"Nick"

This will be the first of my posts about one of my body shapes. I thought it would be appropriate to start with one of the first created, the one I named "Nick".

Originally I wanted to create sort of an 'ethnic' shape - one that evoked an attactive man of Mediterranean descent... Not specifically Greek or Italian, but one that could kind of go either way. When he was finished I spent a few days kicking around names until Gil finally decided that "Nick" would be best.

One of the things I wanted to do was focus on his nose and eyes, to give him a classic, yet rugged look - to make him beautiful, yet approachable at the same time. I wanted to stay away from the doe-eyed 'prettiness' that is so cliche and give him a friendly face that ordinary guys could relate to, yet find attractive. The not-too-full lips and squarish jaw line finished off the effect that I was going for. Once I had rounded his features a bit to make them less extreme, I knew that I had achieved what I was going for.

Next I chose a skin from Millage Valenti (approx L$2000 - I'm doing this from memory here) with a nice tanned texture that gave his facial features more depth without looking 'painted'. The triangular highlight area around the eyes, nose, and cheekbones worked perfectly to bring out the angularity of his face without looking harsh. Also, ths skin has some nice body highlighting that gives him a bit of a wiry muscularity that looks very male without making him look like a gymrat. The skin also includes a facelight that while good for photos, contains too many prims for use while travelling about the grid. As we all know, the SL client is only capable of rendering a total of 6 light sources. I believe that this facelight has a total of 7.

Once "Nick" was named and ready, I had to dress him for his photo shoot. For this I chose clothing from Brutal Gear. In keeping with my initial concept for the body shape, I chose something that would give him a masculine, yet comfortable lived-in look. I can't remember the prices off the top of my head right now (although I do promise to be more precise about this in the future), but the "Tread" tank top was under L$100 and the "Rebar" jeans were about L$125. Nick's Hair is from "Truth", and the color is Raven I do believe. This particular style goes for about L$250 and more than one shade of black is included.

The "Nick" body shape is available at all Agape Men's Store locations and sells for L$500 No Mod/Copy/No Trans. Both regular and "0" size feet versions are included as is an Agape (1 prim) facelilght and Styling Card.