African American/Black Skins

Hi All - I've tried searching, but perhaps with the wrong terms. I'm trying to find some African /Black skins for some of my friends and guests.

Please don't slam me if any of my terms offend. Speaking worldwide here I am a bit self conscious what to ask for. Just looking for some high quality vendors to refer people to. Also any general links with High Quality ethic kins are welcome! I have a varied crew/guest base and it really makes me sad to see all conforming to the "Norm". You know what I mean...

Any help is appreciated! Thanks in advance!

check out chip midnights store

there are some awesome black skins there

good luck

(wish I knew of more to suggest, hopefully others will pop in with suggestions)

Robin Sojourner's scrumptious skins -- truffle and cocoa.

Most of the "black" skins I see worn look like darkly tanned caucasian skins; this may be an artifact of the shape being used.

Second Skin Labs -- "photoreal" process, small but excellent line of both male and female skins, African included

Skin Within -- Bills herself as specializing in "ethnic" skins, female only. I have not tried any of her darker tones myself, but would be interested to hear if she captures ethnicity with her skins and shapes.

For African hair, you may want to try Adimu.

Oh and by the way, Chip's store is called CMFF.
.

When I look at the finis face skin templates in my photo program photoshop Elements and in SL, I can see that in the upper right corner it is a little bit where there are no color, looks like it is transparent?

Next question, I have tried to make a skin with and without Alpha, and I can`t see any difference, do I have to use Alpha? If yes why?

I ask because I would like to learn to make skin for fun

If someone have a link to some place for skin beginner where I can learn about it, I would be happy for that.

Sorry I know my English is poor, but I hope you understand what I mean.

The little "no color" area is for the eyelashes, so that they do not get colored by the skin color.

It would be a great help if LL offered some initial avatars of color and appearance--and not just black. What is presently offered clearly shows a very ethno-centric attitude at LL, although SL is now far removed from the Lindens' own culture, race, and background.

A black person certainly doesn't get the feeling of being welcomed or accomodated when starting out in Second Life. My black friends look once and turn away. Not one has even considered becoming a paying member. I don't blame them.

And please, don't get me started on how many times I've been called a "nigger" there. I'm just waiting for the lawsuit which forces LL to take more positive actions. As the saying goes, "If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem." That definitely applies to Linden Lab.

RaC is decidedly not my style, but you might like their female skins.

http://blog.secondstyle.com/2007/04/chloe-by-rac-greatly-improved.html

Naughty Island has some nice skins with darker tones ( mine is from there http://www.flickr.com/photos/rubianneellison/2120208740/). Minnu has some that are well done(the female, at least), and you might also try Body Politik and Vitamin Ci.


Unfortunately, they are hard to find. I'm guessing that skin makers don't think there's much market for them, and most of them are just darker versions of light tones, and turn out looking like crap. IMHO, many of them have weird gray undertones or the creators don't bother to match the makeup to the darker tones, instead just using the same makeup they do on the light skins. And don't get me started on how many times I've found "white" skins I've loved, then go to the store, only to discover they don't come in darker versions. Bah Humbug.

I wish your friends luck with their search.

Mine came from Naughty Designs.

Thank you all, especially for the suggestions. Nice skins for black males simply don't exist in SL. Same with hair, other than dreadlocks--which are poorly done. I've given up.

Advice to designers: Peruse some black magazines, "Ebony" as an example. There are others for black males. You'll see what we want and is far from being provided in SL.

Thank you ALL SOOOOO MUCH for the replies!!!! You guys rule!!

I'm pretty sure PixelDolls have dark skins (black skins)

I'm trying to find brown or black skins for my bf - maybe one that is semi transparent? I will check out some of the suggestions here.

Now the other thing is getting hold of a black ....

I think Zen has a valid point - I ran a black male alt for a while about a year ago and it was surprising the difference in the way ppl react to you. ( I'm usually a skinny white girl ) Now back to my mission of finding a good black skin for a male.

Checked out Second Skin Labs - not many skins but the quality looked excellent. I tried the darkest on a male alt and noted that you couldn't change the pigment - definitely not african/american, but high quality ( you do pay for quality as well I might add )

Chip Midnight - There are 4 available - I treid them all and the quality is definitely very good - details such as stubble. Also the price is very reasonable for the level of detail. The "crow" skin is good - it has built in cornrows - nice touch. Men are ususally rubbish at buying hair so this nicely solves the problem.

Skin Within - I'm already familiar with her work - very high quality sem transparent skins for a very reasonable price, only girls though unfortunately.

I arrived at the Naughty Island and The Rolling Stones were telling me "Can't get no satisfaction" which I thought was quite amusing... anyway... waits patiently to rez ( everything takes longer when you have to viewers running ) Ok, some nice quality skins here for both girls and boys... the shop called Dante has decent guy skins - and they are semi trans so you can ramp up the pigment. The ebony one though is not quite ebony enough inmo...

Moving onto body politik - ( waits to rez ) ok one ebony skin here, and a matching "you know what" - good quality but quite expensive - still i guess you only buy one if you are a guy. This is probably my favourite so far ( mainly because of the matching you know what - designers take note ) it's non-tintable though

Vitamin Ci - look a bit cartoony but are the cheapest by far

Ok I'm bored. It's between body politik if you have money or chip midnight if you're a bit skint ( but still want to look good )

Skin makers... we want more darker skins - please take note







Meanwhile

In general, male skins are more expensive than female skins of the same level of quality. This is probably in part because there is less repeat business; women will come back and buy the same skin again with different makeup, but men don't usually come back and re-buy with different facial hair (an option for some skins).

Mine is from Naughty. And Naughty's skins are mod, so you can darken/lighten the tone.

Totally agree with everyone about the lack of good black male skins in SL - I even planned to introduce my own range but in the light of rampant content theft i cancelled those plans...and saved myself a lot of work, skins are hard!

I'm also wearing a Naughty one, one of the few that doesn't look like a darkened caucasian skin with bad shading and a weird base colour.

There's definitely a bigger issue here - SL's Appearance system just doesn't have enough options or wide enough variables to allow the look of full ethnic diversity. It's not just an 'african' look that's hard to create - ironically, given SL's large Japanese and Korean population, getting a really good asian look is just as hard. Some of the basic characteristics that define ethnic facial differences just aren't there - and SL would be so much more interesting if we looked more diverse! Just how many 6ft blonde Barbies do we need?

I'm amazed and appalled that a company as (sometimes ridiculously) politically-correct as Linden don't recognise this issue and address it. I acknowledge the meshes used for avatars in SL are pretty basic, but some simple extra parameters would make a huge difference.

Is there a Jira issue about this? I'll have a look (cos the Jira is such fun to use!) and if not maybe we should start one?

EDIT: Another store with some good dark male skins is FORM, theirs are much more 'hand-painted' and less photo-real but worth a look and come in very dark shades.

Agreed. LL is turning away half the world's population by its pathetic offerings of only ethno-centric appearances. We are not all white nor look white but with only darker skin. Where are the Asians' appearance options? Where are those for Indians? Where are options for Hispanics? (And no, you cannot easily get there from Linden Lab's present avatar templates.)

Get a clue Linden Lab! You're being racists! (Hmmm...maybe a lawsuit even.)

I suggest Starley Therian's Charmed Skins version at Celestial Stuido. I'm here 4 years and it took me two years to find a nice warm brown skin I liked! I haven't take it off in 4 years! Good luck!

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Deva%20Loka/15/83/57
Is teh only one i ever seen with black racial character..nit just drak skin... to me it look very good and is not very expensive.

Taken from Amy Stork's review

Checked out Second Skin Labs - definitely not african/american, but high quality

Chip Midnight - Don't care for the kinda bland non-ethnic look

Skin Within - Never seen

Naughty Island - Bought the Dante skin in ebony flavor... Not ebony. Modded it still never got to truly look like a black skin.

body politik - My fave also so far except for one thing. Hate the lips on these. Could be a tad darker but if the lips were better I would purchase.

Vitamin Ci - never seen



I am liking the release by Hotla at least from the new products preview and will probably hit her/him up in IM for a male version.

I currenly have a skin from Made Men. Quality is not as good as some of the ones mentioned but it has the thing i want the most. I actually look like a darker skinned black guy and not just tanned.

This is a list of the skins that I like/use, or have used in my ads

Adam N' Eve
Sin Skins
Launa Fauna's CHAI Skins
PixelDolls
Vanity Body Skins
Ebony & Ivory Skins
Minnu
Kaufrausch Skins
Nora Body Skins
SLink!
RaC
Loveys Boutique
Cake
Deviant Kitties
Fleur Skins (formerly TaP)
Eloh Elliots free/open Source another skins

LL doesn't provide secondary skins to the SL general public, the citizens themselves do for some people "ethnic people" do not constitute a big portion of their daily lives, to put it bluntly they do not care, and they are not *required* to care. It's up to those who have the skill and can put them to good use to make sure their people/cultures/ethnicities/etc. are represented accordingly and it's up to the people who use their products to give them praise for a job well done. I've heard stories of certain highend skin makers cutting back on their dark skin palette selection because a) they do not sell b) customers were complaining they were "too dark".

http://asrifalcone.blogspot.com/

she has a new store called Nakid she made some skins that are appropriote for black people instead of just recoloring the same skin made for european skin tones. like nipples and such being dark like they r supposed to be as well as being modable so you can darken or lighten at will. Comes with hair and non hair versions, and Its kinda cool cause ive never seen it b4, even tho blk people come in several shades, she even gave highlights that are tones especially for blk people its perty cool. Its in the sim inizio. shes redoing the island hehe so look up..the store is 135m off the ground.