Meat market – New Nylon Skins

I owe you a final hat post, and it’s mentally fermenting, but (lucky for you and me!) Nylon released new skins and once I’d finished tripping over my own excitement, I absolutely had to write about them first.

My ♥ of Nylon Pinkney and Nylon Outfitters is well documented; she was the first content creator to open my little newbie mind to the artistic possibilities of this grid we call home and my view of the metaverse has been entirely coloured by that initial exposure to Nylon’s (and the Tableau crew’s) work. I also found Nylon’s art blog after purchasing an inworld book of her art, and it’s been quite a pleasure to watch both her 2D and 3D art grow and develop and generally increase the capacity to blow my mind.

I am, in short, a rather large fan.

Below you’ll find 4 ‘plain’ skins from Nylon – the first would be from early 2007, the latest released August 2008. I love the progression of detail through the skins – it really puts into sharp relief the SL skin photosourcers, who, whist employing a certain Photoshop skill-level, really don’t use a whole lot of artistic nuance. It’s the bravery I salute more than anything – sure, Minnu’s and Redgrave’s skins are beautiful, but that’s a hodge-podge of people’s faces (and if you’re using a supermodel’s face as a base, you’re going to be hard pressed to ugly that up). Nylon’s (and Toast’s and Annyka Bekker’s and surely a host of others that my addled brain can’t remember) skins are her art, and she’s are putting it out there for everyone to judge in real, mercenary terms. I call artistic bravery, and I admire it incredibly.

The Pearl range (01 above) is my heart’s first true love. There may be monumental shifts in fashion trends, SL client releases and general standard raising and setting inworld (see: Lovey), but it remains the true face of Genevieve. What I love about the new 04 (Raw) range are those foxy, uneven-in-tone lips and the lighter face and neck highlights. I love the strength of the nose, though little changed from the 03 (Cheesecake) line, and I also adore the under-the-left-eye freckle. My hubby has one too, and it’s an instant heart-melter.

I really like the trend of recent months towards lips with uneven highlights. I don’t know if it’s because I’m absolutely, categorically unable to apply lipstick/gloss in real life, but to me it looks both natural and slightly inexpertly applied, and I like the way the light is supposed to have caught the varied density of the lipstuff and reflected it back in all it’s not-perfect glory.

The new range of makeups are as broad ranging as normal from Nylon Outfitters (where normal = far out and from a Tableau kid, and broad = it ain’t always gonna go with what you’re wearing). I am particularly fond of Hey Sailor, Light Touch, Flower Scent and Mermaid Glitter Party (or ‘Memaid’ as the previous GIF suggests… attention to detail: C-).

The fatpack, for 13 skins, was a bottom-squeezing L$10,000. I did actually pause at the cost (that’s almost $40AUD) – I think previous fatpack releases have had only 9 skins in total, and the cost per skin (L$800) hasn’t changed, so it was just a psychological barrier to break through… and I never doubted my ability to jump where shopping was concerned! I do, though, congratulate myself on the very self-restrained pause to consider my finances. Most unlike me. 

However…

(and how it burns me to say this)

There are two things that really bothered me once I’d spent a little time in the skin. The first (noticed in Photoshop first, so I was really looking) appears to be a layer of stubble over the hair region, which no bald LL hair could cover. At first I thought, since Nylon had made the skins tintable, it was an errant transparency, but on further inspection, I’ve found is actually a stubbly skull that, while on its own I rather like, messes with my hair line on almost all fringe-less hair. It’s really not that noticeable inworld, but it really annoyed me in Photoshop, and I’d be inclined not to wear the skin for blog photoshoots, knowing I’d always have to touch up the forehead (ya, anal and OCD – hott).

The second I noticed instantly with the demo, and that’s the shading on the upper lip. The palest-hued skin (Raw) looks rather like it’s sporting a minor depilatory cream burn. It’s not that noticeable on the darkest skin hue (btw, the skins are Raw, Cooked Rare, Rare and Well Done <- great name range) but the lighter ones suffer from varying degrees of burnage/pash rash. I can deal with it, but if anyone asks me why I’m waxing my mustache, I’m going to have to bust out some ninja moves.

I don’t go nuddy in SL (clothes are way more fun than bumping uglies/pixels to me) so I’ve not even looked below the neck. Things look pretty from Nylon’s demo images, so I’d suggest whacking on a demo to see for yourself.

I ♥ the makeups and 99% of the shading, so the small flaws I see (flaws to me at least) aren’t too big an issue. I’m curious to hear what others feel.

Where to buy? Follow on…

Skins | Nylon Outfitters
Hair | Armidi
Eyes | Celestial Studios
Lashes | Cake
Dress | Casa del Shai

~ by Genevieve Lutetia on August 14, 2008.