the tiniest bit more developed and defined than I tend to prefer for myself. However, (a) lately I’ve been exploring (second) life in shapes other than “Ryan” (and enjoying myself in the process, I might add), and (2) the artwork effectively strikes such a nice balance between (if I may hazard my best guess) the hand-painted detailing and the underlying photo-sourced base artwork that I can’t help but admire and enjoy it.

Choose from five skin tones (“Fair” is shown here) and five facial hair options, L$499 each or L$1499 for a single-tone fatpack. Look around the tiny but clever shop and you’ll find a L$100 “creep” version (probably released for Halloween, but I only just spotted it this week). At eep (The Whisper 48, 97, 3902).