Skins ...who's got the best?

Okie I dont look in the forums all that much but I do really want to know. Who makes the best skins (female type) in SL? I've been looking but not found one thats truly awsome. And thank you in advance for any help you can offer cya in game! Oh! sorry one last thing leave reply here or IM me in game if you like. k Cya

I like the skins from SS Labs. You can customize the look and makeup options from a wide range of options, and the detailing is superb.

Well that was fast thanks

Personally I dont think you can do better than Andie Ramona - her stuff is truely awsome. I might be a littel biased lol - but its still true.

Totally awesome? Yummy skins by Robin Sojourner. My skin of choice for that realistic, human look.

Yep, SS Labs is good and I'm told the customer service is superb. But tbh, I don't think you can go wrong with the ND skins either.

I am currently wearing Gala skins from the empyrian emporium. They are quite nice in shading and 'bits'. And they have a sale for 500 each instead of teh usual 1000.

I havn't looked at the others mentioned so far, guess i got a shopping trip to do
I rejected Passport skins because of some ugly underbreast shading.
I also tried chamred skinds from celestial, Canimal skins, Hyrbid from nevermore and tied a pied skins. They have all been rejected for either tone or detail. The best from the rejected lot are tied a pied, they are nicely detailed.

.::By Max::. skins! Ok I might be a little biased but I know a lot of work and care goes into these skins, and Max is always willing to help a customer. Plus, he has demos for ALL his new skins, and also you can change the lipstick tone one his new ones as well.

I own all of the above and more, and each of them has something good to offer.

Right now I have 2 Naughty Design skins that I adore. The detailing is fabulous, and if I had any complaints at all it's that I like my makeup a smidge darker than their skins -- but it still looks super.

yeah i think i have all of those as well, right now my fav is Boneflower's

Two things one never sees in SL...
Tan lines, and badly applyed fake tan, you know, where the face is orange, and the neck pasty white.
I know it doesnt help in finding you a skin... its just a random thought.

i've seen some with tan lines, so i think its jsut the fake tan, with the orange hands no one has done.. completley untapped market there..

I can vouch for Yummy Skins and Pixeldeep

I love my Fusion skin from X2: Exotica (make sure you put the colon in when searching). I've tried numerous other skins (demo and paid for), but just haven't been able to give up my Fusion skin (and before that the previous line).

You'll note there are a lot of different answers to this thread and that is because everyone's idea of 'best' is something different. Some don't like photo realistic skins, some don't want anything else, etc. You need to take this list and start trying demos until you find something that is best to you.

Char

Well, I make skins myself...but I am not gonna tell you mine are the best. Because to be honest, I feel a skin is a huegly personal choice, and what is "best" depends on what styles of art you prefer and also what looks best on your shape.

In SL you will find a huge variety of skins, depending on your taste, for example:

Photo-Sourced Realism - This style is designed to use actual photographs of real people's skin and faces, mixed with some hand-painting to create as realistic and life-like depiction as possible. The vast majority of SL's skins seem to fall into this category. There are some amazingly well done photo-skins available in SL, including Chip Midnight's, Starley Thereian's, Max's, X2 and more. But...not everyone wants total realism, and some even think it looks somewhat out of place in a world that is otherwise not realistic. It's a personal choice.

Anime Skins - This is a fairly new category, and to be honest, I only know of one artist doing them. But if you would like a skin that is designed to make your character look like the art styles of traditional anime, you definately need to drop by Neil and Nephaline Protagonist's Nakama sim. They have some great line-shaded anime skins that I love. needless to say, this is a very specialized type skin and not for everyone.

Animal and Neko Skins - Very specialized area, but there are a few people making them, myself included. If this is your thing, just do a search for "Neko" or "Furry" skins in the search tool and a lot will pop up. A friend of mine specializes in mature furry skins designed to match traditional furry avatars from Luskwood and others, while I make more realistic Cat-Girl skins. Very specialized area, and not for everyone.

Hand-Painted Skins - this is the second largest style available in SL. Basically it is a non-photo-scourced skin that the artist painted entirely by hand, but with an attempt to create semi-realism. Munchflower's Nomine skins fall into this category, as do my own skins. Some people prefer these to photo-skins for various reasons, including the opinion they fit better in style to the world of SL. Personaly preference as to what style strikes you as "best".

Aside from style (and there are other styles besides those above, but I merely listed the biggest or more noticed ones), the next largest factor to consider when finding the "best" skin for you, is how it looks on your shape. The shading on a skin can make your shape look drastically different and some shapes can make a skin that looks excellent on one person's shape look horrible on another's. Demos are the norm for this all-important reason. It doesn't matter how wonderful the skins is made and looks on someone else. If it looks bad on you, you will never be happy with it.

I highly recommend anyone looking for a skin do a LOT of shopping around first. Try on a zillion demos, and look at the skins in different lights and with different clothes and hair. A skin helps to define the look you present the world, and aside from shape is the second largest aspect of your avatar.

P.S. - If I placed anyone's skin in the wrong category because of my mis-judgement of it, please let me know. There can be a fine line sometimes between hand-painted and photo-realistic skins as the amount of photo-sourcing used can vary drastically. As well, some hand-painted skins can at times approach photo realism and thus may have been mislabeled. If so, please let me know and I will make the correction.

I have looked all over for skins and tried demos far and wide and I have to say that Sensual Casanova's skins fit my preference the most, they are hand drawn they are original and there are tons of lovely makeups and skin tones to chose from and best of all they are affordable.

I too love my X2 Fusion, but I also agree that taste really is personal. One of the exciting features of SL to me is that I can choose something completely different whenever I want, and I can morph at will and whimsy.

Lately I wear Gala Phoenix's skins pretty much exclusively. They have a wonderful realism to them, nice highlighting, very slight tan lines, and they come in enough variety in skin tone and makeup to suit just about any look.

I have a bazillion skins and I love them all, but I have a few favorites for the same reason...my favorites make my av look most like the real me, and there are a few. My current favorite is ::by Max::

Skins are a very personal choice, and a skin that doesn't look so hot on me usually looks fabulous on someone else...

SO...keep looking, try on every demo you can find and pick the skin that fits you best. That's why there are so many to choose from.

A few that haven't been mentioned that you could try: RealSKIN by Stephen Lightworker, Pixel Spa has some inexpensive hand drawn skins, and you have to stop in at Adam n Eve and try some of sachi Vixen's hand drawn skins, the textures and makeups are really something. Also, someone mentioned Naughty Designs, and they do have some really nice photosourced skins. Have fun shopping!

Best skins are from Nylon Pinkney. Period.

I have two skins with tan lines, actually. One is by Cherrybomb, I can't remember who made the other one - I got it about 7 or 8 months ago.

Has anyone else found that with certain skins it's really, really hard to get a chin that looks right? So often I've found skins that make my chin either look too wide or too pointed with almost no happy medium in between (the Nakama skins were one of these, and Kru's pure). On the other hand some just seem to look fine straight away (SG*Princess). Does anyone have any suggestions for Shape settings that fix this? I wish they'd include a notecard of suggested Shapes with each Skin, I have to pretty much rebuild my whole Shape every time now

Let's not forget Chip Midnight, 'k?

VERY nice skins...

Personally, I've found the photo sourced skins a bit too creepy. I have always liked the hand drawn ones far better. Munchflower has always been the best at this. I have tried the demos from others, but never purchased.

But it really is down to what you are looking for.

I found the "Entice" skin by Nora fairly early on in SL, around my second week, and I don't plan on ever changing it. She does great work, and there are multiple makeup packs for whenver I need a (slight) change.

I agree about the photorealism skins being a little 'creepy' sometimes. I had come across a demo of a skin that I really liked, but it was SO detailed it freaked me out. I'm fine with slightly cartoonish looks over freckles, moles, and highly visible PORES.