Tag: Second Life Men’s Fashion

Second Life Steals, Deals, and Freebies: Ryan’s Quick and Dirty Guide to the 2022 Holiday Shop and Hop

Yes, I am still percolating, but of course, the holidays wait for no one! This year, the annual Second Life Holiday Shop and Hop covers 16 sims, simply groaning with discounted items for sale. And each vendor booth has a free Christmas present for you—and a few have more than one!

I have spent the past week scouring social media for information to learn which stores are participating in this year’s Holiday Shop and Hop, and what gifts each store is giving. Then I drew up a draft list, loaded up Second Life supermodel Moesha Heartsong, and hit all 16 sims, to pick up, unpack, and inspect each gift from that list. As more information came in, I edited and updated that list, and it is now at version 3.0!

This final list consists of my picks for the best gifts from this season’s Shop and Hop (mostly fashion for female avatars, but also some male fashion, as well as any offers of gift cards or free store credit). Each item on the list includes an exact SLURL, so you can teleport directly to the gift, pick it up, and head on to your next score! Having all one sim’s gifts grouped together means less teleporting back and forth between sims, a factor to consider early on in the event, when some popular sims get congested with avatar traffic.

I have posted that detailed list to my own Second Life group, called the RyanSchultz.com Steals, Deals & Freebies group (just search for “ryanschultz”, all one word, under Groups in Search, and you will find it easily). More information on the RyanSchultz.com Steals, Deals & Freebies group can be found here. The group join fee is only L$50, and you will find it money well spent, as I often share many bargains and freebies throughout the year, which never make it to this blog!

As an alternative to my list, or if you really want to make sure you haven’t missed any gifts that I skipped over, I still feel that the single best way to tackle the Shop and Hop events is to watch Naria Panthar’s videos on YouTube.

Naria always posts one or two videos where she unpack every single gift from the event, both non-wearable items and avatar clothing, and shows you what they look like. Watch the videos with the audio at two times normal speed, and keep a pen and paper handy to note the stores which have gifts you want (Naria herself recommends watching and listening at 2X speed, so it doesn’t take as long!).

Then, use this handy list which Linden Lab has provided to find your Shop and Hop store by name, teleport in, and snap up your present! (Note that, in some cases, a store SLURL from this list might accidentally stick up behind a wall or, in one case, on top of the roof! This is another good reason to join the RyanSchultz.com Steals, Deals & Freebies group—I have tested all the SLURLs, and that should not happen!)

The Holiday Shop and Hop event is on now, and runs until January 2nd, 2023, so you have plenty of time to pop in and scoop up some fabulous freebies for yourself!

Second Life Steals, Deals, and Freebies: Free Gifts to Celebrate the 12th Anniversary of the Firestorm Viewer!

Second Life is probably unique among metaverse platforms in that the most popular viewer software is not a product of the company that makes Second Life, Linden Lab! That would be the Firestorm viewer, created by the community itself by a non-profit company called the Phoenix Firestorm Project:

The Phoenix Firestorm Project Inc. is a non-profit, incorporated organization whose mandate is to improve the user experience in Second Life and other virtual worlds by providing an advanced open source viewer with greater features, options and interface flexibility than the standard offering by Linden Lab. The project has approximately 80 volunteers working for it and are managed through departments divided up as Development, Support, Quality Assurance and Gateway. We provide live support 24/7 in nine different languages inside of Second Life through our support groups and on the web via our issue tracker.

And to celebrate its 12 anniversary, Firestorm threw a big party yesterday, Saturday, September 3rd. And in a circle around the four-sim event stage are free gifts from Firestorm and other Second Life vendors for you! All gifts are free and you do not need to join a group to pick them up.

The present from Firelight Hair is a new unisex fatpack of hair called Glen/Gwyn, which comes in both male and female versions, rigged and unrigged, plus a HUD with 32 different textures:

Firelight is also generously giving out the same gift to SL users that it put out a year ago, for Firestorm’s 11th anniversary! This shorter unisex hairstyle is called David/Davina, and also comes in male and female versions, both rigged and unrigged, with a texture HUD as shown below:

Next up we have a casual outfit featuring three more free gifts:

The T-shirt is the present from Addams, and it comes in a wide variety of sizes to fit most female mesh bodies, and in two colours: white as shown above, and black. (Note that there is also a men’s T-shirt gift, which also comes in black and white!)

The gift from Firestorm is a fatpack of this unisex baseball cap featuring the distinctive Firestorm phoenix logo, with comes the the HUD shown below, where you can mix and match the colours of the cap and the logo as you please. There are two versions of the baseball cap, one for smaller heads and one for larger heads, and both can be resized simply by clicking on them, which pulls up a menu. It’s the perfect accessory for any fan of the Firestorm viewer as your avatar strolls the grid!

Finally, there’s a very nice gift from virtual shoemaker Versov, these wonderfully detailed sneakers, which comes in sizes to fit men and women! These special-edition Firestov sneakers come in sizes to fit feet for the following mesh bodies: Maitreya Lara, Signature Gianni and Geralt, Legacy (male and female), Belleza (male and female), and Slink (male and female). There’s also an unrigged pair in the folder, which you can adjust and resize to fit other brands of feet. They are a keeper!

There are also many gifts for you fans of breedables (which I am not). Here’s the blogpost on the official Firestorm blog listing all the free gifts. I’m not sure how long all these gifts will be available, but I seem to remember that the Firestorm 11th anniversary gifts were available to pick up for at least a month after the events held at the stage. As I said, the event stage is a circle covering four adjoining sims, with the same gifts available around the perimeter of the stage in each sim. According to the event listing:

SLURLs: LOAD BALANCING! If your first initial starts with…click a corresponding SLURL:
A-J http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Firestorm%20Ghost%20Town/14/240/3902
K-R http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Firestorm%20Aerodrome/238/15/3901
S-Z http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Firestorm%20Dow%20Forest/237/238/3902

Since the big party was yesterday, you could choose any of these SLURLs and you shouldn’t have any problem getting in! I wouldn’t wait too long to pick these wonderful presents up, though.

PRO TIP: Did you know that you can pick up many other free gifts at the VERSOV main store, including three fatpacks of high-quality unisex sneakers of various designs and colours? Join the VERSOV group for free to pick up the fabulous freebies, which are located on panels at the front counter of the store…here’s your taxi!

Happy freebie shopping! 😉

Second Life Steals, Deals, and Freebies: Free Outfits, Accessories, Weapons, and Vehicles from ECHELON!

Second Life is home to many combat roleplay communities, as well as science fiction roleplay. ECHELON is a store which caters to these players with outfits, accessories, weapons, and even vehicles, and they are generously giving away a HUGE collection of such items for absolutely FREE! Just teleport to the store, join the – E C H E L O N – group for free, and click on the rotating white sign in the middle of the store:

There are no less than sixty-five separate gifts in the box you receive, a wide variety of outfits, weapons, and other objects (there’s even a cup of tea with a Bento hold pose!). Let’s start with the outfits first.

Please note that all these outfits (except where noted) include system clothing layers, which are intended for classic, system avatars and Bakes on Mesh-compatible mesh bodies, like version 3.0 of the Belleza Jake body this male avatar is wearing. (By the way, Belleza is still running their 50% off sale on the Jake, Isis, Venus, and Freya mesh bodies! It’s a real bargain, but I honestly don’t know how long this sale will last, so if you are shopping for a high-quality male or female mesh body, don’t delay!)

If you’re a fan of Star Wars roleplay—or if you just feel like strolling around Second Life dressed as a kick-ass Mandalorian!—feast your eyes on this complete set of Alorian armour, courtesy of ECHELON! The package even includes a special animation override (AO) with three sets of animations you can easily switch between during your roleplay: stand-by, sneaking, and combat. (There’s also a separate Alorian jet pack in the ECHELON gift box; it’s not shown in this picture.)

There are four different versions of this Imperial Soldier outfit (white, red, blue, and special forces), and the helmet comes in versions with and without the glow, as well as a chestplate variation for female stormtroopers!

Imperial Solder

IF you’d rather be a samurai, there’s a complete samurai outfit with armour:

This seven-piece medieval armour set is suitable for historical roleplay purposes (please note that the system/Bakes on Mesh clothing and the boots pictured below are NOT included in this package; I just rummaged around in my existing inventory for something suitable to wear with the armour):

Now let’s turn to accessories. Below are pictured two gifts, the aptly-named Crown of Light and the floating, rotating Heroic Heirloom (both are fully modifiable, so you can adjust the colour and the glow of each as you wish to match your outfit):

The Duality Mask domes in seven different versions, and is also completely modifiable:

And, as expected, there are weapons galore in the ECHELON gift box! All weapons include both stashed and deployed versions, as well as gestures which you can load and activate for your avatar to draw and sling them during battle.

First up is the AKG Assault Rifle, which comes in versions with or without the silencer:

The Slayer Sword is just the ticket to get you out of a tight spot in any fantasy battle!

The Big Heckin’ Gun is well named, as you can see!

Here my avatar is armed with a sci-fi laser rifle (there’s also a pistol, as well as all the gestures to swap between the two as needed):

And if you’re old school, how about this Dungeon Raider Halberd? There’s truly something for everyone in the ECHELON gift box.

But wait, there’s more! There are also a number of science fiction vehicles in the gift box. Here are just two, the Corvus Jetbike and the Land Cruiser hover vehicle:

The Corvus Jetbike
The Land Cruiser

So, if you are into fantasy, historical, or combat roleplay and gaming in Second Life, you owe it to yourself to drop by ECHELON and pick up this truly generous gift before it’s gone! Here is your taxi. Happy freebie shopping!

Second Life Steals, Deals, and Freebies: Free Menswear from the Gabriel FREE BEE Store!

It can sometimes be hard to find good quality, free menswear in Second Life, so you might be interested to know that Gabriel has set up a new freebie store (called, appropriately enough, the FREE BEE store), right next door to the main store. Here you can pick up a wide variety of high-quality, free menswear for your male avatar. So I decided to pop in with my main male avatar, Heath Homewood, to model some of the clothing you can obtain here!

Please note that most of the menswear comes in standard sizing only (XS, S, M, L, XL), intended for classic, system avatars, but which should also fit most brands of male mesh avatars if you use the alpha sections on the HUD which came with your body. A few items do come in sizes to fit the male Belleza Jake, Signature Gianni, Slink and Meshbody Classic/TMP mesh bodies. (Heath has a Belleza Jake body in these pictures.)

First up, we have three separate items combined to make a casual outfit:

  • a demin zip jacket (light blue as shown or dark grey versions, in Jake, Gianni, Slink, and TMP sizes);
  • chino pants (which come in khaki, olive, orange, and dark blue; standard sizing); and
  • boat shoes (camel, red-brown, and red with 4 textures each; one size only, but they are unrigged/adjustable, and resizable via menu when you click on them):
(Please note: the blue T-shirt under the jacket is a separate applier, and is not available at the Gabriel FREE BEE store.)

Heath now models a summertime look, consisting of:

  • the strap open shirt (white, grey, black, in sizes to fit Belleza Jake, Signature Gianni, Meshbody Class/TMP, and Slink); and
  • the half denim pants (white, black, light wash blue, indigo blue, dark indigo; standard sizing: XS, S, M, L, and XL):

Here’s a wintertime look, with the same boat shoes as before, plus:

  • the double-long coat set (consisting of four separate pieces: coat, the sweater under the coat, the shirt under the coat with a texture HUD, and a scarf with a texture HUD). The coat comes in dark blue as shown, plus olive, pearl grey, light brown, and black, and the coat, sweater, shirt, and scarf all come in standard sizing (XXS, XS, S, M, and L-XL). The mix-and-match possibilities are endless!
  • “sagging” jeans (which come in black, white, indigo blue denim, dark indigo denim, light wash denim, dark wash denim; standard sizing: XS, S, M, L, XL).

Finally, we have this formal three-piece suit with a subtle pinstripe, which comes in dark grey or black as shown (this is all one piece, and comes in standard sizes XS, S, M, and L-XL; the black dress shoes and socks Heath is wearing are not included):

Stripe three-piece suit in black
Stripe three-piece suit in dark grey

There are many. many more items of menswear in the Gabriel Free Bee store, so be sure to check it out! Here’s your taxi.

UPDATE Jan. 11th, 2022: Here’s two more free outfits from the Gabriel FREE BEE store! My model for these pictures is my librarian avatar, Notecard Writer, who is wearing an Altamura mesh body.

This formal black three-piece suit comes in four versions: small or large stripe, and small or large check patterns. You’re all set for your next virtual boardroom meeting!

It’s all one piece, and comes in standard sizing. And it even includes a HUD to change the colour of the shirt and tie! (Please note that the shoes are not included.)

And one more casual look! This unzipped black biker jacket comes in versions with or without the shirt underneath it, in blue denim, black denim, a black floral design, or white (one standard size). The sweatpants come in white, grey, and black, in one standard size, plus sizes to fit Slink, Signature, and Meshbody Classic/TMP mesh bodies (the black Karmenov sneakers were a free group gift from VERSOV).

Happy freebie shopping!