Skin Shopping Part 2

Well the other day I did part 1 covering Tuli, Pixel Deep, Panjen, Gala, and EMA skins. Now it's time for the other batch of skins I bought covering Skin Within's skins. Why just Skin Within this time? Because I ended up with several different flavors of their skins... The seem to specialize in ethnic skins, which frankly I love... Feel like being an egyptian princess today? They have the skin... Or maybe a African Goddess for some RP? They have that to. I bought 3 skins: Saba (Egyptian if I remember correctly), Ashaki (African/Nubian), & Ashawi (Native American). Though I bought a pack of makeups for the Ashawi skin.

First up is the Saba skin in Rhapsody Glitter coloring. The coloring is very nicely done here with a skin tone I like, not to dark and yet not to light... It's also not 'tan' which seems to mean 'orange' to allot of skin designers and I generally hate 'tan' skins. The makeup here is fairly simple with just a a red eyeshadow, some minor blush for the cheeks, and some simple red lipstick. The level of detail in the body of the skin is excellent as well, without the issues I have with the Ashawi skin range.

Next up is Ashaki in Bordeaux Smokey coloring. This skin is gorgeous easily the best 'black' skin I've ever seen in SL. While I'm not 'black' myself, I dated a black woman that was pre-med during college for awhile and I can say quite well that this is the best coloring for a modern woman of African descent I've yet come across. The level of detail is amazing with the color even varying over the body as it does in RL. The only reason I don't own more options of this skin is the fact that I wear red or burnt red hair and most of the color options in makeup didn't match my preferred hair colors. The makeup I did chose is mostly eyeshadow ranging from red to gold with a slight 'cat eye' effect added and red lipstick.

I bought three of the Ashawi skins mostly for the specific eye makeups and seeing as it's the same price for the set as for three, I bought the set. I'll show only the three I prefer though. First though let me say I like the coloring on them all and the detail is just lovely for the most part... Except... They seem ta think ya are so skinny your ribs poke out under your breasts... So rather than looking fit, you look starved... ;_; Who wants to look starved...? I don't, but I liked the skins enough to buy them anyways... That and I'm hoping the designer may correct this and issue a second version to those who have bought it which is not so starved looking... Now on to makeup specific things...

The first of the makeups is Drama. Drama has blue to purple eyeshadow with deep purple lipstick. It goes fairly well with my violet eyes, though I think it minimizes their impact...

Next we have Elysian style makeup. Elysian has a gold and red type of eye-makeup in a a type of flame trail pattern that I just love. Added to that is some nice red lipstick. This is the version I would probably wear.

The last makeup is Cirque, which is another pruple-ish makeup. It has fun purple and red eyeshadow with a silvery violet lipstick color. It's not what I'd usually wear, but it's so odd to see makeup that highlights my eyes, I have to pick up those ones I see...

And that is it for my skins I bought, there were some other interesting demos I set aside and I may get around to adding those to a post as well... We shall see, as this Saturday marks the beginning of a week and a half long vacation... ^_^

Skin shopping Part 1

Yes yes, I'm evil as I've never gotten around to posting any of the stuff I've planned... RL and SL both taking up way to much time... But, I am posting a new review now. This will be a multi-part review of my favorite skins I actually bought at the Skin Fair Expo going on right now in SL.

The first skin is Tuli's Exotic skin in Natural Freckles coloring. It's not full body freckles like my previous skin of choice, but it keeps a nice freckly look to the face. It has high quality details and minimal make-up. In particular I like the collar bone and neck details, that make the neck look less like some cylinder on her shoulders and more like a real neck. And frankly who doesn't like a real looking neck? It's also got nice highlighting of the ever important cleavage and the same thing continues down farther with nice ab details and a good looking ass. All this combined made it my choice to replace my former skin, though I plan to use others at times... I also picked up another version with make-up, but sans freckles. Shadey though looks cute in freckles, so they stay.


Next up is Pixel Deep's Medium skin in Fit Redhead coloring. This is part of the entire 'Medium Fit' pack, which is a good buy with all the variations in here. It's also modifiable to a degree allowing slightly darker or slightly lighter skin tones. The hair color is selectable by skin, so your eyebrows and pubes can even match your hair color. Their are even different skins for different amounts of pubic hair... The detailing is much like the Tuli skin here, though I think the abs are even a step better defined. It's also make-up light, though if I remember right the lips are tintable in a variety of shades.


Now we move on to Panjen's Eternal skin in Wine coloring. Eternal is a full freckle skin with freckles all over, which can be fun... If only I had a cute kitten to play 'count the freckles' with... But getting back to the skin, it's light on make-up though it does have some nice eyeshadow and highlighting, with a very pale lip color and a small amount of blush on the cheeks. It has good detail for most of the body, but the abs aren't as nice as on the previous to skins. It's sadly a bit in shadow in the pic, so it almost looks darker than the skins above though it's actually a shade lighter. The overall effect is very cute.

Now we move to Gala's Luster skin in Monarch coloring. It's a darker skin than the last one, but I don't see this as a bad thing. It is all about the eye make up here, it's vivid yellows and orangish-reds in a sunburst style pattern. When I saw it, I knew I needed a skin with it... Otherwise it is very light on make-up, with not even lipstick. It's level of detail is nice as well and almost on par with the most detailed skins in this post, though it's a much 'softer' skin than most of those. Not so many options with this one either, but still lovely all on it's own.


The final skin in this post is EMA's Autumn skin in Shay coloring... Or vice versa, it's hard to tell without looking at their skin charts. It's actually one step darker than Gala's Luster skin, though the particular tone and coloring makes it look very Latino. Which is not a bad thing at all.
This is another eye makeup skin for me, it was all in the colorful pattern there rather than anything else that sold me on it. In this case the eye makeup was a colorful red and orange with leopard-like spots. As a neko how could I pass up eye makeup with spots? I couldn't of course. The details on this skin are very good and rival most of my other favorite skins in this list. It's also one of the most youthful looking skins I think in my collection.

EMA and Panjen are some of the smallest designers from the show and I'd like to make sure they don't get overlooked as they have very nice skins. That's it for this part of my review, I'll do more tomorrow if I have time.

So yeah...

I have a few out of a bunch of pictures for outfits done.... And I got sick with a sinus/ear infection last week... Fun fun... So I've been like... totally lazy... Even missed two days of work once they finally let me take a day off...

I was going to do some more Midian entries as well... But I've been to lazy for that as well... Maybe it's just the upcoming Valentines...? I dunno...

But here is a story for you... I came across a nice newb guy in SL the other day, well as nice as they get when they hit on your for pixel sex, but he was at least a bit of a flirt... Some potential at least, so I figure I should give a helping hand and maybe one day he'll be a constructive citizen... So being a fashionista I ask him if he'd like a hand getting dressed up to look like a good slcitizen.

Here is were I have to tell you he was a bare chested AV with system hair that looked like a mop on his head. A shape kinda like a short gorilla (he was about my height or SL 5 foot 11 inches) with a blocky face that reminded me of the old Max Hendron. Though he did have a not completely hopeless skin if you don't mind the hairy chest look and he was wearing bad freebie pants and system shoes.

I could have made something out of him with a few minutes of slider work, a trip to the stores that give away hair to newbs under 30 days, and free dove/freebie jeebies/B@R's 10L shop. But he has somehow been convinced he looks 'good enough' and apparently can 'get any woman he wants', as well some 'long term resident' who was a woman told him he looked great. Err... no you look like a 2003 reject... o_0 Please let me help... 0_o

But he got annoyed I think... And wandered off... Sadly later as I wandered a um... seeder collection of vendors for some risque clothes I got to see he couldn't emote to save his ass... So I maybe I should just let him be mediocre... One day he'll realize the only women he gets can't hold a conversation and may only be bots, but that's not my issue...

Yeah...

I know I've been off on doing updates, but I do have some things in the works...

In the vein of the 25 group limit in SL getting blog feedback I'd love to draw attention to this Jira entry. It covers an issue that effects me and anyone else who chooses to use a ATI/AMD video card rather than one from Nvidia. We get almost nothing out of Windlight except better light sourcing, but no pretty water or skies for us... So help out half the video card market and push this issue with the Linden's. My brand new $300 video card doesn't gain me anything in SL and keeps me from making even prettier pictures!

Parties!

I managed to have two parties on the same day... Overlapping each other this weekend... But I took some pics of each:

Bloggers Party for December
















































My Apartment Warming/Beach Party

Midian Files: Return Week 2 Part 1

This last week started with me trying to comfort those I know hit by Disco's death. Namely Markko and Edna. I finally saw Edna's husband Cadyn to, I know Cadyn from when he was dating my friend Rena who I keep trying to find though she's never around when I visit her haunts. They were busy with something I didn't really understand though, so I let them be after trying to cheer them up some. I did find out however that Disco's funeral would be the next day.

The rest of the day was hanging out with new kittens. Specifically the new kitten, Brekka. I came across her when heading up to the den after my morning walk. She was talking with Thulana (I think, sorry If I'm wrong! my faulty memory) another new kitty. Soon we were joined by Fra, yet another new kitty since I'd left. And to make this an even bigger group that was when Dui arrived. We'd been trying to help her out while keeping her out of the den as the den is for walkers, all others are to be kept out without invitation from Rith or Chai. I'd even given Brekka a santa hat to keep her ears warm. Dui decided to invite us all to her sushi place. Everyone accepted, besides me. I wanted to find a few things before I forgot.

Once I was done I joined everyone at Dui's very busy sushi bar. We even had Beatriz and Reiyn drop in. Both are walkers, Beatriz the older and Reiyn the newer. In fact I'd never meet Reiyn before coming back. Dui invited Brekka to join the walkers as a kitten like me. She accepted. Things broke up a bit soon after. Dui cooked me some Okonomiyaki and Korokke, yum! We took the kitten back to the den to give her the kittens tour, well more Dui did and I tagged along. In the end she decided to go to sleep so I gave her a blanket to keep her warm. Soon after I headed to my own bed for the night.

The next day was interesting... To say the least. My day would end with Disco's funeral, but the chaos started when Mari was caught on the den roof again by Reiyn who made a big fuss over it. Most of us don't want to get involved in it, but he stuck to Rith's rule hard and fast. Then Rith herself arrived and the gathering of kitties was about to watch a furball as Rith took action on Mari... Until Sarika got shot.

It was a sniper on a roof up above. Most of the kitties besides myself and Rith took cover. Fra went to Sarika's side to try to stop the bleeding as did Dui, though not the bleeding part. Dui and Sarika are lovers, so it was hard on Dui. Sadly My first day in the walkers I had to patch Dui up in similar circumstances...

Anyways... Beatriz, Mari, and Reiyn went into action hunting the sniper with Rith going up alogn the other side of buildings to hunt him. I decided to stay and see if I could help Sarika, but Fra had it under control so I decided to guard the door instead. The sniper suicided, but he was a strange one....

Rith did have it out with Mari after that. I decided to head to Disco's funeral during it however... I stayed silent through most of it, but I just felt to guilty about her death to say anything. I also stood next to this tree which a 'thing' was up in... It smelled of burnt flesh and dripped, or rather oozed, blood and other fluids which caused me to spend alot of my none sulking time trying not to gag. It caused some fuss at the end of the funeral, but I was to tired and depressed to stay and watch.
(More to come as it was a week full of events)

Midian Files: The Return

Yes, two installments in one week! This is more actual goings on in Midian rather than back story.

Getting back to Midian was hard, but nothing like the challenge of actually reconnecting once I was back.

It didn't help to learn the bits of news I heard on my return... My favorite kitten Myca was dead, as was Sadira and Myca's mate Landen. Some form of triple homicide/suicide. It makes me a sad kitty as I miss them. The catwalkers seem torn over the whole thing to, most don't even show up to the den anymore, it feels like a ghost town.

Mari was also kicked out of the walkers for events I am not aware of, maybe it was the final straw after her shooting of an ex-kitten...? Oddly she hangs around the den which is what she killed the other kitten for after he left. I haven't really forgiven her for that yet, so maybe I'm just projecting though. Rith's ways are often mysterious, but then so are those of most leaders.

I've also learned my favorite bar the Twilight Zone was shot up and now sits almost always empty. Reconstruction apparently not high on the list of priorities. It seems my old friend Cat was the one that shot the place up in a fight with some then TZ security woman.

On that note I also discovered that my old friend Cat was now head of the Mercs with my friend Craven as her second. Though Cat is out of town right now. I hope she's not in as much danger as I was... Things had become estranged between me and her before I left, but she's still a friend. Craven on the other hand... Seems he managed to find himself a mate! She's a pretty thing named Honey. Which is odd to me as I remember a certain kitten with that name, they are nothing alike though.

I even found Edna my favorite bartender, back in the days of Disco and Rej, now she runs a tattoo parlor. I also hear she got married! Everyone seems to be hooking up. Why can't I even get a date in Midian outside of Marie before she went crazy and got killed...? Anyways we had a nice long talk, it was nice that warm homey feeling...

However this is Midian something bad must always happen... In this case it's that Disco was later found dead after having committed suicide. After fighting so hard to live, I can't understand someone giving up. Sadly I had seen her walk by Edna's shop before it happened and I thought to go say 'hi', but I decided to wait til later... Only there is no later now. It leaves you to wonder 'What if?', maybe I could have stopped her from going through with it... Then again maybe not. And we will never know.

My friend Markko is the one that found her and it seems they had become very close friends before this. I'll try to cheer him up a bit... He's had his own troubles lately.... I hear he was kicked out of his faction for um... 'indiscretion' in certain 'activities'.

It's been one week now since I've been back and I've missed so much. But I should be asleep, I'll write more later.