SLUniverse Forums

Raindrop Drinkwater

The shape of the eyebrows is VERY important. It can change the look of the skin in a dramatic way, and the ideal shape and height change for almost every skin. As the eyebrows are not under the "Shape" menu, this is often overlooked.

Another little bit that matters, apart from the obvious lips, nose, lip cleft yadda yadda, is the "eyebags" slider and its close companions (can't remember the exact names). It mostly affects the expression, in a permanent way. So you can be moody , or always surprised , or permanently bored .



So, hmm. Buying a skin: it's all about the shape.

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Raindrop Drinkwater

Except when the Willy is painted on.
In which case, you try another skin.





ETA: Yeah, I quoted myself. Sue me!

Beezle Warburton

Yes. Because the AV mesh isn't the best, a PhotoSourced skin looks like a human skin stretched over a mannequin. Not pretty.

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Lexxi Gynoid

I thought Skin Within was photorealistic. And I think most of these newbie deals (Sin Skin, Fleur, Gurl6, Diversity, Szentaska, etc. are under 30 days).

Of course I, myself, am now wearing a freebie I found on OnRez. heh.

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“ . . . I am bumping you to the highest rating I have ever given - 9.9“ -- Trout

Raindrop Drinkwater

Check Another Skin by Eloh. I quite like them, and they work on most shapes. Frick does interesting, very cheap variations on them.

Lexxi Gynoid

Tete a Pied is now Fleur. As ............wait! I just remembered!

Go to M&R Cupcake (I haven't figured out how to find this place other than putting it into the all search, looking at the one or two classifieds and clicking on the one for M&R Cupcake) - look for the two main entrances near the center of the building (as opposed to the entrance/exit that is at the end of one of the buildings). Pan your camera up. You will be looking for a picture with 12 faces on it - 12, in my opinion, high-quality skins for 12L. And - it will give you an example of what those skin lines look like without having demo stamped all over you. Plus you could just use those skins as is, for 12L.

Right, back to - Tete a Pied is now Fleur. RaC is now Laqroki (or something like that), Rosmarr (or something like that) joined up with whatever M is to become M&R Cupcake, etc. Oh, and in the in world "Another Shop" appears to be gone now - at least the one I knew about.

Savoir Hair has great free hair from many places.
Fabulously Free has shapes, hair, skin, full avatars, clothes, shoes, jewelry, etc.
Sarah Nerd's Freebie Pa....is it paradise? has some nice freebie stuff.
I've found that there are some nice quality free stuff on OnRez and Slexchange. (Pixel Dolls has, I think, moved their free clothes to only OnRez/Slexchange, qualilty freebies).

Hair - ETD, Bishwear, Armidi (can't remember how that one goes), Gurl6, .... (heh, I can't remember the name of the place of the hair I am currently wearing), Detour.
Eyes - I'm wearing eyes from Winter Ventura's place, some nice freebies out there also (not that the eyes I am wearing were free)
shape - you appear to be happy fiddling with own shape so no need to mention shape shops (free or otherwise)
Skin - see this thread
the "naughty" bits - Xcite, Sensation

clothing - quality free stuff on OnRez/Slexchange. Free "everything this creator made before they left and gave up their stuff to do with as they please" clothing box at the Forum Cartel Hangout - on the deck. Truth may or may not still have their sale going. Awesome Designs has some quality stuff in the discount/newbie area (oddly I have never attempted to shop there after I stopped being newbie).

Shoes - you just missed the shoe expo. There are a rather nice pair of boots that I picked up at Detour.

Avatars - Grendal's Children has some quality avatars if you were interested in looking at non-human (and some human, I think), stuff - relatively cheap compared to other places.

Lexxi Gynoid

Be careful though. There was one skin I loved from that place everyone seems to love to go for Neko skin (actually it was the shop under the Neko place; where doesn't matter or I'd try to be more specific), but it didn't look like its demo in one important aspect. - The demo had a really neat tat on it that I thought would go great with some vampire hunter clothing I had found. So I bought the skin. Skin did not have that tat (and no, it did not say "demo", it was a cross, or something like that, burned into the skin). I IM'd the creator, who was on-line at the time, but she completely ignored me, so I never bought anything there again. Left a bad taste in my mouth for the Neko place also, though they didn't have anything to do with it (I think).

Mereille

Another thing to think about is are you planning on being nawhtey. Some skin lines have fabulous makeup (starley's Vogue skins come to mind). While others might be more limited in makeup styles, but look gorgeous naked.

It took eight months for me to settle on a skin and shape. I settled on what I'm wearing now because of how the makeup looked on my face. At the time I didn't give much thought to how it looked naked. My only complaint now is that it does suffer from the 'dirty bottom' effect due to the shading there. Now I don't plan on changing either one. Of course there are more makeup options for this one that I don't have yet.....

For reference, it is the Skin Within Adhira freckled.

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Tranquility

Wow, you learn something new every day! I always manually made my outfit folders. But I love that you can drag the outfit folders from your inventory onto your avatar and it (semi) instantly changes your outfit!

Oh, try joining the blowpop update group (I hope thats the right one). In the past they have given out free skins.

DJQuad

An awesome place to go is Kmadd. They sell shapes but they come with a styling notecard that tells you where to get the skin, hair, eyes, jewelry, and even the clothes that the model in the pic is wearing. They design the shape based on the skin which is the best way to do it IMO.

bilbo99 emu

I'm not sure what the newbie freebie at SkinWithin is these days. When Lorna was new she got both the Allegra and the earlier, drawn Eva. This, I fear, like the earlier Panjens (Joy, Fawn ...) seem to have been withdrawn


Add: Oh, Raindrop mentioned eyebrows! You can have fun changing the 'bald head' about between skin folders when you've collected a few .. makes for some interesting variants

Ann Launay

No one mentioned Celestial Studios? o.O

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Express Zenovka

Try the third floor at GNUbie. I believe she has stuff there now, in addition to that flea market spot whose name I can't spell.

Arilynn

Thanks for all the information.

To be honest, all this about skins seems so complicated and detailed that the part of my brain that was thinking about it overloaded, caught on fire, and burned out. IRL I take about 3 seconds to decide whether I like an outfit - this seems like it will take hours and hours of looking for a skin. I still want a skin and will use all your great suggestions and would love some guidance, but I need my brain to stop smoldering first.

One very kind person showed me about 10 different skins she had. I didn't really see a big difference except for skin tone and facial expression. She would point out that this skin is more/less this and that skin was more/less that. I didn't see this or that, really.

Raindrop Drinkwater

Ah, simple advice: go for Nomine.

Io Zeno

Don't listen to her, get a Gala.

Io Zeno

Ok, if they don't look much different to you, there are some.... things to consider. That she probably didn't show you.

The girly bits, ahem. Some have them, some don't. Some have pubic hair, some don't.

Also, think about whether you want to change your makeup a lot. If you do, go for something less expensive because you have to buy a new skin each time. If you don't, you can spend more knowing it's going to be a rare purchase, just get something you really like that will go with most of your clothing and your own look.

Siyu Suen

I was about to jump up and down in disbelief that no one had mentioned Blowpop yet. Thanks Tranquility

The skin that's in my avatar pic right there <---- I paid 200L for at Blowpop. She drastically discounts her old skins without retiring them, I love her for that. She has some that are even under 100L, so if you want to start somewhere, there ya go They're hybrids with a wonderfully soft look, and I definitely suggest looking at her Mellie skins and her Tuesday (or was it Thursday?) skins.

Tuli also passes out free skins in her update group They tend to be really nice plain everyday looks too, and have a wonderfully soft face.

And of course, Munch at Nomine (HEAR THAT IO!?) has some very discounted skins as well, in her sale section she has skins going for 200L but unlike BP she DOES retire them, so I'm not sure what she has out right now.

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They're over here -> at my masky shop thing

Raindrop Drinkwater

I had never heard of Blowpop. Thanks Siyu!

Arilynn

So I wrote down all the suggested stores - and have 14+. Any agreement about just 2 or 3? or another with Nomine?

Thanks!

Decadent