I wanted to alert all you Second Life freebie fashionistas who read this blog that there is a free, fully-adjustable, Bakes-on-Mesh and Omega compatible, Bento male mesh head available as a hunt prize in the Menstuff hunt, which runs from Feb. 1st-28th, 2020. The head is called Akakor, and the free prize is hidden away somewhere in the Altamura store (you do not need to join any group to claim this gift). However, I do have some caveats about this freebie, as you will see.
Here is what the head looks like, wearing the included default shape without any adjustments to the sliders:
Note that there is a tattoo on both sides of the neck on the default skin that comes with the Akakor head, which is fully adjustable. (I’ll be getting back to those tattoos in a moment.)
Remember that all the freebie Altamura bodies do not allow you remove the head to replace it with this new free head. However, if you were lucky enough to pick up the fully-functional Romeo group gift from Altamura last Valentine’s Day, then you will be able to remove the head on that particular male mesh body, and use the Akakor head with it.
For more information on free or inexpensive mesh bodies for male avatars, please click here (the freebie/dollarbie Bakes on Mesh avatars from **SD** and Heavy Industries at the end of that rather long blogpost might be absolutely perfect to pair with this head).
There is a Bakes on Mesh Omega applier included, as well as a HUD with some default facial animations, but there is no included HUD to add or remove the hair base, eyebrows, tattoos, or any other features on this head.
Even more perplexing, I encountered a couple of problems. First, one of my alts was unable to obtain the hunt prize, giving me the error message that I didn’t have enough money in my account (the head is priced at L$0). It wouldn’t work until I transferred L$20 to that particular avatar’s account, even though the head was free, and I was not charged for it at all! Something weird is going on.
Second, what the exceedingly poor documentation included with this gift head fails to tell you is that you must purchase and apply the Altamura Omega system kit (available for L$99 at this exact SLURL), in order to apply either Omega skins or Bakes on Mesh skins to this free head.
However, you should know that applying an Omega skin does not automatically clear the tattoo on both sides of the neck. You will need to remove the default tattoos on this head using one of the free Omega makeup-removal HUDs available on the SL Marketplace (such as this free NEFA Clear All Layers Omega HUD).
Why Altamura didn’t think to include all this information in in the package is beyond me. It’s extremely irritating.
In short, after spending a very frustrating couple of hours tearing my hair out trying to get this head to work with various Bakes on Mesh and Omega skin appliers, I must warn you that there is a steep learning curve with this head. I’m really not sure it’s worth the hassle, especially for newbies that this freebie might especially appeal to.
Here is what the Delphinus Bakes on Mesh skin applier (included in the package) looks like on the Akakor head, after removing the neck tattoos using the NEFA HUD I mentioned above, and paired with the **SD** Raphael Bakes on Mesh body available here on the SL Marketplace for L$1:
So, if you still want to try it out for yourself, here is what you are looking for in the Altamura store (with a warning that the hunt item is rather small and tucked away in a corner):
The hunt hint given for Altamura is: “Confetti in this period is welcome”. Here is a link to all the hunt hints on the Menstuff website.
Good luck in your hunting! The Menstuff hunt runs until the end of February, so you have plenty of time to do some head-hunting! 😉
