I am going to begin this post rather off-topic, so unless you know what MUSH is, chances are you’ll want to skip ahead a bit. And if you do know what it is, you may wonder what it has to with SL and this post? Well, the thing is, Ran and I have been MUSHing for ages (we actually met on one), and I only got interested in joining SL when I realized I could use the avatar to create visual representations of my MUSH characters. And that’s exactly what I ended up doing, which is why my avatar is a bit of a chameleon. However, I have tried to stick to just creating shapes based off my existing MUSH characters, and to only buying skins that suit those characters.
That is, until the last two Skin Within skins. With Anaise, Ayesha was kind enough to offer me a review copy, so I decided that a new character I had in mind would just have to end up looking like that. However, when Alaysia came out, my initial decision was that I would not buy her, even though she looked very pretty indeed, because I really don’t expect to be able to fit in a character with an Asian appearance. Of course, I had not counted on Ayesha adding a MobVend to Skin Within and placing the very Alaysia makeup in it that had caught my eye the most. So much for my decision not to buy the skin. ;) At L$ 500 instead of the regular price of L$ 1200 I simply couldn’t resist picking her up and getting to work on a shape especially for this skin.
As noted, Alaysia is an Asian skin. She is intended to have a primarily Chinese appearance, though I think that depending on the shape that could probably be varied a bit. I am definitely not an expert on Asian skins, so I hesitate to make any claims about the skin’s accuracy. However, to me she does look very Asian, and I know Ayesha works very hard on capturing an accurate ethnic look for each of her skins.
But the most striking accomplishment about Alaysia may be the way Ayesha has created a beautiful pale skintone that has the same lovely contrast as her other skins and which holds up beautifully in Windlight. The shading on the body gives it a soft glow, as if you’re fresh from being exfoliated and moisturized at a spa.
From what I can tell, the body is roughly the same as on the other recent Skin Within skins, just tweaked a little here and there and of course with the skin tone adjusted. What this means is that you get a body with just the right blend between realism and idealism, and a body which I think is very well suited to a natural look in terms of the breast shading, the amount of muscle tone and the highlights (which look glowy rather than oily).
As with all Skin Within skins, you can modify the skintone with the sliders (the tone shown in these images is the default), and you get one skin with and one without pubic hair.
Creating the face for this new shape was a bit of a challenge, as I did not have a clear picture in my mind as I usually do. So, for once, I allowed the skin to guide me more than I normally do. I expect I will do further tweaking on this shape before I am 100% satisfied, but I think she turned out pretty well.
The trickiest part may be the lips, as their shape is not quite the standard SL shape. However, I think the end result can be quite pretty, as evidenced by this lovely pout. The eyes, of course, lend themselves beautifully to tilted, slightly narrowed eyes. The eyebrows are a little long (and perhaps a notch too pale) for my tastes, but they do shape quite well around the eye.
The makeup shown here is one of the daytime makeups, called Mai, and I love the colour of the lips and the blush on the cheeks. It goes so well with the glow that there is on the face as well.
As always, Alaysia is available with 24 makeups (divided over day, night, smokey and fantasy) and one makeup-free option. The price is L$ 1200 for one skin, or L$ 3600 for all makeups in a set. And right now you can get the Mai makeup from the MobVend for 500 if you can bring in enough people to the store. But that is not all. There is also a raffle going on in the store where you can win an exclusive Zarya makeup. I was lucky enough to nab it this morning, and it is beautiful.
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