Changing faces on avatars

[Esther Lowbeam]

Hello there,

I want to change the face of the avatar I am working with. I bought a skin and put it on but now the face is a mesh of the old face and the new face. Specifically I wanted the lips of the new face but I actually still have the lips of the old face. Is there a way to remove the old face completely and just have the new face?

 

Thank you!!!

Esther

[Rolig Loon]

Nope.  A skin designer creates the whole thing, and any skin is worn as a single piece.  You can't buy or wear just the face.  What you can do is fiddle with your shape.  The same skin will look very different on 5 different people because they have each adjusted the distance between their eyes, the length of their nose, the size of their hips, or the amount of cleavage they have.   If your new skin looks sort of like the old one, it's probably because you're still using the old shape and that's what's making the lips look familiar.  So change them. I suggest playing with the sliders in Appearance until you look like yourself.  I have spent 5 years and more, tweaking and re-tweaking to get a shape that feels like me.  Be patient.  You'll find yourself in there somewhere.

BTW, you can make some small adjustments with after-market cosmetics, add-on eyelashes, and replaceable eyeballs.  Those things can make an amazing difference to your appearance, so don't forget them.

[Lindal Kidd]

As Rolig says, your appearance is a combination of your shape and your skin.  The shape defines major body and facial contours.  You'll find that the appearance sliders will let you make some pretty extreme changes in your lips, eyes, nose, and cheeks.

The skin provides shading, fine muscle definition and makeup.  You'll find that some skins will look good with your shape; some will appear to change it (for better or worse), and some just look awful.  Some skin sellers also sell shapes that are designed to work with a specific makeup.  If you are not comfortable with tweaking the appearance sliders, you may want to go this route.

Nowadays, there's another ingredient in the mix...makeup tattoos.  You can get makeup that goes over your existing skin.  Some of these affect only your lips, or eyes, or cheeks, while others are complete facial makeovers.  You can even get a tattoo that appears to "part your lips" slightly to show a bit of teeth.

[Esther Lowbeam]

Thank you both, this has been very helpful!