LAQ Gaia Bento Mesh Head
LAQ has released their first bento mesh head, her name is Gaia and she comes with motion capture animation. This is my first experience with a Laq mesh head and I’m quite impressed. I find Gaia to be very delicate and pretty looking with a lot of great options. I’ve done a detailed video for Gaia explaining all of the options, animations and HUD, which I am embedding below, but first here is some information about her:
- Price:Â Gaia costs L$5000 and the DEMO is free. Both are available at the LAQ mainstore.
- Main HUD:Â It comes with one main HUD that has three tabs; features, mood and looks:
- Features:Â The features tab has options to hide certain parts of the head, neck size, skin tones, freckles, wrinkles blush, eyebrows, lashes, hairbases, lipstick and eyeshadow. All of the skin and cosmetics sections also have a tinting option available for each layer.
- Mood: The mood tab includes 17 motion capture animations. The moods at the top can be selected as your default animations. The expressions you choose to play below will go back to your default mood if you have one activated. You can play animations individually or choose several to play at random. The poses button pauses animations for photos. The talk button underneath the expressions will enable lip movement when you are on voice or typing in chat (I couldn’t get it to work for voice). The auto expression syncs with the SL animations that can be found in animated furniture etc…
- Looks:Â In the looks tab, you can save your favorite skin and makeup combinations for easier access in the future.
- Skin & Body Appliers:Â It comes with a skin available in the HUD in 7 different tones. You can pick up matching body appliers at the LAQ mainstore for varying prices. I am wearing the Maitreya body appliers with it in this post and they cost L$299 per tone.
- Motion Capture Animations: It is animated using real life movements and these animations come with the HUD and are available in the main HUD. LAQ has a youtube channel and a 10 minute video where they showed how these animations work in detail.
- Omega Compatibility:Â The skin, tattoo, eyebrows, hairbase, eye makeup and lipstick layers have Omega pre-installed, so no system kit is needed. You can wear any Omega applier of your choice on this head without any relay hud. If the applier has different zone maps, make sure you click the default zone. There are Omega buttons in the HUD to activate Omega.
- Eye fx:Â This feature adds shading and eye reflections on a separate layer from the eye itself. This way, shading and reflections stay intact even when your avatar looks around. Your eyes will also reflect light in the evening. You can turn this feature on and off at the top of the features tab.
- Customer Service Questions: If you have any questions about this head, it would be best if you looked at the designer’s profile, her name is Mallory Cowen, to see how she prefers to be contacted for customer service issues as I will probably not be able to assist you with that.
Now watch my video on YouTube for more details about this head:Â
https://youtu.be/wPm-4ZzVd14
These are the skins that I tried on in the video from other designers:
For more of my mesh head reviews and videos, click over to my Mesh Heads Category on my blog and my Male and Female Mesh Head Playlists on my YouTube channel.
I have made a shape for this head, which I am wearing in the picture and video. Once I release it, it will be in my marketplace store and I will link to it from here.
I have released my shape for this head now and it is available in my marketplace store. (UPDATE – MY SHAPES ARE NO LONGER AVAILABLE)
Style Credits:
Shape: StrawberrySingh.com Gaia Shape by Strawberry Singh (UPDATE – MY SHAPES ARE NO LONGER AVAILABLE)
*Mesh Body: Maitreya Mesh Body – Lara V4.1 by Onyx LeShelle
*Mesh Head:Â LAQ Bento – Motion Capture – Gaia 1.0 by Mallory Cowen
*Skin Applier: comes with the head
*Eyes:Â LAQ ~ Gaia eyes [Brown]Â by Mallory Cowen (come with head)
*Hair:Â Exile::Skyline by Kavar Cleanslate
*Bathing Suit: Addams // Halter Swimsuit by AmaliaRainwood (@ C88)
*Earrings:  EarthStones Solitaire by Abraxxa Anatine
*Rings:Â Zaara : Siya by Zaara Kohime (@ C88)
*Skybox: BUENO-Stone Skybox RARE by buenosl (@ Arcade)
The HUD is really good but the skin (or the mesh not sure which) of the mouth is asymmetrical. Avatar left side upper lip is more curved than the right side and the avatar right side lower lip has extra dark shading under the lip which is not pretty. Also the skin has too much shading as well on the jaw, under the jaw and neck … looks like a beard lols. So not a fan of the mouth or the skin. I also think that some of the facial animations are a bit odd too. Like she’s had Botox.
Great review, as always. I’ve had Laq skins since starting in SL and got the Trinity Mesh head when it came out. I loved the unique features she’d added to her Hud but it was a challenge finding appliers. I think with this new head there may be more creators making appliers for her heads.
I also want to thank you for doing this review because I read the remarks that a previous “fan” had written and the subsequent rabid responses that followed. I felt if unfair what was said towards the owner of Laq and doubted she had anything to do with the comments of the writer. People on all sides should be more circumspect in what they post – words hurt.
I appreciate your work and your character – both are exceptional!
Thanks for the video, Strawberry. Some of the LOGO Alex appliers will also work well on these heads.
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Hello,
I have a dilemma, I have a box attached to my LAQ Ana head and I have no HUD attached. How do I get rid of it. For photos of the problem go here:
https://community.secondlife.com/forums/topic/431287-how-to-rid-of-this-little-box-on-my-ana-laq-head/
Hope you can help, thank you
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