Skins and Shapes

I've been seeing this lately too, Lana! Finally!!

As to the OP, I'm assuming you're new to SL (and if not I apologize). When I first came to SL and didn't even know that skins/shapes could be purchased (yes I was *that* naive ), a friend gave a freebie shape to me that was wonderful. Having come from EverQuest, I just worked with the appearance menu sliders until I got a "look" I liked. (Skin shade, face shape, eye color, etc.). Someone did recommend a hair shop to me so I had prim hair.

I was very happy with that look, but saw an avatar after a few weeks whose skin tone I just LOVED! I asked how she achieved that (thinking the sliders) and she took me to Gala Phoenix skins where I promptly purchased the skin I have worn ever since. Yep...10 months in SL and still happy in that first skin. And still wearing the original freebie shape, although I have tweaked it a bit in height (so I didn't look like an Amazon) and gave myself a bit more shape in the hips and derierre.

Given the prices of skins, my advice would be to start with the appearance sliders or a freebie skin you like and then keep your eye open for what you see that appeals to you. Jumping into skin shopping with soooo many choices can make one's head spin.

If you are looking for cheap shapes, I have a sale at my store (Dakota's Shapes) this weekend. 125 L$ per shape.

Before I started making my own shapes, I bought shapes from /edit/ almost exclusively. The owner is Mellow Poppy, and her shapes look ... well ... normal.

For some reason the shapes from better known designers always look weird to me, wide lips, extremely long legs, thin ...

Mellow Poppy's are pretty much the only ones I can stand (besides me own of course).

For skins, if you want something cheap, go to Fleur. Top quality, and they are giving away 500 L$ giftcards for free to members of their update group. So the skin won't cost you anything.

(I know I'm repeating myself here, but this is just a great offer!)

Also check out miw. I think there's a sale currently going on. 350 L$ per skin instead of 700 L$.

Also take a look at La Sylphide and Sin Skins. At 500 L$ they are among the cheaper skins as well.

And <3 Cupcakes. They have cheap skins as well, and they are of a decent quality.

Actually many do because of the nature of how skin creators market the "newer, better" and conveniently "more expensive than the last" skin they made. Also because with nearly everything else in SL, you get what you pay for usually. It's certainly not true in this case, but there's always someone willing to talk about their own personal status symbol, and in SL, skins tend be one of those. Shapes aren't quite so bad as they're more personal, and less popular opinion or hype.

IMO the very best skin in SL is any one who's tone, makeup, details, shading, and quality/craftsmanship that you like. The very best shape in SL is the one matched to that skin that you like. It's all very subjective and personal. Following popular trends tends to weed a few choices out, but mostly it's up to the one who's gotta wear it.

The cool thing is that there are LOTS of good skins in SL, and most of the better made ones can be made to be jaw-droppingly beautiful on you merely by matching your shape to it.

Some of the highest priced shapes are also the least realistic proportion-wise.

And the high price ones seem to be more likely to be no-mod.

Buying no-mod shapes doesn't make a lot of sense with me - since many people want customize their look. I really would suggest buying one that is copy/mod.


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For skins - many top quality skins aren't in the 4000$ range

Nomine is less than 1000$ for 1 makeup.

Naughty has skins that are around 1500 for 1 makeup.

Not that I would begrudge skin makers from getting 4000L .. Just that prices between 1000-4000 seem less to do with quality and more with just how the skin maker chooses to do things. (such as selling multiple make-ups etc)

Demos are the way to go.



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BTW I looked at that Nora skin mentioned and I think the face was really well done - and the built in scalp hair was really cute.

The level of body shading was less than I normally like, and it didn't come in my shade - But the face and hair (and skin tone quality) are well worth the sale price.

Shapes can be way over priced since with a little practice, anyone can perfect a nice shape. But, since I love coming up with new shapes (more so to make unique faces, bodies are easy) I opened a shop....House of Body. I also do custom shapes for folks which I love to do....the challenge of getting a look just right is great excercise for the creative muscle in my brain. If you are looking for a certain 'look'...I'd be happy to help you out....give me a buzz in world...I've got tons of shapes and all are modifiable and I'd be happy to give ya one just to mess with it.

For skins I love Canimal (great prices!) and Celestial Studios.....also there's a little shop called Just Another Shop that sells beautiful skins....100L for a 32 makeup package...and they offer a free package of dark skins!!! (yup, I have em all lol) Also Panjen makes pretty skins for a great price too.

I use Sin Skins. They have a nice under 30 day freebie pack to start with I've never even looked at any others, that's how much I like their products.

The blog says to join the group and then touch the sign at the main store.
Don't suppose anyone knows which sign? My poor newbie alt could do with a decent skin, without the undies stuck on

Go to notices in the Fleur update group and sort them by date. The last one I read when I was in with an alt (Marianne Little has good enough skin) say that the vendor giving out giftcards is broken. It was a vendor to the right of the entrance.

I hope they send out a notice when it's ok again.

I was sent to Skin Within about a month ago, they're a bit spendy, but WOWZA! Stunning atmosphere, even more stunning skins and they come with shapes Really nice tones that aren't the run of the mill "pretty little white girl". There was one other place that had incredible skins too, but I can't remember the exact name. Will post it later

Did anyone mention Eloh Eliot's free skins? I really like the soft look she does. I've paid a ton for some of my skins but I'm finding that I wear her free SE more and more of the time. They are mod too. http://slurl.com/secondlife/Lippert/74/176/179

I hope they send out a notice when it's ok again.[/QUOTE]

Seems the promo has been suspended till they fix it.
Hopefully there'll be a notice when it's fixed.

And my personal pet peeve; short arms. There are SO many avatars out there with short little stumpy arms; people don't seem to realize that in RL our fingers are at the middle of our thighs if we stand up and let the arm hang naturally. I've seen women running around in SL with their fingers at hip height and I instantly think "flippers..."

That is my bug bear!! And to broad a shoulders on womens shapes with teeny tiny waists!

I use to make shapes..but I was forever tinkering with them...I use to get more frustrated with them trying to get them perfect then I do when making a lounge set!! From different angles shapes can look completely different to what you thought you were creating..grrrr

its not so much they make their arms short

but they lengthen their torso and hips a fair amount and then make their legs 80 or 100 length

making what would would seem like normal arms ("standard" av is 70) very short.

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Men do this too

A lot of men go to max torso length and leg length,

And worse - to make their biceps look "better" shorten their arms

I love her skins too, very pretty and soft

not photorealistic, just pretty and soft

Although finger tips only reaching the waist must be pretty rare in RL (!), I have seen many people with shorter than average arms and legs, women with 'swimmer's shoulders' and boyish hips, etc. My Dad's 6'2" - all legs and bean-pole skinny. Why not in SL, too? To be fair, some 'odd' shapes may come from the fact that some have no clue to proportions in SL, but I'd like to think some of the choices people make are intentional. Dare to be different from the masses...

I kinda like seeing a variety of body types in SL. Besides, playing with sliders is fun. If you get no enjoyment out of twiddling with your body shape, then by all means, buy one - save yourself the aggravation. Lots of choices out there, but as others have suggested, try choosing a skin you like first, then play with your sliders until your shape fits the skin. There are no 'wrong' body/skin types, the only person you should impress is yourself.

Yeah I've noticed that trend too, and you're right, it's good to see!

As for the men - I really wish there were some more skinny ones about but all I see are huge schwarzenegger types - MASSIVE shoulders and pecs. It's boring. I'd love to see a skinny lad with a bit of a belly, that'd be cute

Yuppers...arms & legs are a problem with shapes.....what drives me nuts is that while an avatar may look quite proportionate when standing .... other poses tend to make the arms and legs look ridiculously long. It's hard to strike the proper balance so I tend to err on the side of lengthe. But...all my shapes are modifiable anyway.

The other thing that I find interesting is that when I do create a shape that has very human proportions...I get complaints from people that the head is too big or the legs aren't long enough or bla bla bla......the truth is that only real humans look right with real human proportions...but even with-in that scope there are variations. I try to make my shapes look appealing with-in the virtual world they exist in. I do NOT go for the uber exagerated bombshell look for females. If someone wants to edit their shape to do that to it....at least I can plead the 5th.

That's pretty true.. it does seem like a lot of people can't do scale or proportion, or they forget to recheck after they put on those super high heels

I see way too many cookie cutter shapes inworld and would love to see some different looks. I also see people who want to follow the trend so much that proportion goes out the window... either that or they're trying to one-up the other person. The whole "nearly zero hip length, with a LOT of junk in the trunk, on a pale-assed white woman" thing just drives me crazy. So unrealistic that I can only hope they didn't pay for a shape to look that way.

I know my legs are a little (maybe a lot ) too long, but it is intentional. I worked on my shape before I knew anything about the SL-Glamazon look. But, even after I saw it around, I kept my shape because...that's just Nim. Rather than elegant, I consider the long legs kind of gangly and think they make many of my clothes look a little funny. Still, I like my stems and usually wear platform heels to emphasize them, because in SL they are just who I am, part of the masses or not.

Another thing I notice about many female avatars is that either thickness or bodyfat or worse both have obviously been set to 0. It's very difficult if not impossible to have a nice looking avatar with these settings. The 0 body fat thing doesn't make the avatar bony so much as pointy and in really weird places.

I set up a modest shapes business just over a year ago. At the time I had looked all over for a shape and couldn't find any that were modifiable OR what I was really looking for. And some were just stupidly expensive AND no mod.

My intention was just to let newbies have a lower cost option plus a wider range of sizes and body types then I was finding. The "enhanced" dancer shapes are still the best selling female line but the elves and BBWs don't do badly. And the lean male body types outsell the ubiquitous muscle-bound men by an order of magnitude. I'm guessing you can get those anywhere these days. I even occasionally sell the *ahem* mature executive shape with a little bit of middle-aged spread.

I've seen broad-shouldered, small-waisted women in RL who look just fine - sexy even - because their shoulders balance the widest parts of their bodies, such as hips and/or busts. Relating shoulder to waist size seems to suggest that a woman with a small waist and broad hips should also have narrow shoulders...that's a much odder look, IMO.

No the type of shapes that are my bug bear are when the sliders are concentrated on making the waist as tiny as possible but forgetting to play with the shoulders slider..
I agree with what your saying, but seriously the shapes I am talking of don't have that intent

I really need to advertise better.

I've been selling only inexpensive/ Modify/ Copy shapes since July of 2005.

Yes you should advertise better!! I use to wear one of your shapes until I felt confident enough to play with my own, I got lots of compliments and would wiggle my behind in response lol, I can still recall your notecard explaining how to far to move the sliders