Hard work ain't enough anymore...

Sorry I misunderstood the pricing for the skin. L$1000 is a reasonable price. The rest of what I said I still think is true, and it applies as much to the things I sell as anyone else's. Even if L$1000 is not much money in RL terms, there are so many good items for sale even cheaper or for free that one is fighting an uphill battle.

For instance, if you have one good skin for sale at L$1000, while down the road someone else has a range of 50 good skins for sale at L$1000 each, people are more likely to go to the big producer. If your skin is tintable then that would be a major selling point and should be promoted prominently.

If I can make a suggestion as well, move your store. I'm in your store right now and my normal 30+ fps is down to 5. Script Perf is peaking at 2million ips (wow, and I thought 64k on my sim was bad) and the skin pictures are taking forever to rez. At this point its probably still possible to move your business without loosing too many customers. I speak from experiance here as I had to move my business early on and I'm glad I did. The SIM I'm on now peforms 100 times better and I've been able to expand my holdings three times to accomodate growth.

2 million?!?!? 64k???!?!?!?!??

Good greif!!! Where the hell do you people live?!?

I'm on the mainland and though my sim was bad with 6-8k. Private island, I work at, with a club and social stuff like hangliding and parachuting, waterslides, and stores all in the same sim are only adding up to 16k 0.0

2 million.....umm....yeah, move, or at least think about it.

~Jessy

Unless the OP is part of the reason its like that.

With just a skin store, I hope not LOL. If that's what's causing all the ips, ummm....can you IM me which vendors you're using so I can ban their use at stores I run security for? *Grins* I'm kidding btw (I hope).

~Jessy

I think this means that you've got a script running out of control.. If you can't find it, add a support ticket and a Linden may come by and smack the offending script.

If your product is good enough you don't need to go out of your way to advertise, and you don't need high traffic. You just need to wait for enough to get out there that you start to generate some word of mouth. Having a stable location so people can always find you can help a lot. It can take six months to a year to get to that point, and even then you'll never come close to the profits of the most heavily marketed skins. Some designers generate so much word of mouth by virtue of having so many sales that they've become juggernauts. I'm not one of them, but that's okay with me. Marketing gives me hives and I cover my tier each month. I tried to play "keeping up with the Joneses" in the skin market for a while and found that it just totally sucked the joy out of it for me. I had to decide what was more important, the love of the craft, or the money. I figure if I'm not enjoying it, no matter how much I'm making in profit, what's really the point?

Namssor's advice was great, and I agree with all of it. Don't love your own product too much. If you do you'll stop improving and start resenting other artists for being more successful when you think your work is better than their's. Do it because you love the challenge and the art of it, and keep at it. An audience will find you. A week is much too short a time span to judge your potential by. If you've created something you're proud of, you're already a success. Give people time to discover your work. If it takes a while, that's okay. You'll probably have something even better to show them by then.

just been there and the script ips tops at around 2.3mil

other thing i`ve found is that u have no picks for it (besides gambling)
make a skin pick at ground lvl and another pick on the 1st floor for shapes

there is also no land name set and searching for "skins" put u on page 3 with a blank entry

location, hmm... it`s cause u do decent shape sales it might not be to bad but ur next to a club and a giant texture flicker wall, tried getting a shop rented at a good location where ppl look around like Dee`s island mall? (search in map for: dee)

Sorry guys for not answering quickly, I don't really have time for SL on the weekends, but I'll answer to everybody later. (And I really have to, cause it seems there are a lot of misbeliefs about my shop and my skins - I hope that's the right word, english is not my first language)

The main reason I'm writing is to tell you all that I'm really glad for all these helpful messages, I only had time to have a quick glance, but a lot of reasonable ideas, so a big Thank You for everybody.

I don't intend to stop improving my stuff, I only think it was a very strong start. I also know that I made a huge mistake, I made a skin that I would buy for 1000L$, cause my main interest is a skin that actually looks good on my girlfriend, and the skin I made does that. I didn't care enough about the possible "errors", cause I believed that the overall look is more important. There are quite a few expensive and successful skins I'd never buy, no matter how "faultless" they are, cause they simply look ugly. I never thought that most people would care more about a so called perfection, than the actual look. I was wrong, and I have to admit it.

Fashion is always about perfectionism, doesn't have to be practical, doesn't even have to look good, just make sure you have the most expensive raw materials available, etc, etc. I have bought my first skin over 6 months ago, and in 6 months I never ever thought about checking if it has any seam problems. It just wasn't imortant, nobody else had a chance to see them either - now I checked it, I found about 10 highly visible seams in 30 seconds, and it cost me 1200L$, so I guess men think differently about these things, cause it was one of the most successful male skins in SL, and I still think it looks good, so I like it, wear it, have no problem about it.

I've learned from my mistake, and I'll use it to become better overall. I have something I can build on, and I don't intend to stop building. (If I made a skin that's faultless but ugly, I'd be worried, it's a lot harder to improve on that.)

This is all the time I have now, I'll come back next week, and tell you if I've reached something after your suggestions.

PS: I have no idea what causes the huge lag, definitely not me, but I planned to move anyway, I need more prims.

I think i`ll be stoned in the marketplace if I give my opinion.

*Edit*
I can`t resist, Please do not take this personally, it`s not an attack on you or your work, but it is an honest post from my point of view:

It`s not about hard work, nobody is going to buy something based on the time you spent on it. People will buy because of quality, compatibility (with their avatar), and also the aesthetic value, so to speak, of your product boxes.

You can have a great product, throw it in an ugly ass box, and many won`t give it a second look. You can have a junk product, do great presentation work, and that will draw in customers; They may not buy anything, but a clean professional look will draw them in. Your goal should be to have a balance of both, not only a good product, but a nice presentation of that product.

I read your post about your skin in the new products forum and I was expecting to be floored.. And I was, but not in a good way. Take a step back and look at your work in comparison to others you`re running up against. Not with a mindset of "I worked hard on this, so it`s good" but with a mindset as if you were the consumer. It will help. (ref thread: /195/16/208720/1.html )

The female skin market is so populated, you are up against some talent and hard core fans of that talent. But that doesn`t really matter, you can still get a customer base of your own! Your skin isn`t terrible at all, but I think the overrall experience of it just needs a bit of redirection. Also remember because the market is so big it allows the girls to be as picky as they want, well almost. Good luck.

Pelthar, I freely admit to being uber-picky. There are skins out there that I quite like, except the brows aren't quite right or the nipples are an odd color or I don't like the shading on the collar bones, or some other relatively minor issue...I won't buy them. But visible seams are not something I consider a minor issue. Those other things are mostly a matter of preference, whereas seams are a technical issue and I don't believe a skin can be considered 'well made' if it has obvious technical issues. Maybe it doesn't bother you on your male skin, but I tend to think that creator needs to improve his skills as well. You're learning, so a few 'wobbles' in execution are to be expected, but someone who's already well known shouldn't be having those issues, IMO.

Hi everyone, only have a few minutes, and I would like to say, that I finally had time to work on the skin, and actually it looks totally different now. I fixed all the seams I found, totally changed the shading, making it a lot more subtle, corrected the position of the nipples and the bellybutton, as a matter of fact, she has brand new nipples, slightly enhanced the knees, totally redrawn the mouth and the nose, changed the shading of the face, created a new smokey makeup, and I adjusted the skintones. Still a lot of work to do, the lower body needs more definition, and the arms will have to be improved too.

The price will go down to 600 for September, and I decided to keep the shape and the eyes in the package, I never intended to sell those anyway.

So here's a few pics of "what you see is what you get" - except the hair, that's not mine.







Jesseaitui, no problem, I respect your opinion, but as I said, I'd have bought that skin for 1K immediately, cause my girlfriend looked awesome wearing it... Maybe that's because I'm a man, and I always look for the big picture. Believe me, I've seen pretty much all well known skins in the game about a 1000 times, and I only found 4 designers, who can actually create a really pretty face. (According to my own taste of course - those are CS, Nomine, RAC and Naughty.) Their skins can achieve that "Jessica Rabbit" look everyone seems to favour here. I didn't want to make a skin that does the same, I rather wanted to create a new pretty face, something you can't see everywhere, and I still think, that even the first version of the skin gave my models a prettier face than most of the other skins. That was my aim, cause I thought that my customers will also look for that.


Just for the record, what do you think, which girl is prettier, mine or this girl with one of the most popular skins on her? (Same eyes, same shape, same hair)



Since then, I realized, that every single thread or chat about skins is around the same subject: skintones, seams, nipples, lips - in one word: details. Nobody seems to care about the overall look, but it's ok, no problem, I adjust my skins according to that, I'm working on it. As you can see, I opened this thread for help, and it did help, I'm moving forward, making progress, didn't give up, etc, etc. And I'm still proud of my work, cause if I don't exist, than that beautiful blonde girl on the pictures wouldn't exist either.

Ann, even CS skins have visible seams, although only a very few, and you really have to look for them. If I want to be picky: the face is too dark for the body (actually I'm facing a similar problem with my own skin too), the scapula is pretty badly drawn, the shoulders have a strange tone and finally the shading on the buttocks is too harsh.

But there's no doubt about it, the overall quality is very high, and the face looks really gorgeous! The best skins I've ever seen.

I don't find the face too dark, but my main and alt do wear the two lightest shades, so that may have something to do with it. Also, I have no issues with seams, shoulders, or scapulae. I won't argue with the buttock shading comment, I find the nipples a bit blurry, and that inner thigh 'stretch' most skins have in various poses seems a bit too obvious. The feet aren't great either, although I know they're one of the toughest parts of a skin to get looking good. I never claimed the Vogue skins were perfect, but the flaws are minor and I can live with them. *shrug*

They look very similar actually. My female avi personally wears a skin from Artilleri which is sexy as hell on her, but on other shapes? Not so much. But thats the same with many of the more hand-drawn skins.

Your skin looks better now, does not look sunburnt anymore, I would suggest making the nostrils dark.

I hate to say it, but while your skin is pretty good, it's by no means exceptional :/.

Heh, those other skin makers started in roughly the same place. It's taken them years to get to where they can afford those 140k classified ads. They had an advantage in that they started in a smaller community, but for them it wasn't just a one time, "I think I can make a really good skin", it's a day job. They spend 40 hours a week plus making skins of different shapes with different shading and makeup options.

Overall I think your biggest problem is that SL is so big now that the little guys are hard to find. Sorry, it's just sort of a function of growth.

people are misreading his post and I think his sales are fine for 1 week in business

8 sales totally 6500 in one week
his totaly traffic is 8k (i never break more then 1.5k ... )

In all honesty there is nothing wrong with these figures especially in a competitive market like this.

Also remember that the servers are messed up and I can tell when they are because sales drop to 0 and often there are no visitors.

Right now on top of it the pay system is down so people are running on lindens they already had.

Considering how badly SL is functioning and the fact that for the first time since I started selling things I had a day last week with 0 sales.. your doing well.

I would however give away the shape for free and sell the eyes seperately for like 10L or 20L a pair or something and then maybe have a package deal on a few key skins for newbies. That way you can make sales on the eyes alone.

Shapes I dont comment on much as they have to be pretty special shapes for me to consider them worth paying for if one makes skin I dont usually appreciate it if the shape on the photo costs extra because the amount of time in comaprison to making a shape vs. a skin is negligable. If you skin is selling for 1k or whatever then the shape is pretty much free as far as time goes. I have walked away from large well known skin vendors cause it was not enough that they wanted to charge me 4k or more for a skin they also wanted me to pay 500L for a shape which they likely had to make in order to see how the skin would fit..... (totally illogical that lol)

Okay, having seen you in a skin that isn't yours (so I can see what's a quality difference and whats bad photography), a few suggestions.

1) Skip natural light. it seems the easiest to show what your stuff looks like, but it can cast harsh shadows in SL and using that harsh natural light is something that detracts from the beauty of the skin. Instead consider sunrise/sunset and a set of face/body lights and turn your graphics detail up as high as they will possibly go.

2) Prim eyelashes. Prim eyelashes. Prim eyelashes. The difference really is striking up close and you're selling the face up close. You wouldn't use linden hair, don't use linden eyelashes please god. =)

3) One really nice relaxed stand pose for close ups will help the polish as well. Something that's not really posing, but looks like you're really just standing relaxed and comfortable. I like Reel Expression poses for realism, but there are many others. The slightest tilt of the head can put a world of expression into how the models would perceive themselves if they were real- and any honest expression of realism that you can cram into the picture without words speaks a thousand times louder.

Presentation is such an important aspect and people tend to place value judgments with their subconscious long before they see your demo and it's the little things that can really give your ads the pizazz to put them on par with the big guys.

EX:
Taken at sunset with linden eyelashes, and my standing ao and face lights turned off.


Taken at sunset with prim eyelashes, my standing ao on, and face lights turned on.


Both taken at an entirely random place while I was out land shopping. =P

I'm not sure, but it seems there won't be a new version of my skin at all. The hard drive with all my work just died about an hour ago. I know some companies can help regain the lost data, but I can't afford it, it'd be about 500-1000 US$, and we're already in debt. (our little company almost went bankrupt already when my girlfriend almost died in July (pulmonary embolism), so she didn't work for 2 months and we used our savings for her treatment.)

Everything was on that HD, not only SL stuff, but the music I composed in the last 2 months (I'm composing for orchestra), it was made for a game developer company, who - obviously - won't pay me now. I wanted to archive everything on the coming weekend...

I don't know how will I tell my girlfriend that we've just gone bankrupt... It's 4 am here, she's still sleeping. I hate first life...

Interesting. Whast a good place for prim eyelashes?

I guess i Predate them.

This is terrible hon, I'm so sorry. I've PM'd you a possible workaround. Also, most of the disk restoration techniques are not actually rocket science. All may not be lost ... hang in there ...

I got mine at Sin Skins, although there are several other places for them (they came free in my skin package- those are "Portia"

To the OP, going deeper in debt to recover the means for future income can balance out. At the very least, call around town tomorrow and get several quotes. The last time I was in a position to consider recovering a hard drive it was closer to 200$ which was out of my budget for recovering nothing more than a few scanned photos and school reports- but would have been very reasonable for recovering income generating work. =)

At the very least you can recover the full perm items out of your inventory and start work from there- you'll lose layers and it would be a pain to reconstruct, but it can be done.

I heard a quick thing you can try for a hard drive is to but it in the fridge until it gets very cold. They hook it back up and get the needed data.

No Idea if it works - evidently its something they do in the Navy.

Cheaper than $200 though

However sounds like $200 would be cheap considering how much was lost.

I have been following the discussion with some interest.

After all of the comments I was curious to compare the skin with my normal favourite. Now I will admit I tend to prefer the more photo realistic skins (I find that painted skins seem to be too cartoony or doll like to my eyes). However I think it is instructive to compare 2 skins, neither from a well known skin shop and both costing about $L 1000.

So here are two compared, first my normal skin, then the PBC demo

PS I'm very sorry to hear that you lost all your work. I truely hope you are able to find some way to recover it.

Capella, how can I do that? I never knew I could get my full perms textures back. It would be huge help.