The Dark Side 2

Here are more shots of the Redgrave Goth skin, that impressed me so much. This is also to showcase this beautiful Barerose Tokyo dress. This is also the first time, that I am writing all credits for the shots, including poses and shoot location, which I usually prefer to keep to myself, to be more exclusive. Enjoy!! (Click on images to enlarge and see more details)







Here's to show you more of the skin, by taking the dress off. Since I didn't know the sim rules at the shoot location regarding nudity, I thought of wearing this League Duct Tape outfit, which came in handy.

I still did dare and took everything off later, to showcase the skin better. I also hardly did any fancy effects on the shots. All I did was brighten them up a bit, corrected some of the edge distortions (would distract in my opinion) and cropped the shots.

Skin: Redgrave
Body Shape: C-Stylez by CanTell Mizser - Destiny
Outfit: Barerose Tokyo
Duct Tape Outfit: League
Hair: Sixty Nine
Nails: J's (freebie)
Shoes: Maitreya
Poses: Poseur and Sylva Petrov
Eyes: Patmamu Sandalwood
Eyelashes: Miamai - Full Prim Lashes (no alpha)
Eye Make-Up: Nuuna (only for Viewer 2 and Emerald Beta)
Location: Lost World

You Get What You Pay For

Many residents just love the "free" ride, this means they hunt for free stuff and buy cheap items. I don't know if they are actually cheapskates or "tight-arses" (lmao about the term) in RL, perhaps many are, but some are also just getting freebies and cheap stuff only for their alts.

To be honest, if a guy I meet in RL turns out to be a cheapskate/scrooge/tight-arse, then that is a total turn-off to me (aside from lack of personal hygiene, bad taste and weird appearance). Now don't get me wrong - If someone is poor or doesn't earn much money, then it's understandable, if that person is always on a budget, but people who earn good money and just save it, but on the other side, always look for everything that is "free" no matter what it is, is a person who doesn't want to contribute to the economy -- thus a Scrooge.

For sure they MUST still buy daily necessities like food, toilette paper etc. but it's only because they have to. But I can bet my ass, that these people buy the cheapest ones they can get, so just they can save more money.

Anyways, back to SL. I thought of this new topic, to which I will always return to, every time I discover crap. So similar to WTF?!, this new topic is "You get what you pay for".

We all know about all sorts of resource kits being sold at XSL e.g. sculpted kits. Just like with every product, there are low and high quality ones and you can recognize them by the craftsmanship. The problem is, most resource kit users, just throw them out in the market and extremely devalue them, making them completely worthless. It's like throwing it out there for almost free, and on top of that, they also include their grandmother or insert any random valuable person or item here, as an extra.

I just wonder, why they buy resource kits that are so expensive and then just sell the item as it is, mostly the assembled sample from the creator, so they don't even make the effort of assembling it. Then they put it out there for almost free, destroying the value, thus shitting on other merchants, who might be using the same resource kit.

This is one reason why it takes too long for me to release anything, even if I partly use some of the resource kits, when it comes to anything including apparel, cuz I try to revise the items as much as possible. I know there will be people, perhaps blender users who would say: do it yourself! Learn how to sculpt! Yeah right.

Unlike many SL residents, I don't have the luxury of having too much time in my hands. I also have a RL that keeps me busy, so kits are very helpful. Imagine if everyone would do everything by themselves, then those resource kit sellers will be out of business. They sell tools for merchants to save time and focus on their creativity. So basically it's a service and you pay them for it.

Just like in RL, do you first prefer to go to school and finish a dressmaker, shoemaker, etc. course, then create your own clothes and shoes first. Or do you rather save time (well years for this matter) and go to the store and buy one instead? Or to be more blunt, would you rather take the effort of fucking yourself, if someone else can do that for you?

Of course "free" is great, but the truth is, nothing in life is for free. Period. You always pay a price in one way or another. Now if your time isn't worth anything to you, then do everything yourself.

Back to topic, I wonder what these product devaluers earn at the end, if they just throw them out in the market for little to almost no worth. I mean, do they even earn anything by using this method? There you can see, that they do not value hard work at all. Look at skins for example, they averagely cost 1000 L$. Why? Because they are so damn hard to create! It will also take you weeks, sometimes months to finish a decent looking skin. Now can you relate at all, if someone sells them for 299 L$ or even 99 L$? For a pack of 6 skins with different makeups, perhaps including the grandmother, first born baby etc.? Then either those are copybotted skins or ready made kits.

Ok enough of that, let me show you shots of two items I encountered. You might be familiar with this one, and when I saw the ads, I thought they were very well made. But then check out the shots, cuz they show the truth. Just so you know, my LOD factor is already at 5 and I got a decent graphic card. So it's not because of that. I also didn't edit the shots at all, cuz I'm too lazy right now.

These sandals come with a HUD, to tint your skin and change nail color. The skin tinter doesn't really work well, since the sculpted feet already has a baked tinted skin texture, which is difficult to match to your skin color. I'm not sure if there's a resizer, well maybe, but I didn't find it. They are also no mod, so you are basically fucked lol! BTW, I got these sandals for 10 L$ and it's not a promo or introductory price. (click on image to enlarge and see more details *shudder*)

Looks scary doesn't it? Like the skin of a dead corpse laying in the water for many hours. Shoes with sculpted feet are already creepy in their own way, cuz they remind me of amputated feet. But sloppy sculpt assembling like this example, makes it even more creepier.

Well you know what? You get what you pay for!

Now next example is not as bad as the first one. It's a fat pack with color change option, poses (freebie poses), annoying walk sound for 10 L$ (dunno if it's till on XSL). It's actually a very good sculpted work, but like usual, many just devalued them, by throwing them out as is, in the market for almost free.

Notice that the seller didn't even take the effort of choosing better attachment points for the parts, since it fucks up the boots, if you're using your AO as you can see in the shots. Luckily they're modifiable, so I adjusted them, to make them look better, but unfortunately they're still fucked up.

You get what you pay for!

The Dark Side

As you may have noticed, I never mention any of the skins I use. I only blog about the outfit and so on, cuz it's the only personal SL thing I wanted to keep for myself (also because they were all bought for personal use). But this particular Redgrave skin line inspired me to write this post.

This is actually the first Redgrave skin I ever bought, because I was never a Redgrave skin fan. One of the reasons why I wasn't feeling the Redgrave skins were, they tend to be more orange. Another reason is that every malformed bimbo with a passion for bling and Stiletto Moody shoes I encounter in world, mostly wear Redgrave. They mostly look the same too. Maybe they all live together in a bimbo camp or somethin' like that.

Anyway, I'm still not a fan of the "regular" Redgrave skins, but this one is different -- it's a Goth skin! It might be obvious already, that I have a weakness for Goths, Vampires, Demons and all those creepy stuff. That doesn't mean though, that I like all available Goth skins. For me to like a skin, these are what I look for:

- Excellent quality. Which means the shadings and make-up shouldn't be sloppy work e.g. nose and ass shading, shouldn't be too strong that it looks like it's dirty. Same goes with make-up. If it looks like someone punched your cheeks with blush that is even too dark for you, or eyeshadow like it was applied by someone who didn't have glasses on etc. And most important is -- no seams.

- Eyebrows. I'm very sensitive when it comes to eyebrows. I want them as realistic as possible and nicely shaped, but at the same time, not too thick. Please don't draw the eyebrows too close to each other. You wouldn't wanna do that in RL either or you'll look like you're angry all the time. Of course one can adjust the slider, to widen the upper nose bridge width, but not to the extreme, just to make it look right. Now if you do widen it extremely, do that with the eyes too, so you can achieve a fish-look-a-like face.

- Variety of skin colors, especially in the tan or sunkissed section

- Darker nipples. If your skin is brown or tan, light nipples just wouldn't look right.

- Hairbase. An outstandingly made one, which looks realistic is of course the non-plus ultra. The best ones in this field in my opinion are LAQ and Lelutka.

- Cleavage options. More varieties more plus points for you.

So if a skin meets most of the above requirements and the face doesn't look either like a 12 year old innocent kid, cutie pie boo boo boo sweety face or a thoroughly over-used slut, then I have to get it.

Now when it comes to Goth skins, breast cleavage and hairbase is of course an absolute plus, but the skin still needs to look gorgeous. Most Goth or Vampire skins are nothing but paper white crap, with various mascara tears running down the face crap etc. like it's everywhere you go (SL fashion is really getting more and more boring). Very little definition, cuz ok I understand it's more difficult to create more details on both very light and very dark skin.

Most also have faces like, ok they gotta be kinda scary, but you see the face and that's it. It's not tantalizing (what a vampire's aura is suppose to express) not attractive and just plain, how to say, well it's really best if they just bury themselves again and just stay there.

So it's actually very rare for me to go "wow!" when I see a really well made Gothic skin, and this time the praise goes to Redgrave. When I first saw this skin, I was blown away. Especially by the one without eyebrows and veins on the skin... it's such an amazing work! And the other one with the eyebrows, I just have to say, that they are perfect!

Here are some outfits I'm gonna show you, which compliments the Goth skin. I hope the shots I took can show the details I'm talking about. So here's for you to see. (Click on images to enlarge)

Just look how great this skin is. The detail is just amazing!

Skin: Redgrave - Trinity
Outfit: Barerose Tokyo
Eyelashes: Redgrave
Hair: Nikita Fride
Boots: Duck Nipple
Sword: Phantom Kaos - Daewalker
Eyes: Patmamu Sandalwood
Belt: Musashi
Tattoo: Strange Behavior






Outift: SLink
Hair: Exile and Nikita Fride
Necklace: Hevan Lament





Bodysuit: Graves
Cloak: Barerose
Hair: Tukinowaguma