The latest skin from Signature did not initially strike me as being as great a skin as the previously reviewed Fire skin. However, after working to find a shape that suited it, I’ve largely changed my opinion. It is a somewhat shape-sensitive skin, it seems to me, as far as the face goes; I had first tried it on with somewhat rounder faces, and it just didn’t seem to work. However, when you have the right shape, the prognosis changes quite a bit.

This is the first skin Simple Spad has created using Zbrush, allowing him to increase the detail in some areas and to use baked lighting overall. There are currently three skin tones, with no less than ten facial options. If anything, this skin strikes me as something of a spiritual descendant of the Abyss Scorpio skin because of this kind of shading, and somewhat similar pricing (L$2000 per skin, with L$5000 for a multipack). The rear, in particular, shares a lot of similarity with its smoothly gradated shading and attention to detail. As usual, Simple’s shaded some of the best arms in SL, with a subtle definition of tricep and bicep. As with the Fire skin, there’s no pubic hair, although the texture suggests a subtle stubbling in the area.

However, I do think there are two or three areas where the skin might be improved. First, I find the nipples rather blurry compared to others I’ve seen, and the backs of the hands similarly lack as much detail; the skin tone over the body is also rather smoothed out, so not much in the way of pores to suggest more realistic shading. Possibly because of the rendered shading, the pectorals seem a bit too rounded to my eye; certainly, I’ve seen similar rounded shading on clothing from designers who bake their textures in a 3D program. Finally, the extremely dark division of the toes seems a bit much when compared to the rest of the skin. Despite these minor quibbles (some of which are a personal taste thing), the quality is high, as one would expect from one of SL’s better skin designers.

Really, the face is the most important thing for any avatar in SL, and I have to say the Cyrus face has that in spades. With the dizzying amount of options—not just the facial ochoices but also an included bald, fade, and full hair base (the last of which is shown in the final image above)—it feels like an extremely customizable skin to get it to look how you want. I found this shape took fair advantage of the rendered shading, and I suspect anything done for skins such as the Abyss or Damiani should look pretty good right out of hte box. Particular details that caught my eye is the naturalistic shadowing of the eye region which give it quite a bit of depth, the full eyebrows, and the nicely executed mouth. Despite my remark concerning some blurry bits on the body, the detailing of the face is sharp and clear, with hints of pores that make it seem that much more real.

Shown below are five of the facial options: eyeliner (unfortunately, it’s only available with the clean shave look), chin patch, thin goatee, thin beard, and full beard. I find the facial hairs to be fairly well-textured. Besides these, there are also the regular clean shave, 5 o’clock shadow, soul patch, chin strap, and full goatee. Really, no one’s going to be hurting for choice.