There’s perhaps no shortage of skin reviews these days, but there’s also no shortage of very talented skin designers, and many of them do not get the attention that they deserve. I am hoping that by doing this little overview of my favourites it will give some people a new skin or two to play with.
One thing is certain, we’re spoilt for choice these days. When I joined, about a year and a half ago, I tried on so many skins and ended up with just one that I really liked. Now I have more favourite skins than I know what to do with. This post will be the first in a series of three, where post one and two will focus on a single skin designer each (as those two designers offer so many different lines) and post three will focus on several designers that either have only one or a couple of lines each or that I only wear one or two lines from.
Post one, then, is all about Adam n Eve. sachi Vixen has been in the skin making business for a long while, and it shows. Both in the quality of the work (she is a dedicated seam-hunter) and the very large range of skins available in the store. She is one of few designers who has been offering several unique skin lines for a long time, and the fact that this is becoming more popular today underscores the strengths of this approach. Each of her skin lines features a unique face and body (though some elements of the shading are shared between certain lines), and within each line you get to choose from four skin tones (though there are some exceptions that feature more or fewer tones) that are specific to that line and a selection of makeups.
First up are three of the new “Evolution” skins: Angel (tone 4, makeup Wicked Red), Cherie (tone 1, makeup Cateyes and Devon (tone 2, makeup Meadow). The Evolution line are photoreal skins, optimized for Windlight, and each have a very different character to her face as well as different body shading and their own range of tones and makeups. As I see it, Angel is a sexkitten, Cherie is all about frosty elegance and Devon is a freckled charmer.
While I wear everything from hand-drawn to hybrids to photoreal, and enjoy the different looks the different types can produce, a photoreal body done well is hard to beat. And sachi’s bodies are top of the line, with virtually no seams and great shading. I really like her hybrid bodies too, but the new skins are even sexier. Though in this overview, you are missing out on one of the best parts of them, which is their bottoms. sachi makes fabulous bottoms.
The hairs shown here are all from ETD.
The next three skins are another of the Evolution"skins, Adore 2 (tone 1, makeup Passion), as well as two of sachi’s recent fantasy skins, Persephone Unseelie (makeup Forest) and Celeste Goth (makeup Evil Eye). Adore 2 is a photoreal remake of the original Adore skin, which was a hybrid line, and while many of the same characteristics are retained this skin is more eye-catching and quite versatile in the sort of looks you can create with her.
The fantasy skins are based on two of sachi’s hybrid lines (Persephone is still available as a regular skin, but Celeste was converted entirely to a fantasy line), and they show the same attention to details as her regular skins. I am particularly fond of the skin tone for the Unseelie skin, which looks realistically unreal. Celeste I am perhaps not doing full justice, as none of my shapes quite suit her face. I tend towards somewhat ‘edgy’ faces, and combined with the stronger shading on Celeste the end result is a little too bold. However, I really like how haughty she looks.
The hairs are from ETD, Calico Creations and Jolie Femme.
In addition to the skins shown here, sachi has a number of other hybrid lines available, including two dark skins. She also has a range of very good male skins in the Men’s section of the store. Now, Ran and I do work at Adam n Eve, so we are not neutral observers as such, but I do not think I would hold a different opinion about the high quality of these skins even if we didn’t.
In closing, a comment about shapes that applies to this series of post as a whole. I have quite a few different shapes that I have made for myself, and since not all skins work for all shapes the skin photos for this series will be done using a variety of shapes. There’s no sense in trying to make a skin fit you, no matter how pretty it is, if it isn’t right for your shape. That said, I do believe that you should always tweak your lips for each new skin. Not to create a different look from your default, but to get as close to it as possible. Lips are always drawn in differently on each skin, so tweaking the lip shape is almost always necessary. But that is generally the only tweaking I do to my shapes to get a skin to work for them. If more tweaking is needed, then the skin is usually not right for that shape.
