I am VERY interested in learning how to make mesh clothes. I am hoping anyone on here would be able to help, or recommend someone? Thanks. 

Learning how to make mesh clothing is certainly an interesting journey.  I've dabbled in it a bit, just as far enough so that now I know what I don't know.  I'll get the conversation started and perhaps others with more experience will join in.

First check out Maeve Balfour's reply in Basics for Mesh clothing creation :

A quick question which I feel is vital to ask first off: Have you worked with / created mesh before?

The reason I ask is that if you are totally new to mesh creation, you really MUST learn the overall workflow involved with mesh creation in general before you even consider creating mesh clothing. You would be doing yourself a huge disservice if you don't, and setting yourself up for a world of frustration.

Mesh is a BIG topic. I'm definitely NOT saying this to scare you off at all - it's just important to make that clear from the outset. Mesh creation is something that requires certain skillsets before contemplating advanced things like mesh clothing for SL avatars. If you don't learn the basics beforehand, you will just be banging your head against a brick wall.

However - once you learn the essential workflows of mesh creation, it WILL open up vast opportunities for creativity ... not only for SL, but for many, many other areas. The general mesh skills you will learn are universal across the field of 3D, so it will open up wide avenues to explore in the long term. Definitely worth persevering with the initial learning curve.

Blender is definitely a good program to start out with . There are many forum regulars here who use it, so any SL related Blender questions posted here will be quickly answered. Also, there is a vast number of Blender tutorials out there covering pretty much any topic possible - it's just a matter of finding them. Plus Blender will pretty much do anything you need in regards to creating mesh for SL. (I must point out that personally, I am NOT a Blender user as of yet (although I plan on converting to it in the near future, having reached the practical limits of my current modeling program)).

Off the top of my head, a couple of good beginner Blender tutorial sites you could begin with are: The Gryllus Blender Course and Canned Mushrooms . There are plenty of clothing tutorials out there as well, which other forum regulars here can point you towards - although as I said, you need to know the mesh essential basics before attempting advanced projects like that.

A general list of the workflow steps you will need to learn to be proficient in mesh creation:

1: Creating mesh shapes - Working with primitives, polygons, vertices etc to create your shapes.
2: UV-mapping your meshes - Creating maps so that your 3D shapes can accept 2D images for texturing.
3: Material mapping - Defining separate areas on your mesh (similar concept to how faces on a standard SL prim work).
4: Rigging (for clothing) - Defining a "skeleton" for your mesh, so that it can attach to the SL avatar.

Please, don't let yourself be put off or daunted by this - it's NOT as scary as it looks. But it IS critical to learn these basic skillsets. The learning curve can be steep at first, but it is definitely worth sticking with it and coming to grips with everything - the creative potential that will be unlocked is vast once you do so.

And by all means, ask any questions you need to here on the forums. There are plenty of regulars here who are happy to offer advice.

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Proprietress of Tatiana's Tea Room ~ Owner of the Provence Coeur Estate ~ Webmistress of this site

There are a few other things I would add to the process, i.e. once you get the rigged mesh imported into SL you will have to texture it (shade maps created in your mesh tool may be incorporated into this as well) and you will probably want to include alpha layer (s) to mask the body underneath so that it doesn't bleed through.

Some other thoughts.

Rigging/Weight Painting: check out Avastar to help with this process.  You can also hire people to do this step for you.

Sizing is another area to explore.  There is Standard Sizing as well as Fitted Mesh (and/or a combination of the two) for your basic SL Avatar.  There is also sizing which relates to specific custom mesh bodies.

Layering mesh clothing is an art in itself.

Long full skirts can be done in mesh but the movement of them always seems to disappoint.  Perhaps it's because I'm just use to flexi skirts but I'd love to see an example of a mesh skirt that really flowed.  Does anyone have one?

Getting started:   As you can see, there's a lot involved in the creation of mesh clothing and it can appear to be overwhelming especially if it is ALL new to you.  My advice is to start small, perhaps by purchasing a ready-made full perm mesh item of clothing and learning how to texture it to begin with.

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Proprietress of Tatiana's Tea Room ~ Owner of the Provence Coeur Estate ~ Webmistress of this site

I must admit that for all but the narrowest skirts, I just can't enjoy SL dancing in a mesh one - dance is flow, and mesh doesn't.

Twelfthnight and a few others have had some good results with simultaneous skirt flow + modesty maintenance by using a combination of narrow mesh underskirt and prim/flexi overskirt (as long as the flexi isn't SO flexi that it moves whether you're moving or not!)

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Antiquity Hedgewitch

Here's an interesting discussion to follow: Understanding the clothing of mesh avatars

I'm guessing that many historical rp avatars aren't using full mesh bodies just because it's currently very difficult for them to get period correct clothing. Is this true or has anyone converted to full mesh?

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Proprietress of Tatiana's Tea Room ~ Owner of the Provence Coeur Estate ~ Webmistress of this site

I believe that Twelfth has made a fairly complete switch but of course she designs for herself. Jacon Cortes is experimenting with his own tailoring as well. Pamus Bing is working on it but with her more Victorian tastes, she's finding wardrobe a challenge.

I haven't switched partly because I like my wardrobe, and partly because many mesh faces still remind me a little too much of china dolls.

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Antiquity Hedgewitch