Earthstones

Since bento hit the grid we have been seeing more designers releasing and updating hands and animation overrides that take advantage of all of the new bento bones and animations. Now that this is happening, every day I am getting numerous people contacting me and asking which designers have bento hands and AOs available. So, I finally made the time to do an updated post about this and then I’ll also share my favorite hands and AOs.

Bento Hands

1. Vista Animations: Vista was first to release their bento hands and since then they have made many updates to them. The hands have some great features, come with a lot of animations and look very pretty.
   1. The Vista female hands cost L$599 and are available on marketplace & the Vista mainstore. I first blogged them in October of 2016.
   2. The Vista male hands currently cost L$600 in their mainstore. I blogged them in March of 2017.
2. Tuty’s: The bento hands from Tuty’s cost L$750 and are currently available on marketplace and the Tuty’s mainstore. I believe Tuty’s were next to release their bento hands for females around February 2017.  I unfortunately never got a chance to blog these hands, even though I do have them and do like them quite a bit, but you can check them out in detail in Tuty’s video on her youtube channel.
3. SLink: SLink was next to release bento hands and what they did was update their older hands for free, so if you have their older mesh hands you got a free update.
   1. The SLink female bento hands cost L$875 and are available on marketplace and the SLink mainstore. I blogged them in March of 2017.
   2. The SLink male bento hands cost L$875 and are available on marketplace and the SLink mainstore. I blogged them in April of 2017.
4. Signature: The Signature male bento hands are not sold separately. They come with the Signature Gianni mesh body and the body costs L$3500 and it is available in the Signature mainstore. I blogged about the Signature bento update in March of 2017. They were a free update if you owned the body previously.
5. NX-Nardcotix: The NX Nardcotix bento hands are not sold separately. They come with the NX-Nardcotix David mesh body and the body costs L$1750 and it is available at the NX-Nardcotix mainstore.  I blogged about the NX-Nardcotix mesh body in March of 2017 and the bento hands were a free update in May of 2017.
6. Maitreya: The Maitreya female bento hands are not sold separately. They come with the Maitreya Lara mesh body and the body costs L$2750 and it is available in the Maitreya mainstore.  I blogged about the Maitreya bento update in April of 2017. They were a free update if you owned the body previously.

These are all of the bento hands that I own and have tried. If you know of any other bento hands on the market, please share a link to them and your experience with them in the comments.

Bento AOs

If you are not familiar with what an Animation Override is, it’s a scripted attachment which replaces standard animations (walk, jump, stand, run, etc.) with animations created by residents. Please remember in order to use and see Bento AOs properly, you need to wear bento hands.

1. Vista Animations: Since Vista were first to release bento hands, they were also the first to release a bento AO. They have currently have 3 bento AOs in their store: two female AOs and one male. All three of them cost L$1999 each and are available in their marketplace store as well as the Vista mainstore.  I blogged the Vista Miriam Bento AO in this video.
2. Tuty’s Animations: Tuty’s has released 4 female bento AOs. All 4 of them cost L$950 each and are available in the marketplace and Tuty’s mainstore. I used the sexy confident AO from Tuty’s quite often. You can see me wearing it at the starting of the video at this link. It has a really cute heart animation in the middle of it!
3. Voir: Voir has released 3 bento AOs: one male and two female. All 3 of them cost L$350 each and are available in the marketplace and the Voir mainstore. I use the male AO from Voir on my male avatar quite often and you can see me wearing it at the starting of the video at this link. It is a mostly still AO and doesn’t have a lot of movement, which is what I prefer.
4. Body Language SLC: Body Language SLC has released 9 bento AOs: 2 male and 7 female. All of them cost L$2100 each and are available in the marketplace and the Body Language SLC mainstore.  I don’t own any of these AOs, I have only tried the DEMOs in their mainstore. They are very well done and most of them are quite cutesy with a lot of movement.
5. Kuso/Oracul: Kuso has released 9 bento AOs with a mixture of male, female, kids and monster AOs. All of them cost L$600 each except one that is L$300 and are available in the marketplace and the Kuso mainstore. I don’t own any of these AOs, I have only tried the DEMOs in their mainstore. They are nice but have quite a bit of movement in them.

I highly suggest you go to the mainstores and try out the DEMOs of all the AOs before you make your purchase so you know for sure that you like the animations on your avatar. These are all of the bento AOs that I have heard of. If you know of any more, please share the links and your experience with them in the comments.

My Favorites

So which one are my favorite bento hands and AOs?

1. Bento Hands: Maitreya – That was probably obvious because if you are a regular reader on my blog, you may have noticed that since Maitreya released their hands, I haven’t really worn any other hands after that. I just find them to be well done, easy to use since I can control them from the mesh body HUD and since Maitreya is my body of choice, it just makes it really convenient for me. I also like the fact that they come with some animations so I can use them with non-bento still poses when needed.
2. Bento AO: Vista Animations Esther – I’ve cycled through quite a bit of bento AOs but I noticed at times I kept reverting back to my old non-bento AO which was a combination of still breathing animations from Vista that I got back in 2009. I liked that AO because it didn’t have a lot of movement in it and that is how I prefer my AOs to be. Once Esther was released, I was so satisfied with it. It suits me well because it does not have a lot of movement and the movement it does have is very classy and sophisticated and of course I love the way it moves my bento fingers. I’ve made a video of this Esther AO and I’m embedding it below.

Watch my video on YouTube:
https://youtu.be/RcuxTp7gzF4

These are of course favorites for my female avatar. For my male avatar I don’t really have favorites for him. I only use him for blogging purposes and just wear items that I need to blog. I don’t use him for anything else outside of blogging.

Since we are on the topic of bento hands and animations, I also want to give a plug to the Fate Bento Hand Poser, which you can use to pose your Bento hands in a position that works best for your needs. It’s great for pictures!

What is Bento?

If you are not familiar with Bento, here is some information and links that will explain it in detail:

1. What is Bento? – On December 15th, 2015, Linden Lab announced a new project called Bento. Basically what they have done is added additional bones to the Second Life avatar skeleton to support both rigging and animation.
2. Bento is Live! – Bento went live on December 5, 2016 and is currently available in all Second Life viewers. Please update your viewer to the latest release if you haven’t already done so.
3. Weekly Content Creation User Group meetings – Everyone is invited to join the weekly, public meeting intended for discussion of issues around content creation, including avatars, animations, mesh, bento, etc…
4. My Project Bento tag on my blog – Keep an eye on my Project Bento tag on my blog for all posts I make about Bento.
5. My Project Bento YouTube PlayLists – Keep an eye on my Project Bento YouTube Playlist for all videos I make about Bento.

So which bento AO do you use, which is your favorite and why?

Style details:
Shape: StrawberrySingh.com Gaia Shape by Strawberry Singh
*Mesh Body: Maitreya Mesh Body – Lara V4.1 by Onyx LeShelle
*Mesh Head: LAQ Bento – Motion Capture – Gaia 1.0 by Mallory Cowen
*Skin Applier: Glam Affair Mimi by Aida Ewing (SLurl to satellite store)
*Eyes: LAQ ~ Bento eyes (come with head)
Hair: booN Lab.005 hair by boo Nakamura
*Top: Jeune by Rowne.Candice Crop Top by Fashionboi Landar
*Skirt: Jeune by Rowne.Amber Jersey Skirt by Fashionboi Landar
*Shoes: #EMPIRE – Clematis – by QUEENshop
*Jewelry: EarthStones Vintage Pearl by Abraxxa Anatine
*Bento AO: VISTA ANIMATIONS ESTHER BENTO AO by Vista Barnes
Location: Le Sixieme Sens