Ethnic Skins

[Kelly Bruder]

I have been in secondlife almost 8 years now. In that time I have been on an almost constant hunt for good skins for African american females. I am Half black half Hispanic IRL and I like my avatar to reflect my ethnic background. The problem I have run into is that Most but not All skin makers make a skin and just change the color with no thought or regard to features, furthermore some skin makers refuse to make ethnic skins. Some exaggerate features to the point of being insulting. Now I could forgive this with early skins back when secondlife was young. Yet I still find these exaggerated features, or red nipples or simply just changing the shade without any thought to the features of people of color.

The problem is further compounded because it seems like the ethnic skin is the last skin to make it into the store or on the market. I am not trying to make this into a racial thing but when you look for ethnic skins african skins there is a limited number of creators who make the content. With that being said those who do Make ethnic or African skins they do a beautiful job of it taking care to think of features nipple color and shape of breast. These skins are well worth the cost I would just like to see more creators take the time to make beautiful skins for all women of color.

The overwhelming number of skins available to my fair skinned counterparts makes me a little jealous and to a degree makes me feel that some creators think that ethnic or african women are not worth doing skins for because they might fear the skin won't sell. To this I would like to say when I have used a quality skin 9 times out of 10 some one will ask me where I got the skin from. I will gladly give them the landmark. The Best advertising any business can do even in secondlife is customer testimony. word of mouth and letting the work speak for itself. Fear of not selling a skin due to the ethnic nature is no excuse

I have spoken to many designers over the years. Often they have an ebony skin or ethnic in the works. Sometimes its well worth the wait sometimes its a let down. Some designers have flat out said they are not making any ethnic skins at all. Thats a Huge Let down because I like their work I want to spend my money in there shop I want to give them Business but their refusal to make an ethnic skin is a Huge Put down, One creator who does awesome work and I would Love to spend money in there shop is Valhalla Avatars. The work is awesome the detail is awesome when I spoke to the creator about an ebony skin I was told he was not going to make one.

I was heart broken and I had to wonder why? Is it because he finds african women or ethnic women unattractive does he not find us worth his time or does he think that the skin won't sell. These are the questions I ask myself and I sure there are other women of color who think the same thing when we found out that a skin designer has not made a ethnic skin or when we speak to them to find out that they're not going to.

This has troubled me for some time, So I want to open the floor up for a conversation. my hope is to bring light to this and perhaps some change will happen and we can start to see a wider range of designers embracing the rainbow of color that ethnic women are with thought to our features

[Chic Aeon]

I can understand you feelings.

 

I have been blogging for seven years now, almost 4000 posts on my main blog, many more if you count them all. 

 

In my mind, it all comes down to a very simple fact. DARK SKINS ARE MUCH HARDER TO MAKE.  You can watch skin lines and try on all the tones. As they move to the darker shades (which I like by the way) they begin to lose their contrast and look flat.

 

I don't make skins; I have dabbled a bit redoing some but this is not my area of expertise. I can only say that is what I have seen over and over again. I have one old "black" skin that I keep in my inventory from maybe three years ago. It has its faults (hands mostly) but is fairly good.  I have yet to find one that made me go "aaaaaaah" and I believe that is because of the difficulty level.

 

It is likely that dark skins don't sell that well. The majority of folks are in the mid to light range. But you would think there would be at least one stellar skin out there. maybe someone has found it and will post on this thread. I hope so.

 

http://chicatphilsplace.blogspot.com/2015/01/fire-flowers-in-their-hands.html

[Persephone Emerald]

I think there are two main reasons why there are not more quality ethnic skins available, though they both boil down to the same reason. 1. There are not enough skin creators of color in RL. 2. There are not enough customers of color in RL. In other words, the majority of users are probably white. It's not that creators don't like ethic looks, but that they literally don't have any skin in the game and don't know how to make them look right. Add to that an insufficient number of customers asking for ethnic skins, and the result is very few good ones available.

The solution is to find the few good ethnic skin creators and buy from them. Redgrave has some based on RL celebritities that are good. By Snow has some good free ethnic shapes. To get a really good breast or butt shape, you're going to have to get a fitted mesh avatar, no matter what race your avatar is.  Other than that, I'd say look on Marketplace for ethnic skin & shapes.

I have a beautiful honey-tone African woman avatar that has a modified free shape from By Snow & a skin I found on Marketplace. I also have a couple of good African male shapes & skins. I used the ones pictures below to illustrate a steampunk love story I started to write but didn't finish.

[Bobbie Faulds]

WoW skins has a decent ethnic line. As stated, the main problem is dark skins are much more difficutle to do and get the lighting right on them. I have a drow alt, black skin, that finding a skin for her is a problem too. The problem is balancing the highlighting on them so it looks right. You might try Damn&Sweet as well.

[Marianne Little]

I feel a bit silly for suggesting skins to some who has been in SL as long as me. But then, SL is a huge place, it is not sure that we notice the same stores.

I have never heard of Valhalla avatars... so maybe you have not heard about The Shops. I have a mixed relationship to that store. They have a very hard shopping "experience", they made their own shopping HUD and credit system. However.... I can not deny that they sell quality.

Like Deja. https://www.flickr.com/photos/theshops/10766942105/in/photostream/

The Shops claim that they make special darker versions of their light skins, they don't just darken them. I can not vouch for that claim, I just use darker skinned looks sometimes. I am in a very pale look now and has been for a while.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/theshops/9586776208/

I have been a fan of their skins since they made "Chocolata".  Released in 2011. The Shops was the body co back then. They have since renamed themselves The Shops. Silly names, I know.  It is made blogposts upon posts about their store and how to shop, even videos is made. Because it is so different from the rest of SL.

 

[Marianne Little]

The video over is a bit old, now you get a blue pop-up window with the Shopping HUD and the StyleMode HUD as you land in The Shops. You add it and it looks like it does in the video. The layout of the store is different too, but you should just click through and pick up a lot of demos. If you decide to buy some, be really careful that you have selected the right skin tone in the HUD. I have bought the wrong shade myself, that is why I have this love/hate relationship with that store. They make shopping too complicated and it's so easy to make mistakes.

[Ceka Cianci]

I'm Indigenous American myself, and can totally relate to the pain of Skin shopping for hours and hours and never finding anything..

I've went through the entire MP skin section a few times from start to finish through the years..

It's pointless for me to go in world and shop for them at first unless i find a good lead on the MP..That's how i found my last skin..Sad to say,That creator is not even around anymore =(

I've had two skins out of my whole SL life that i have been pretty happy with..Mainly because of being able to use  layer spots to adjust tones on parts..

It's a pieces parts and put together experiment each time and hoping it all works out in the end.

It's been 5 years since i found my last skin that works with me hehehehe

I actually ended up getting my last skin from a store that made African american skins hehehe

I seen something in the eyes and checked it out and the features worked really well with my features..

So that was fortunate find for me =)

 

I do have to say, i don't know if i see it as a bad thing though, it being a little more harder..I mean i have been happy with the results and really kind of glad it was not so easy to find things or put together things very fast..

I like the challenge as well as getting really excited when i see something that may work with me..Then when it does work,it's such a good feeling..

I don't think it would be as exciting if i could just run out and get it so fast..

Plus it's kind of nice knowing you won't be bumping into your evil twin too often,if she is out there somewhere hehehe

 

Now that we have the mesh bodies it's been much easier for the body adjustments with tones and things..

Neck tattoo's make it pretty easy to match up tones to the body..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Kelly Bruder]

I have been to The Shop I am a big fan of their work and I own a number of there skins, thank you for the feed back

[Kelly Bruder]

I can see your point of view it is kinda cool to be the only one who looks like you in Secondlife with out a carbon copy running around.  its the time investment I guess that gets to me. I have spent days and even a whole week looking for skins and hair, 

Vahalla Avatars makes a great looking Native American skin check them out 

 

[Ceka Cianci]

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Kelly Bruder wrote:

I can see your point of view it is kinda cool to be the only one who looks like you in Secondlife with out a carbon copy running around.  its the time investment I guess that gets to me. I have spent days and even a whole week looking for skins and hair, 

Vahalla Avatars makes a great looking Native American skin check them out 

 

---

Oh i agree i wish it didn't take so so long..I would love to sometimes be able to go into the main stores and use the skins that are trending sometimes..would be nice for sure =)

I don't have the time i used to have to do all that hunting so i can completly understand the time issue..

And it does suck to come up empty handed more times than finding something, for sure..

 

I'm going to be looking today for a little while,so if i do find something that looks good i'll put a link in here..

I'm going to try the place you mentioned also,I don't believe i've heard of them..

Thank you =)

 

 

[Pussycat Catnap]

It takes different skills to make a dark tone. Almost all of these skin makers are Caucasians. Doing a skin like themselves comes as the first thought. Once they learn that. Once they have base files for it - those files are more or less useless for making a good African tone. A skilled artist would know they have to start over. A dedicated one will. Not all have that dedication.

What happens when you just try to darken the tone is you tend to get an "ashy" look, the highlights and shadows look all wrong. And the palms of the feet and hands on people with a lot of melanin are actually pale... which you will notice many of these 'cross-over' artists fail to do.

Many of them are using template kits at some point in the work, and so its not their own original files - they really don't know how to do it all from scratch so they know they can't make an African skin.

Is there racial bias in all of this? Probably, but not at a conscious level. More at the instintive 'reflex' level where people pick between A and B and it happens that they know A already. That still causes us brown (myself) and black folks a lot of harm (in the context of real life)... but its not badly intended.

 

For me of late the places to get goo d African Skins would be:

Angel Rock - the only place that goes as dark in tone as they do. As dark as the Nigerian side of my ancestry was.

Elysium - like you note, the African tones for them are not the 'main tones'. But unlike many who do 'African' as a side thought, they do it right. Look at the palms - its lighter than the rest. They also go decently dark enough. You could get the Obama family's skin tone out of this place's "dark dark" choices. They also do Omega appliers in their newest skins - so you can put it on the major mesh bodies (but not TMP or Slink as those are closed system, but they do have slink appliers). They look really good on both Belleza and Maitreya.

Sinful Curves - way too light, but the 2 dark tones they have have such beautiful texturing I used them for an alt I wanted to look "South Asian". And they also have Omega appliers. Their skins seem to look better on Belleza mesh body than any other skin I've tried.

Pink Fuel - not as dark as things could go, but well done when they go there. Their list of appliers for mesh bodies is very limited however.

The Shops (the TMP mesh body) - the skins sold here can be used for the base avatar, or for the TMP mesh body. Others have already mentioned them in the thread. They are made for caucasians, BUT they survived pretty well when being tonal-modified into the darker ranges, and they go fairly dark - though they're missing the mid-range of tones most common among African Americans. They seem to have darker than it (with a slight purple cast to it), and lighter. Might actually make them good for Ethiopian tones... The facial features are caucasian, but you can get away from this with a good shape.

 

[Lisette Seranno]

It definitely has gotten better over the past couple of years and as a half black/half PR, I feel your pain. I find the trouble is more for girls that are in the mid range like myself. I'm more of an almond complexion or "red boned" as we say and that's very tough to match from RL. I either feel, I'm too light or too dark. I find myself changing skins a lot and just when I thought I had it, I went and got the Maitreya body and I'm back to square one. 

I will say lately from looking at some girls' blogs, I've noticed some of them kind of transitioned to looking more black, which is a little strange and a little jarring, yet a little flattering. Watching someone's blog go from preppy white to more urban, still not quite sure how I feel about it. I think it's trendy now, but it's great for us that want ethnic skins. I've even noticed some makers have come out with asian skins, which I think is even harder to find than a black skin.

Some skins I like:

WOW skins- This is the first skin maker I think that got it right. I can't remember the name of the skin, but they are very well done all the way down to the nipples and pores. I'm not logged in, but I want to say the skin is called Elena. The only thing I didn't like about that skin it came with blue eyeliner. I think I got it in a discount sale for 50 or 100Ls. She later updated it, with appliers and called it something else, but it was the same skin base.

Birdy- I know some people here don't care for the look (it's a little teeny) but her Jordan skin is beautiful. I really wish she'd make another one. Think Tatiyana Ali from Fresh Prince of Bel Air.

Deesees- I think these skins a great for a more mature look like 35-45 range.

Modish- She also makes a nice range of skin tones and age range too. I'm wearing her Alexa skin currently, I like it and she came out with Maitreya appliers very fast.

Meghindo- I never bought her skins, but I know a lot of women that love them. She usually bases them off of famous people. So if you're into that, they're for you.

Glance- She also makes very nice ethnic skins. I'm not sure what happend to her store, hopefully she's updating or something, but she tends to disappear for a while then come back.

Egozy- This is a very unique looking skin. Whatever she does, I've never seen a skin like that, but she doesn't make appliers for Maitreya either so I had to stop wearing it. It's the skin I'm wearing in my profile pic. It's a very glossy looking skin. I don't think she has a mainstore, you can only get her skins from MP or skin fairs. Very reasonable price and they come with mesh ears and appliers.

Hope that helps a little. There are ethnic skins out there, but you really have to dig to find them. I'm sure I'm leaving a few out.

 

 

 

 

 

[Pussycat Catnap]

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Lisette Seranno wrote:

Egozy- This is a very unique looking skin. Whatever she does, I've never seen a skin like that, but she doesn't make appliers for Maitreya either so I had to stop wearing it. It's the skin I'm wearing in my profile pic. It's a very glossy looking skin. I don't think she has a mainstore, you can only get her skins from MP or skin fairs. Very reasonable price and they come with mesh ears and appliers.

---

https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/EgozyBody-Appliers/6787367

Oddly no Omega... but they do have Maitreya.

[Lisette Seranno]

Thanks! This has to be something she added in the last few days. I can go back to being "myself" in SL. I bought it as soon as I saw your post.

[LlazarusLlong]

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Lisette Seranno wrote:

I can go back to being "myself" in SL.

---

Why would anyone playing a game in which they could be anyone or anything they wanted to be, want to be themselves?

Your world, your lack of imagination?

[Lisette Seranno]

 If you followed what I was saying, you'd notice "Myself" was in quotation marks, even though you quoted it. Maybe you missed that. This is a thread about ethnic skins and how underrepresented they are in SL, I chose a skin complexion that was similar to my own in real life and I choose to be my "ideal" self in SL (uh oh there are those quotation marks again). If you don't understand what quotation marks mean, that's on you.

Who are you to judge how I live my second life? 

[Bobbie Faulds]

To answer the question of why people want to be themselves, not everyone is into RPing. They are themselves in SL and want to look as much like themselves as they can.

As for LlazarusLlong...he/she's a bit of a troll and a half-empty kind of person. Too bad they didn't absorb the philosophy of the person they twisted the name from.

 

[LlazarusLlong]

---

Lisette Seranno wrote:

 

Who are you to judge how I live my second life? 

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I am someone on a discussion board where you have publicly and voluntarily put your second life up for criticism.

[LlazarusLlong]

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Bobbie Faulds wrote:

They are themselves in SL and want to look as much like themselves as they can. Except much taller, slimmer and considerably more attractive than in rl.

---

FIFY!

(It's a shame the game doesn't allow you to make yourself appear more intelligent, isn't it.)

[MariMoons]

Angel Rock Skins

 

http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Costa%20Verde/104/143/28

[Gottin Polandia]

I know this reply is a bit late, but I just wanted to sasy that I TOO have experienced a lack of creator support when it comes to SL African American skin.  When I first learned about SL and decided to give it a try, a willing mentor took me to a store call Curio, he was fasicnated with the quality of skin there.  At first I wasn't impressed with the skin that he suggested that I buy and use for myself, but after I got used to it, I didn't want to consider anything else.  The skin is called Raccoon and I thought I looked more like someone had given me two black eyes.  But I had received so many compliments on my skin and people would ask me where did I get it.  I wasn't so freely offering the creators' name at first but after feeling so selfish about it, i finally started sharing.

After transitioning from a system/default body to a mesh body, my challenge and mission was to find a skin creator who could get as close to my original Curio skin as the Curio skin creator had not planned, at that time, to make appliers or installers for mesh bodies.  Sinful Curves was the only Store that came remotely close but still could not match the quality and details of Curio.  So for now, I've settled with Sinful Curves (SC), but I'm still looking high and low.  Most African American skin has too much RED in it and the skin I'm in and want has more yellow for a grayish tone, not red.  If anyone out there knows a place, please hit me up.

To check out the my Curio system body skin, look up Martini Shelter's profile.  Gottin Polandia (my alt) is wearing SC.

 

Gottin Polandia.

[Aethelwine]

It is hard to find nice pale skins too that don't make you look like one of the undead.

[anthonytorino]

Some of our people on Lord of the Rings RP have found nice ones to RP those families originally from south of Harid lands in Middle Earth. Can try to look at Khisah's skin on the sim when she is on.  There is another that plays a Warrior female Harridrim with a nice skin. 

[Rowan Amore]