Shapes, photography and fashion reviews by Ran Garrigus and Freyja Nemeth. This blog has been replaced by the Otherworldly blog.
LivejournalIt’s been awhile since I’ve picked up a new skin, so when I saw that LeLutka had a new male skin following their earlier release, I had to check it out yesterday. And today? I took the plunge, and will explain why below.
Skin: Ishmael (RioTan Face 01) by LeLutka Beaute
Hair:
Rouvel (Brown) by Uncle Web
Ishmael (Almost Goth) by LeLutka Beaute
Underwear: Rantastic (Black) by Adam n Eve
Poses: By Reel Expression
The initial new men’s skin release from LeLutka was very interesting, but there were some flaws that made me hesitant about getting it. It looks to me like all of those were addressed in this latest release, however: Ishmael, a rather more exotic skin with a wide range of tones. What were the primary issues I had with Eron? The overly-glossy look of the skin, which is pretty much entirely eradicated; the peculiar highlighting of the nose which gave it a very pinched expression, also dealt with quite firmly; the rather sun-baked look of the darker skin tones, which isn’t really an issue any longer with this skin. I’ve not noticed any seams worth speaking of, and I appreciate the somewhat toned but not ripped build. All in all, it’s fantastic work from Thora Charron.
It’s a skin well-suited to a more rugged, masculine look as with this shape of mine, while also allowing room for something a bit more androgynous and lean. For L$2000, it’s at the high end of the skin pricing range, but for the extras—if for nothing else—it’s quite worth it. For your L$2000 you get one tone (of seven total, from the very pale Fair to the one I’m wearing, RioTan) with one facial styling (there’s nine options available in total) with hair base and bald, three eyebrow presets, prim lashes (not worn), the Ishmael hair in four shades, chest and pubic hair layers in two different variations according to how hirsute you want to be, and…
Well. This is pretty unusual. Including a prim penis with a skin is not entirely new—I recall Naughty releasing their Gabriel skin (and possibly Dante before it) with an unscripted prim penis. But Thora’s gone the extra mile and applied her considerable sculpting and texture baking abilities to the problem, and added scripting to boot. Suffice it to say, it’s impeccably done. While more ... dedicated genital attachments exist—with animations, particle effects, built-in text poses, etc.—the LeLutka Homme Intimates penis is perfectly usable, with four different arousal states, several preset skintone textures, and built-in resizing and tinting options. Also, the HUD is pretty funny in regards to the terms given for the various states…
That said, I won’t be featuring any pictures here. ;) In any case, for L$2000 you get a fairly ridiculous amount of options, perfect for that guy who wants to get most everything done in one. LeLutka sells a shape separately, a demo of which is included in the purchase.
As I said, it’s on the high end for skin pricing these days, but given the range of extras and the quality of the work, I wouldn’t hesitate in recommending it. The tones come off rather better than those of the Eron skin, I think. My one caveat? Really do try a demo even if you aren’t quite convinced by the vendor photos. For whatever reason, I find the photos not very representative of the tones in a neutral lighting scheme (such as Caliah Lyon’s). I’m not quite sure why, unless their photographer’s setting had a rather higher gamma than I think most would use.