RealSKIN - Fantasy skins

And now for something completely different.... Fantasy skins. Oh my, it is so not my cup of tea, but I had a blast trying these skins and taking photos of them. So I thought, since I had the material anyway, I'd be foolish not to blog them although I do not intend this blog to be a new release blog at all. But fantasy skins do deserve a place on Skin Score too. And I must admit... these are well done. I am not very familiar with Stephen's work, but I like these.

The Night Elf skin comes in a lovely lavender, with quite a strong face. Funny feature are the prim eye brows and I have no idea why, but while taking these pics, I just found myself humming "I was made for loving you" all the time. My personal idea of an elf would be a bit of a softer looking creature, but it's an awesome look if you want something out of the ordinairy.

For me, these skins are all about the faces, although the bodies aren't bad. It has a nice collarbone, and a good shading on the torso. Compared to the shading as a whole, I think the nipples are a bit blurry, and I could really do without the sudden realism of the pink labia on a fantasy skin like this.You might want to wear a manicure on this skin, because there is not much detail to the hands and feet. But other than that, this skin is a pleasant surprise. RealSKIN skins come with their own shapes, but I chose to wear my own Phoebe shape for comparison's sake. However for Night Elf I did wear the matching eyes that also come with the skin.

Drow and Livid are two other skins in the fantasy series that Stephen released recently and I think they look really nice. My remarks about the elf skin body go pretty much for these skins too. The Livid skin comes in 4 different make ups. I am wearing the Despair one.

Night Elf and Drow both cost L$ 1000. Livid costs L$ 900 for a single and L$ 2700 for all 4 make ups.

RealSKIN is located in Pogon

Skins are courtesy of Stephen Lightworker.

Fashionably Dead

Fashionably Dead, Toast Bard's shop in Tableau, used to be the best hidden secret of the sim. It took me some time to find out that I had to enter the freezer to get to the goodies. In the mean time, Toast has put out some vendors in the actual shop, together with some totally annoying... ermmmm... adorable noise making sheep, but the skin and hair, as well as the eyes are still in the basement, as is the cute trapped whale. If you have never been there, this makes no sense at all, and there is no need to.... what this is about, is the hand drawn skin "Harp Classical Tragedy".

As stated before, I like some realism in my SL skins. Whereas I admire people like Elka Lehane and Juliette Westerburg for having chosen the total drawn look for their avies in SL, my skin of choice is more lifelike. I cannot help but being enthusiast about the skins that Toast makes though. They clearly show that this content creator is among the most artistic in SL.



Face: In an odd way, this face has a lot of realism, I mean, being drawn and all, I adore the freckles, that, just like in RL are scattered on the skin, not in an even pattern like you often see, or all the same size; these are random and I like it. I also adore the curve under the mouth, it is pronounced, but it gives the face character, something that is not always present in SL skins. The ears on this skin look decent, not much detailing, but certainly nothing to be ashamed of when you wear ear revealing hair.





Torso: I admit, this is the first time I really scrutinized one of Toast's skins, and I was pleased with the amount of details and shading on the body. I like the shading on the breasts and the highlights on the chest as well as the way the spine is done. I don't mind at all the total absence of a drawn pubic zone, although it looks a bit extra blurry there. The tush on the other hand looks quite cute, with again a nice, soft highlight that is just right. I did spot a bit of a seam where the upper body and lower body meet of which I am pretty sure that it is really there, as well as some minor other flaws, that could easily be my rezzing issues.


Arms & Legs: The legs are amazingly good, well drawn knees and even the knee pits were not forgotten, which makes me wonder why the arms have no elbows at all. The hands have a few freckles again, which made me smile since I have them at almost the same spot in RL but I have not found any on the legs. The finger nails are a bit blurry but the hands over all look nice and there even is a drawn hint of the knuckles. There are a lot of reasons for considering one of Toast's skins, but the feet are not among them.


There are 3 different skin tones available at Fashionably Dead, I wear the medium and they come in a nice selection of different make ups, some more natural like this one, others more outspoken... cute though... all very sweet and funny faces and all such original names. Skins cost L$ 800 for a single.


Fashionably Dead is located in the freezer .... in Tableau

New Skins at Pixeldolls

Once again big changes have been announced for the Pixeldolls shop and brand. After 2 sim rebuilds in a relatively short period, Nephilaine Protagonist has decided to abandon her current mega store concept and put her lovely designs into several smaller boutiques. In preparation to that, there is quite a sale going on again, but there is also newness: Pixelspa is being brought back, also in boutique form, but as a teaser (she's bad that Nephilaine), she has put out 4 new skins in 4 different skin tones for as little as L$ 250 for a single, or L$ 750 for all 4 make ups in one skin tone!

Face: in one word? Sweet! It's romantic and dreamy. A lot of attention was paid to the eye make ups, with strong eyeliners ( I am showing the "nude" version) and deep shades on the eye lids. The lips are quite full by design and are relatively neutral, except for the vibrant red on the garnet skin. Eyebrows are delicately shaped, they are not modifiable, which make these skins more for brunettes than for blondes, but yet, If you are not going too platinum, you'll still look fine in the lighter skin tones. I would certainly not recommend the 2 darkest skin tones for the fair haired among you. The nose has a wonderful shading, the ears and nostrils are not too detailed, Nephilaine certainly did not meant to make a RL like skin with these.

Torso: the over all look is just good. I see no flaws, no seams. Not that I expected them on the work of an experienced content creator like Ms. Protagonist. Taking a close look at the skin, I think she used photo material for the base. Either that, or she is even better than I thought she was, since if you take a really close look, you'll see the rosy capillary veins like you can see them on your RL skin too. The look is not photo real though. It looks smoother and softer than most photo real skins would. There is not so much detailing or definition on the torso. The shading of the breasts is good, it will probably look better on a smaller cup that is not too joined, but less is more anyway, we all know that..... A subtle shading indicates the abdomen and the rib cage. Virtually no detailing for the kitty zone. There is a vaguely drawn vagina, but if you are looking for a skin that has anatomically correct drawn parts... this is not it. Shoulder blades and spine are hinted with the same subtlety as the abdomen.

Arms & Legs: For the arms and the legs goes the same as for the torso. It's all there, just not very detailed. The knees actually look good with the shading, the elbows a little less.. but I hate my RL elbows too, so I probably will have a hard time finding nice ones in SL anyway. The finger nails have a nice buff and do really look nice, the feet are the usual subjects.... hard to get right... wear shoes... Fall is coming anyway.

For L$ 250, these skins are a real bargain. An ideal skin if you are passing from your newbie freebies towards " real" skins, or just a wonderful way of having a bit more diversity in your skins folder.

For now, these skins can be found in the Pixeldolls shop at Port Seraphine

Pixel Deep - Lustre

Joannah Cramer's skins have been on my wish list for quite a bit. I think they are among the best in SL, but you don't hear that often about them. I believe Haver Cole won the Lacoste Contest last spring, wearing the dark version of this skin, I decided to show you the medium Brunette version of Lustre, with the natural make up.

Buying Lustre is an investment. For only L$ 1,375 you get 4, actually 5, make up options if you count the natural version too. And they all come in 2 different hair colours and 3 different versions to "match your carpet to your drapes" as Joannah puts it subtly. If this is not enough, for L$ 275 you can buy additional make ups which are an easy way to expand your skin collection rapidly.

Pixel Deep skins are modifiable, you can tweak them into your preferred skin tone within range. I recommend you to keep an original skin tone set at all times and make copies if you want to adjust the skin tone, so that you will not have problems to add a loose make up to a skin. Just follow the instructions Joannah delivers with the make up, it's easy as 1, 2, 3.

About the skintones: there are 3 of them, Birch, Walnut and Ebony, but you have more options since you can pick Birch and Walnut in versions for blondes, redheads and brunettes or darker hair. Ebony is available in the "brunette" option only.

First of all, I have discovered no serious flaws in this skin. There are hardly any seams issues, the various templates fit perfectly and are traceless except for a bit of a seam there where the foot meets the leg. This is for me one of the most important things, if not THE most important thing in a skin. It shows the creator has been working carefully and skilfully, putting in a lot of attention to get it right. Most of the other features in a skin are personal taste whether you like them or not, but the seams is a quite objective thing, they either are visible, or they aren't.

Face: The eyebrows are softly drawn and not very pronounced. Personally I like them. As said, they come in 2 different colours to match with your preferred hair colour. The eye make up is kept very natural on the basic skins which makes it easy to match them with any outfit you chose to wear. I'd say it's perfect day time make ups. The lips have a lovely shade of pink and a soft gloss and there is the slightest hint of blush on the cheeks. There is a faint shading on the nose that I like a lot. It is something that you see often with people in RL and it makes it very realistic. The nostrils and the ears look good too.


Torso: Everything on the Lustre skin is soft... soft collarbone shading, soft definition of the areolas and the nipples, a subtle shading on the stomach area just to indicate tone, but no muscles and no female 6pack! Some of you might want a more defined and trained look, but to me this just looks very feminine. On the back you have some good looking and well positioned shoulder blades, and a spine that looks very natural. The tush is well shaded and looks round and firm. As said, there are 4 different options for pubic hair, from a full Brazilian, a neatly trimmed patch, to a carefully groomed "full hair"option that more or less cover a kitty that is not too detailed, but just looks good.


Arms & Legs: Yay for elbows and knee caps! They are there and looking good. This goes for the knee pits too. The fingernails look quite realistic, not too bright, not too shiny. The only thing I am less fond of in this skin are the feet. As mentioned before, I did spot a bit of a seam where the foot attaches to the leg, and the feet in itself are not looking that great. Whereas the fingernails are well defined, the toenails are not. It is not that they don't look good, but compared to the rest of the skin, the feet are not a strong as the rest of the body.


Pixel Deep is located in Hefferoo

Just Skins....

Shapes and skins are the basic look determining items in Second Life and it seems that more and more content creators are getting into creating them. There are so many fashion blogs, all of which cover skins more or less too, but the idea for this blog first popped in my head a couple of months ago, when I started to read the Savoir Hair blog... I thought it was a wonderful idea, a blog specialised on hair and I thought it would be an equally good idea to do one exclusively on skins. So finally, here it is.


I hope you like it, and that it will help you in finding the perfect skin for your avatar, of just that perfect skin for a particular occasion. Hence the subtitle: Read, Try, Buy.. I hope to show you some skins that you would otherwise not consider trying... let alone buying, just as I will not hesitate to share my opinion on skins that I think are just not as good as they should be, in which case I hope you will take my thoughts into consideration and make a balanced decision on buying a skin or not once you try it on.