One of the most glorious is the art gallery. Second Life is full of art galleries, many featuring digitally created art, others photography or sculpture, some large galleries combining all. If you have the time and you enjoy art, it is certainly worth the time to do a search and check out the exceptional variety to be discovered. In the near future, I will be doing a piece focusing entirely on the art of Second Life.
For now, my “no longer a newbie” birthday is approaching rapidly and I want to focus on the deals to be had for newbies, and some pitfalls to avoid. So my exploration project this week has been to attempt to hit all stores and locations offering gifts and deals to newbies. New SLers start with a notecard full of landmarks, and you pick up more and more along the way, if you look. You can also use your search window and put in freebie, or newbie, and get plenty of starts there as well…
I have probably spent at least one thousand lindens buying things that could have been had for free or for just a few dollars. Silly me, I didn’t start looking for newbie deals until I was about two weeks old, and as a result I missed out on some great deals. An example is my sexy walk. Now any self-respecting, stylish avatar is going to immediately do something about the strange, hurried, hobbling walk that SL avatars come with. I ran right out to Abrahanimations and spent $200L on a sexy walk, and loved it. That is, until I spent this week exploring all the deals to be found as a newbie and got at least three versions of a sexy walk, free. Makes my expensive walk seem rather foolish, but who knew?
My hope then is that in the future, I may send some newbie in the general direction of stylish frugality by passing my hard-earned wisdom along. Yes, I know there are plenty of sites out there telling us newbies where to find this and that online, but here then is another one, repeating much of the same information in the hope that it may help out some other fresh SLifer as they navigate their way around a new world. And no, this is not going to turn into yet another SL fashion blog. We have enough of those, and that is certainly not my purpose here, though I confess to reading and even studying them at times, especially before shopping trips.
Newbie bling is to be found in lots of places. Search for what you need or what, you will likely find it. I guess the first newbie gift I ever got was from Alady, where they sell skins and shapes. I walked into the store and was automatically presented with a free Alady smile. It has since become somewhat of a trademark for me. I have also picked up a couple more, one from a store called Dollyrock, but I prefer my original Alady. Today, after seeing the new shape and skin of my friend Marlena, I thought she needed a smile, so I decided to give her one of my extras. I couldn’t, as they were all non-transferable. Undaunted, I simply searched for “free smile” and there were two immediate hits, I just took her straight back to Alady and there on the wall was the free smile, she was thrilled.
Another good freebie to look for are shapes and skins… the best freebie skin I have found is the set given out free to newbies by Sinskins. It is as good or better many I’ve seen for upward of $1000L. I wish, in my panic to buy a skin during my Safir skin disruption, I had shopped around a bit more. Although I love the skin quality of the Alesandra skin I bought, and the nips and bits are great, the make-up is just too heavy, even the “natural” option is more like a night time look. Because of the heaviness of the all makeup choices, I am just not as happy with it as I feel I should be for the $2000L I paid for it.
My friend Marlena got a much better deal, I think with her Pixel Deep skin for $1300L. Skins are to be had in all price ranges and all qualities. The more expensive a skin is doesn’t necessarily make it the best. My advice is this: shop carefully and take your time when buying a skin. Stock up on all your freebie skins first, find one you can live with for a while and take your time when making the investment in a skinset. The goal is to get one you will be comfortable in most of the time. Midnight Lotus even offers a nip and clit upgrade for only $20, which can be added to a newbie or freebie skin for a bit more detail, so you can get by on the cheap, as long as you don’t mind their little tattooed brand name on your privates.
Other freebies to be had are jewelry, shoes, clothes, and furniture of all types, houses, hot tubs, plants and plenty of textures. I even discovered a bicycle blimp today, though I could never figure out how to ride the thing. Take full advantage of all these perks, and save your money for buying the really good stuff, like thigh-high spike-heeled black boots, or land, for that matter.
And now a word about Scary things. I have always tried to maintain an open mind about people, and that has followed me into the world of SL. When a frightening-skinned creature began talking to me about a week ago, he seemed harmless enough. He was from
When I took my leave of him, he would continue to harass me with IMs even after I had told him I had another engagement. Then, his conduct became downright abusive, calling me insulting names in English and other things in Spanish that didn’t seem kind, to say the least. Finally, I removed him from my friend list. I don’t know what took me so long to do it. What I learned from this situation is sometimes if they look scary on the outside, they very well may be scary on the inside. So unless you are into that sort of thing, steer clear. Certainly, if someone makes you uncomfortable, if they grief you or the people around you, then don’t hesitate to remove that person from you friend list. There are more than enough people in SL, we don’t have to hang out with scary monsters.
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