Second Life Steals, Deals, and Freebies: A Free 56-Texture Fur Coat from The Shops

I picked up this freebie tip from the Second Life freebie blog All Spiffy: did you know that you can pick up a long, luxurious, cruelty-free fur coat that comes in 56 different beautiful textures, for ZERO Lindens?

Of course, there’s a catch. You are going to have to attach and detach a couple of confusing-to-use HUDs and do a lot (and I mean, a LOT) of clicking. If you’re up for it, then let’s get started!

IMPORTANT NOTE: Yes, I know that this is clothing designed for The Mesh Project mesh avatar bodies. You do NOT need The Mesh Body avatar body to take advantage of this freebie! As the All Spiffy blogger ArnieK noted, this is a coat, and it doesn’t have to fit perfectly, it just has to fit! I wear a Maitreya Lara mesh avatar body and all I had to do is alpha out my arms using the Maitreya HUD in order to wear this coat and look good in it! The texturing is beautifully done, as you can see…

WARNING: I absolutely do NOT recommend you buy the L$500 mesh avatar body sold by The Mesh Project. I have already blogged about three other, better options for freebie/dollarbie mesh avatar bodies for female avatars:

1. There is the free Valentina mesh head and body package available at the excellent freebie store at Ajuda SL Brasil. Altamura also frequently has great deals and sales on their mesh avatar bodies (twice they have offered mesh head and body sets for only L$300 this year alone!), so join their group for L$50 and keep your eyes peeled.
2. There are dollarbie versions of the eBody Classic and eBody Curvy mesh avatar bodies for female avatars also available at the freebie store at Ajuda SL Brasil.
3. I recently wrote about how to pick up a very nice free Afrodite mesh female avatar body from the LUCYSHOES/LUCYBODY store.

You save that L$500 and put it towards clothes and shoes! Although you can get hundreds of those for nothing or next-to-nothing in Second Life, too…

O.K., you ready for an adventure?

First, teleport to this location. When you arrive, you will automatically receive a free folder of HUDs. Accept this folder:

Then, find The Shops! HUD in your inventory (it’s in the folder you just accepted) and add it to your avatar. You can’t get anything for free unless you use this stupid HUD, which is a real pain in the ass, as you will see!

Once you have added the HUD, click on the large X to close the welcoming message:

Then, look around you for the words GUYS / GIRLS somewhere on the white walls of the place you teleported into, and click on the word GIRLS:

Then, when you land in the new spot, look for a round sign which has a white shopping bag with the words The Boutique on it (you might have to cam around a bit to find it), and click on that sign:

FINALLY, look for and click on the large words Shop… Clothing (you might have to hunt around to find that, too):

When you do that (and if you already have The Shops! HUD attached), you should see the following on your screen. Use the left and right arrow keys to browse the clothing available:

Hit the right arrow a couple of times to find the fur coat, and click on it:

No, you cannot buy a fatpack! First you have to buy, or “unlock” the fur coat base mesh. You will receive the item in a new folder in your inventory. Now, you are presented with a panel of the first 16 of the 56 beautiful textures available for that fur coat. Then, you actually have to click on each texture, then click the BUY button, to buy each one individually! Each time you do, you will hear a “chi-ching” sound when you purchase each texture for your fur coat.

Now, to actually WEAR the damn fur coat, you have to detach The Shops! HUD and attach the StyleMode HUD (it’s located in the same folder in your inventory where you got The Shops! HUD from).

Put on the fur coat, and now click as follows to select a coat texture, and then a lining texture, for your purchased fur coat using the StyleMode HUD:

(See what I mean? You have to work to earn this fur coat, girl!)

Honestly, I’m not sure that a beautiful free fur coat is worth all this hassle. I suggest you make separate copies of the fur coat and texture each one differently. You never know when The Mesh Project will shut down their servers which the StyleMode HUD uses. When/if that happens, it doesn’t matter how many different textures you bought, you’re stuck with whatever the texture for your fur coat happens to be when the server shuts down. Caveat emptor!

And, for the love of God, do not buy The Mesh Project mesh avatar body or anything from the company. Don’t reward such an awful shopping system. Just go get the freebies you think you can make work with whatever mesh avatar body you already own (like this gorgeous fur coat), and leave it at that. While there are many other clothes available using The Shops! HUD, quite honestly, you’ll have to endlessly fuss with the alpha cuts on your mesh avatar body’s HUD to get them to work, and even then, they’ll probably look terrible. (I also tried to wear the knee-high boots from the footwear section of The Shops!, but they looked absolutely terrible on my avatar, even with the lower legs and feet alpha’ed out.)

Here I paired a black version of the fur coat with a black minidress from Erratic, free jewelry by Chop Zuey from The Free Dove (this set is unfortunately no longer available) and Calyssa black boots (a former group gift from N-Core):

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