About 2 weeks ago, CJ Carnot and Roslin Petion, owners of Tête à Pied have released their new skin line Vivant. For those of you familiar with TaP skins, you'll have noticed by now that they have made quite a change in their business concept and made great improvements on the skin.
In June, Roslin called out for people to send feed back on TaP skins, and even more than her customers opinion, she would want to receive the opinion of people that for whatever which reason, would not consider TaP skins, which I think is a clever move. Whereas you should enjoy and value the opinion of your customers, they like your work already. If you want to do market research, it is way more interesting to know why people don't buy your product. Well, long story short, TaP has received an overwhelming amount of feed back from customers and other people alike and they took it all into consideration, with the following result: 16 brand new skins each in 3 different make ups, coming in 6 different skin tones.
More than ever Tête à Pied skins are about the make ups. It has always been their strongest point. However, that does not mean thet the rest of the body is being neglected at all. For better customisation, TaP the eyebrows are moddable in appearance now, and for your convenience there is a free range of ready made brows as well. For those of you interested, they have also created matching pubic hair in the form of panties. The ready made brows and the panties can be further modded to your personal preferences, adapting the respective layers in appearance.
Face: as said, make up is important in TaP skins. But in this new skin, CJ and Roslin have given great attention to all other facial details too. So for comparison's sake I took a photo of the old make-up less "Au Naturelle" skin (left) next to the, also nude looking, "Vivant Buff Just Lips 1" because I thought they might look quite alike and we would not be distracted by different make ups.
The difference in the skins is dramatic though! As you can see the over all skin is smoother, it has a soft, healthy glow and the facial shading is so much better too. The eye lids are better defined, giving your avie that sensuous look, and whereas I thought the mouth of TaP skin could not be improved, well.. dunno how they did it, but it sure looks better to me, and the teeth have gotten a make over too. Finally someone who has taken the trouble to bleach those teeth! Nostrils and ears have always looked great in my opinion on TaP skins, and they do just that in the Vivant skins too.
Torso: The Vivant skin is fully hybrid. TaP worked with photo material, something they have been experimenting with in some parts of the Au Naturelle skin already, although I would not really call that one hybrid. Photo sourcing was used just in a very limited zones of the skin. Vivant has a fully photo sourced base and has been worked on a lot to achieve a soft, realistic, but not too photo realistic look. I am no big fan of photo realism in SL. Whereas I do want a realistic look, I can do without the ugly details that a lot of photo real skins have (ever checked hand palms on photo real skins?).
The collarbone is enhanced and it catches more light now. The nipples, as you can see, are slightly bigger in the new skin and they look softer than before. Honestly, I did like the old ones, I thought they looked cute, but the new ones are just fine. The nipples look softer, but the over all shading on the boobs is a bit stronger than on the old TaP skins. Just like in the Lustre skin that I wrote about last week, the stomach is very feminine, not very muscular, although with the new shading there is slightly more definition brought to the abdomen and the rib cage.
The back is a big improvement according to me. The shoulder blades look just great, as does the spine. Way more natural. I'm sorry to see that the sweet dimples above the tush on the Au Naturelle skin didn't make it to the new skin, but doesn't the tush over all look great?
Arms & Legs: the knees on the new skin are more present than on the old skin. That is not so amazing, as there was only a hint of knee on the old skin, as is the case with the elbows. DECENT looking elbows!!!
However, if I should make a comparison to what the knees look like.. I think I'd say that they look like you are wearing a pair of sheer tights. You see knees, you just don't see details, which for most of us in RL is a blessing. The feet are more defined than on the old skin, although feet remain one of the hardest things to get right on a skin. No need to be ashamed of these feet when you wear flip flops though, they look absolutely satisfying. An improvement that I do enjoy a lot in the Vivant skin is the nails. The nails on the old skin used to be a bit blueish, they look way more natural now, with a cute french manicure.
Besides the major improvements in the skin, and the lots of fashionable, romantic and edgy make up options, maybe Vivant's best feature is the price. Skins at Tête à Pied now only cost 500 L$ for a single and 1200L$ for a 3-pack which is a total bargain considering the quality of the skins. CJ and Roslin wanted to make it possible that when you buy that awesome outfit, you can still afford the best possible make up to go with it. Skin as a fashion accessory, it makes sense, and it suits my linden balance too.
Tête à Pied is located in Nouveau
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