Finding just the right skins for female avatars can be fairly tough, especially for shapes that deviate from the SL standard, but it is still a piece of cake compared to finding just the right skins for male avatars. After about six months in SL, Freyja’s shapes all have more or less the perfect skin, whereas I’ve only found perfect skins for just a couple of my own. It can be very tough, especially when you have to reject a skin for no better reason than the body hair isn’t the color you’re looking for (skin makers: please, please, please consider brow and body hair for the blondes and redheads)!

One reason for the difficulty in finding good skins for my shapes is that we (by this I mean Freyja and myself) have particular ideas about the sort of look that’s ideal. Freyja likes her eye candy refined and elegant, lean, and maybe just a wee bit androgynous. The sharp noses are a particular feature we think adds a bit of character to a shape, but it certainly is not something that works in some otherwise excellent skins thanks to the particular approach they’ve had towards shading the nose, for example.

The two that I’ve found so far, though, I’m exceptionally happy with; more importantly, so’s Freyja! They both knock it out of the park. The first of these is Adam n Eve’s latest male skin, Jared, and the second is a skin that’s may well dethrone Naughty’s skins as among the most popular in SL, Scorpio from the Abyss.

Style Notes & Slurls

Skin: Jared t4 by Adam n Eve
Hair: Marquis Charcoal by Adam n Eve
Outfit: Mistletoe Boxers Green by Adam n Eve

The Jared skin, here seen in the darkest tone available, is photosourced without being so realistic that it pops out at you as not quite fitting in with its surroundings (a problem I often find with the exceptionally photosourced skins; on the whole, Freyja and myself prefer the painted side of the hybrid line than the photosourced side). It is also a detailed male skin that doesn’t feature a very well-defined physique, something which all too often is the case. Not all of us really want to look like bodybuilders, especially when going for a more slender shape.

As with the female skins from Adam n Eve, the most recent male skins (of which Jared is the newest) show excellent attention to details, not the least when it comes to eradicating seams. It also has to be said that sachi Vixen has made some of the finest derriers in Second Life (check out the bottom on her beautiful Pandora line of female skins), and Jared has benefitted from her attention to detail in this area. No spending excessively long hours in a chair in front of a computer for him… *cough*

The best feature of this skin, as far as I am concerned, is how well it handles the sharp features of this shape. Most male skins do not cope very well with sharp and/or larger than average noses due to how they are shaded.

Style Notes & Slurls

Skin: Scorpio Osiris by the Abyss
Hair: Marquis Blackdark by Adam n Eve
Outfit: Mistletoe Boxers Red by Adam n Eve

The Scorpio Osiris is the darkest of currently three tones in the Scorpio line. The skins are offered with a variety of options for facial hair, with or without a bit of eyeliner and with or without body hair.

On the lightest tone, I found that some of the shading stood out too sharply, but on the darkest tone it blends in much better. The physique of the skin is rather more fit than I prefer, but it is certainly very nicely done. Still, I’d be happy to sacrifice a few goats or llamas to get a skin that’s as good-looking as this one, but without being suggestive of hours in the gym spent sculpting those abs (and glutes).

This is also a skin which handles sharper features quite well, and it works well for a handsome as well as a fairly pretty look. The eyes and the mouth are particular favorites of Freyja’s. Note that this skin is the “Body Hair” skin, which refers to that pubic hair you get a glimpse of; nary a chest hair to be found (not that Freyja’s complaining).

As you can see, particularly in the profile shot, there’s not a lot of obvious difference in the facial shape, but the skins provide a wholly different impression. The Jared skin gives a sense of sharpness and angularity, without resorting to a streak of blush to pick out those well-defined cheek bones. It’s just a little bit sterner, conveying just the right amount of harshness that I was looking for. Sachi Vixen clearly worked quite carefully in developing this hybrid.

The Scorpio presents a smoother, more rounded look to a shape that it is otherwise rather similar to the previous shape, and thereby gives it a different character. It’s a very elegant skin, the well-defined lips giving just a hint of a pout (not something I was striving for, but on further consideration it seems to work—a mouth made for kisses, right?) and suggesting the avatar in that shape might be fundamentally different (as a character) from the avatar in Jared. And that’s as it should be, because those two characters are supposed to be rather different.

It’s great to be excited about the work being done in skins right now. There’s a number of skin makers I’ve only recently become acquainted with who you may see in these pages down the road (if I ever settle on which skins to get), and some familiar names are unveiling (or will soon unveil) some new skins, such as Body Politik’s recently revised and improved Envision line and Aitui’s forthcoming Reclaim line. Here’s hoping this is an auspicious sign for the new year.