MENstuff Hunt

11/11/11 sees the start of another fantastic MENstuff Hunt. With over 150 stores taking part, it's a great way to pick up a huge range of items for your avatar, discover new stores and make friends with your fellow hunters.

The hunt runs until Christmas Day, 2011.

Steamship Pilot

I took the summer off from Secondlife, but now as the nights draw in and the weather turns autumnal I have decided to return.

I picked up a new outfit for my avatar, including a pair of boots, which are prizes in the Sinister Steampunk Hunt.

The Steamship Pilot outfit is the prize offered by Destiny's Designs (use the teleport pad to reach the store, which is above where you land), and consists of a sleveless vest, sculpted jacket, trousers and gloves. There is also an alpha layer provided to make your arms invisible, otherwise they can be seen through the jacket.

The boots can be found at Ziva's Underground Shoes, and are the companion piece to the Steamship Pilot costume. The boots also come with an alpha layer to hide you feet, however I found that when I put the boots on with the alpha layer, it removed the alpha layer from the jacket, making my arms show through the jacket material.

There is a solution though. Both the boots and the jacket come with resizing scripts. I chose to wear the alpha layer that came with the jacket, and resize the boots. This way the jacket remained the correct size for my shape.

The outfit even inspired me to try my hand at piloting a flying ship!

Exterminate!

While on my inworld travels today, I came across a lucky chair in the Archangel Network store and won the Red Dalek Commander avatar seen in the picture above. So I found myself a sim dedicated to Doctor Who and had to snap a pic of my new avatar next to a TARDIS.

It Starts With A Cube

I decided to kit out the skybox I use in world with furniture, to make it feel more homely. I've picked up a few pieces of furniture that were given as prizes in hunts, though I felt that I needed something which reflected my personality, so I decided to make my own.

I ended up making a coffee table, bookshelf and couch, all from prims (which refers to primitives, the basic building blocks of objects in virtual worlds). Here are my efforts:

I still need to design a few more items, a rug for the floor, lamps and a few cushions for the sofa.

The Red, White and Blue

With it being the 4th of July, Second Life has been awash with free beachwear bearing the American flag:

I picked up a free pair of trunks from Bare Rose:

Another pair of trunks (in a pack containing a tank top, sunglasses, high tops, and flag design speedos) from Serenity in the Sun.

The July gift from Vero Modero also contains Stars & Stripes shorts (as well as shoes, a ripped tank, a red shirt and denim jacket), perfect for today's celebrations:

Have a wonderful 4th of July!

Free Gifts From Upper Man and Happy End

Upper Man is giving away a red and grey hoodie to group members this week:

And while you are at the store, Happy End also has a freebie for its group members, this fantastic wine coloured short sleeved top with white shirt:

Complete Avatars From 1st Act

1st Act are offering 4 free complete avatars in their hunt, 3 male and 1 female.

You have to click on the cutout avatar to receive the hunt HUD for that avatar. Wear the HUD and click each of the empty shard spaces to get a clue on the location of that particular shard. The clues refer to objects found in the sim, one shard for each avatar is located in the 1st Act store, the rest can be found in the Edge City Roleplay Area, including the Edge City Wastelands.

Once you have found the hunt object, click it to receive the shard. Once all the shard spaces are filled the HUD changes to a picture of the avatar selected in the store, and you get a teleport landmark back to the store. Once in the store, click on your chosen avatar again to receive the complete avatar.

Here is a picture of the 3 male avatars:

We have the Big Boss avatar on the left, the Solid Snake avatar in the middle, and the Squall avatar on the right of the picture. All three avatars are very detailed, and each one comes with prim attachments as well as skin, shape and hair. (Big Boss and Solid Snake also come with a stealth disguise, but I'll let you find out about that if you decide to take part in the hunt.)

I also had fun wearing each of the three skins with my favourite shape and hair. Here are the results:

Again slight variations in the way a skin is designed changes how a shape will appear inworld. Of course you can mix and match parts of the avatars to get a unique look.

Overall the 1st Act hunt was a fun activity, and once you've found your way around the sim looking for the shards to the first avatar, finding the shards for the other avatars is relatively quick, so you can complete the hunt in an afternoon.