It’s a very rare thing for me to do fully nude frontal shots for review purposes—I’ve only done it once before—but the first thing I’ll say in my defense is that Mars Absent (formerly Khai Sinister) of the Abyss has paid such painstaking attention to detail that it felt wrong to not put ... well, everything on display. For the sake of my tattered modesty, it’s pixelated, but just click through to see the uncensored version.

Now, that aside, this is another remarkable skin from the Abyss. Part of the a new series of skins, Identity 1208 is a model-beautiful blonde skin, with all of Mars’s talent and skill poured into it. The texture of the skin, the shading, is pretty spot on. The muscle tone is particularly well handled, with a fine sense of light and shadow to just suggest the muscle beneath the skin. Mars makes some of the most character-filled, distinctive faces in SL. They’re unmistakable. The very high level of shine, of course, takes a bit of getting used to, and I found that certain head shapes didn’t work because of it.

What about the flaws? There’s three points that I did notice. First, seams—on the inside of the legs and at the neck in particular—are visible if you come in close. Now, it’s practically impossible to be seamless with this level of detail, and you really have to be zoomed in pretty close. Second, I do think the paleness of the hands is very strong (at least in Identity 1208 #1) compared to the rest of the skin tone; this may well be realistic, as I suppose some people may have quite pale hands for various reasons, but I did find it a bit distracting.

And finally, the pectoral area has a couple of angular, dark smudges/lines which can be problematic depending on your shape, at least as far as I’m concerned. When I wore the shape that’s sold separately or part of the full fat pack, it seems that shape’s pectoral slider settings made the problem disappear—the smudges stretch and fill out and just become some very nice shading providing depth to that area. But you have to have a pretty high pec setting for that to happen, so far as I can see. If it’s scaled a bit more down to earth, well, it can be noticed from certain angles. It’s a very minor problem, however, and others may find it doesn’t even detract a jot.

And against these quibbles, well, there’s all this near-perfection.

What else does he make? Well… the reason for the full frontal is because the sculpted genitals are part of the package. And, uh, wow? Its advertised as possibly being the most realistic penis on the grid, and I have to agree. And it’s not just that it’s photo-sourced—it’s that Mars knows how to work over a photosource to make it “fit” the skin and SL. I’ve seen some photosourced penis attachments which are… well, scary is putting it mildly. But the Identity 1208 genitals? Just right. They are “cosmetic”, so to speak, in that they are not scripted—they do not come with all the bells and whistles. But, there’s the flaccid version (seen here) and an erect version (which most definitely will not be seen here)., and they’re practically objets d’art.

The back shot is a bit perfunctionary, just to show the musculature from the back (and yes, rather less post-processing here; the other image just looked too good with the tweaks I did). Well done, naturally.

I should comment on the hair I’m wearing, which is Shag’s Project Themeory male hair that was just released. Three colors for just L$75 right now (there’s also a cute female hair at the same price). It fit absolutely perfectly on my custom shape for their skin, which seemed like a sign. It’ll go to regular price (and, presumably, be released with more colors) after the weekend.

The other thing about this new Identity series of skins is that the focus is very much on providing some interesting, roleplay-geared options. Mars asked for thoughts on what Identity 1208 should have options wise at his official blog, and selected a few. I had suggested a robot inspired by a well-known science fiction novel cover, and he ran with it, and… well, you can see the results.

I did make a small error, though. Identity 1208 #2’s roleplay skin is a sort of battered Fallen Angel, and I wore the regular skin in this case. But at least you can see the very nicely done hair base (each of the skins—the regular and roleplay versions—comes with and without the hair on the head). The rest of the skins feature the roleplay versions: #1’s awesome robot (with a prim eye attachment to get that paticular look across), #3’s tanned, tattooed soldier, and #4’s rather creepy zombie.

Another detail I should note is that the last two skins feature the sculpted head hair—basically turning the base hair into a crew cut—that comes with each skin. As you can see, the color of the hair darkens or lightens depending on the shade of the skin. It’s really very cleverly done, as it has a feathery look that’s just right. Finally, the eyes worn in these pictures are all sold by the Abyss in a very affordable pack, as well as being included in the full fat pack of skins. Prim versions of all eyes are included, presumably to allow for the two eye-color thing if that’s of interest. It’s a very full-featured package.