Skins as part of a package...

I'm making an avatar that will allow people to use their own skin, eyes and hair. Since these parts aren't a 'feature' of the avatar (so not included), when you unpack the avatar and wear the contents of the folder, you retain your own skin (and eyes and hair...).

But I'm thinking it might be nicer to ship it with a skin of sorts, just in case someone buys it and doesn't have a better skin they want to use. Basically, a default skin - but I'd like something a little nicer than the actual SL defaults.

What's the best way to find something like this? Contact individual skin makers and try to negotiate a deal? My problem with this is I want 'better than SL' but not 'awesome' and I can't think any artist is going to appreciate me saying "Hi! Have you got any crappy skins you wouldn't mind having bundled with an avatar?". On the other hand, it's not an essential part of the av, so I don't want to pay a fortune for full perms on some really gorgeous skin people probably aren't going to use anyway (using their own).

Or do people sell items like this for this reason? Like how people sell textures full perm so that you can sell as part of another project?

It's not something I've ever had to look into before, so I'm just wondering where I should start.

Maybe include a freebie skin? There are lots of freebie skins that are not too good but not too bad either. I'm not sure how the original skin creator would feel if you had it as part of a retail pack though.

Well yeah, that's why I didn't just run out and gather up freebie boxes. Regardless of whether the permissions are right or not, there's nothing saying that's legitimate use, and a lot of freebie content creators are gone or impossible to find to question...

You bring up a good point. last year I made a skin specifically to go with some of my avatars I make and sell. The skin though is sold separately and not included with a drider prim base avatar. One thing I noted was that some people actually thought they were to get the prim avatar with the skin and since they hadn't some felt ripped off.

My thinking in this though was when I created the skin I wanted something absolutely unique and hand painted by me. It's not always that easy to hand paint specific feature you want for a texture and I haven't personally pursued a career in skin making. But it was never my intention to deceive anyone by the sale of the skin alone whereas there are many, many wonderful drow skins available today on the market that are also very affordable to suit the need for drider avatars.

I think it's nice if a custom skin can be provided but it's not necessary, nor owed to me as a buyer.

No, I agree - it's not owed - and I always list what's included so people know what they're getting. It doesn't stop people not reading it and yelling at me anyway... heheheh!

But what made me think it might be nice is that while I'm testing, swapping between the different avs, I often end up with a female body with a male skin, or vise versa I expect the same to happen with customers. They're wearing a furry av, then put mine on and retain their skin and it all looks a little - odd! I expect people to use their own skins, but it would be nice to have a complete 'package' that they can just wear as-is, and change for their own parts when they're ready.

Just to add - I've been told about full perms packages that run very highly priced. I understand this, and I'm not asking for something for nothing. But I want to know if there's a solution which doesn't require paying top dollar for great skins with full perms, when I'm just after a 'base' skin - something like the better Library skins we have now. Male and female, and not hideous. Not any 'selling point' of the actual avatar, just an extra included thingy.

I realise it might not be possible the way I see it, but I thought I'd check.

I can't see anything wrong with including a few freebie items in your package, just make sure you indicate that they are free. You are just including them as a convenience to the purchaser. If in doubt contact the creator and ask if its OK. If they are no longer in SL then I can't see what harm would be done by including the item.

This seems to be normal behaviour in SL, - but it would not be tolerated in other communities. Even if an item is free, copyright remains with the creator. The creator has the right to determine how the item is distributed. Some don't mind if their work is freely distributed, but other mind very much.

I saw a skin on slex that was full perm, included the textures so you could upload to your pc and then make or change them and then make the skins as created by you

not sure if these are rip offs or not (only way to tell would be to find them)

the price was something like 1500 or 2000 can not recall

it is a single skin with the actual texture files

I do not remember the name of it, I guess searching full perm skin might help

yep I searched full perm skin and it was the first one
(it says it is a limited quantity of them though)

just my opinion but it might be worth it for what you want

the skins would be created by you, owned by you
could be modified to meet your needs and they are not perfect skins, I would say better than SL, but not the best

I was just looking on SLEX - a simple search for 'full perms skins' or something similar turns up a lot, and many 'cheap' skins - and some are ok, the sort of quality I'd be after for this - nothing special, but better than average. But... I've seen so many threads about texture theft on SLEX here, it makes me nervous to consider buying them. That's not good, is it - putting people out of business because of a few bad guys :/

I would definitely be wary of the freebie and full perm skins. The most common are commercial skins by Nora or by Naughty that have been illicitly released into the wild; it'd be unethical (at best) to use them.

I've sometimes used a skin that was in a freebie box at Million Dollar Skin Labs; it seemed to be made by them. You might ask about using them or similar--it'd ostensibly benefit them, maybe. Good luck!