Skin creation: bad lighting/harsh lines

[moonkittenaid]

Hello! I'm new to skin creating AND Second Life. I've recently found a hobby in skin creating and have moved my Sims obsession to here for the time being. I'm pretty shy and haven't made any friends here yet but I just have to ask about the lighting.. so I did find a topic months ago on setting the environmental lighting custom for your skin but I'm sure this is only in the test realm? Probably not in realms you don't own? Also does everyone else still see your skin as aligned with their lighting settings?

Here is my delima attached as a photo. I'm sure you've dealt with this before. My skin I've created has harsh lines and stramge lighting. On canvas it looks great, on my avatar with custom enviromental lighting it looks great, in game it looks like I'm a gaunt old woman with serious skin issues. Advice? Is this something I can fix or work around?

 

 

My marketplace photo with the custom lighting on test server:

[Rolig Loon]

Two big things will affect how bad the shadows are.  First is the underlying structure of your av. A skin that looks great on one person can look gross on someone else with a different shape.  If your av's cheekbones are high and your brows have a different profile, your skin may look quite different from someone with less prominent cheekbones and brows, for example.  This is why we always advise people to wear their preferred shape when they're shopping for skins.

Second, of course, is the angle and strength of lighting.  The photo you posted seems to have been taken at mid-day, when the ambient light source is directly overhead.  That's absolutely the worst time to see anyone's av because that lighting accentuates facial shadows.  Even if you're not messing with other windlight parameters when you take photos, at least change your time of day to early morning or late afternoon.