The first hint I had that something was going on was when chatting with fellow bloggers and one of them just dropped into the conversation that there was a new skin. I ran directly there to take a look at it, first running into the closed-off southern tower at the amazing Abyss build and then getting myself to the correct location. I oohed-and-aahed appreciatively at Steve Law, then just standing all alone beneath the Scorpio displays. Offered in just one skin tone at the time, the vendor also included the option of purchasing a shape and eyes (I’ll be using my own for this review). And then, not too much later, Steve came out in two more tones ... and he brought a friend along, Dave Gears.

The quirky names have a definite “All-American” sound to them, and one can just imagine them as cartoon heroes (perhaps memers of G.I. Joe?) but my first thought when I got a hold of Steve Law in the darkest tone was that there was something vaguely Russian or Eastern European about the face, at least on several shapes I tried. Don’t ask me why—maybe it’s the cheekbones. This is not just new faces slapped onto the Scorpio body, but pretty much a brand new skin from head to ... well, ankles (the feet are pretty similar between Scorpio and these two new skins, and there may be some other small areas which draw from the same sourcing).

The abs are more subtle and seem very natural, as are the pectorals as the lighting has been made more diffused. There’s a heightened photorealism in the way Khai has managed to light and shade the body. The body between the two skins is, for that matter, subtly different—the pectoral shading is not quite the same, and there are little birthmarks here and there in different areas. The skins are fairly hairless, with trimmed pubic hair and fully shaved options (and the pubic hair style is quite different between the two). In total, when one counts the hair base options, each skin comes with eight variations.

Besides the pubic hair options, the skins come with hair bases which the Scorpio skins never had, and this time around you can guy the “guyliner” option as part of the whole package without having to make the hard, hard choice between with or without as one had to with the previous skinline. Both hair bases are quite well done, but Dave Gears (shown in Origin, the current medium tone) has a fairly SL-standard look to his hair whereas Steve Law… well, see for yourself. The hair falling down on the forehead is quite beautifully done and very soft in appearance. It does, however, make it less useful as a way of blending hair bases with prim hair.

Which do I prefer? Well, I can’t decide. Steve Law strikes me as more youthful, more model-beautiful, and perhaps that Khai’s intention—his lips are a little glossier and more defined, as are his cheekbones. Dave Gears has a more rugged appearance, with some amazing shading around the eyes which I think may be some of the best work I’ve seen in SL. Something that Dave has which Steve hasn’t is a freckled option shown here—though it’s painful having to decide which to buy, as painful as the old yes/no eyeliner problem with Scorpio, believe me! The guyliner option with these skins is much stronger than in the past, and even without it, the eyes are still line with a nice black which should help with fitting eyelashes.

And speaking of eyelashes, among the things included in the skin package are a quite fancy set of attachments for lashes (which I really need to fit, they look great), and then something more unusual that I’ve never seen before: eye shadows. Basically, it’s a semi transparent dark prim that’s supposed to fit right around the eyeballs to provide shading at top and bottom. The demo packages include demos of the shapes, and you can see how they’re supposed to look using those. Getting them to fit a custom avatar can be quite difficult, but I think the look can be very appealing if you’ve the patience.