Anyways, my avatar has change a good bit since I last posted.  Around the time of my last post, I was searching far and wide for a lighter complexion male skin that wouldn’t make me look like a popped-collar, aviators wearing doucher (*see Club Slut).  I found it!  Karamia’s male line of skins are fantastic for the style I’m going for; it’s a nice mix of male model and average joe.  So I’ve got a lot of posts to catch up on, most of which will have this new skin in it.   I get kind of tired of posting the same skin over and over again though, so I’m taking suggestions on other skins to check out, in the same style.

Let’s get to it, eh?  I stumbled upon a new designer (at least new to me) a week or so back and I’ve become a big fan of a couple of articles of clothing he has for sale.  There was a small seam gap on one of the arms that was keeping me from posting about it, but the designer happily fixed the gap and replaced them.  What a guy!

The jacket and tank are from Photos Nikolaidis’ Another Stupid t-shirt Shop (A:S:S).  I had a little trouble fitting the collar, but it seems to have worked out in the end.  After the issue with the seam gap on the left arm was fixed, I’ve gotta say the jacket is great coming from such a small designer.  It looks good, but maintains a hand-drawn look that I’ve come to appreciate.

My other big find, in this post, was this great hair from Uncleweb Studio.  Uw.St has been one of my favorite hair designers for a while now, but their main shop has been down for what seems like months.  In a desperate search for new men’s hair, I tracked down an Uw.St kiosk/wall in Le Look’s male hair and body section.  Until Uw.St’s main shop returns, take this SLURL to get to Le Look http://slurl.com/secondlife/LE%20LOOK/129/53/29

Details on the rest of what I’m wearing after the jump.

The Details:

• Skin: Karamia — MiA - Pale Male Skin, Strapping L$1000
• Shape: Zieen 9.2c  N/A
• Hair: Uncleweb Studio –Ilias [Brown Wolf] L$170
• Eyes: Poetic Colors — Ocean Eyes –Ocean Mist (S) L$200
• Jacket: A:S:S –Spring Jacket [Beige] L$60
• Undershirt: A:S:S –Simple tanktop [Grey] L$50
• Pants: Desert Moon Clothiers — Fueled Jeans X L$125
• Shoes: Maitreya — Male Desert Boots [brown] L$400

I’m Qualsha Nordberg - I’ve been involved with SL fashion in my small way since around August 2006.  First as a runway and very occasional ad model and now as a freelance streamed MC and DJ for fashion shows by different agencies and groups on the grid.  I think it’s safe to say I’m an admirer of artistic talent in SL in all forms, and fashion is one incredible way creativity can express itself in SL.

I’m not a creature of static style - I have been known to explore girly, funky, goth, high fashion, casual, and fantasy.  Expect anything from my posts, and expect me to be picky about what I like.  I am a texture snob, but respect and encourage valiant attempts at brilliance!  Everyone should try to push at the boundaries of possibility.

A bit about this outfit -

The Hair is scripted to change to any of 7 colors, brilliant!  The ad to buy the hair is not clear about this - I thought I was buying purple and it was my only option.  Such a pleasant surprise that i suddenly had 7 colors available to me!  This is a new item by Ameshin Yossarian.

The Sweater and Pants are from two separate outfits, both ridiculously low in price.  The sweater comes with a very cute mid-length flexi skirt, and the pants come with a fantasy inspired, stomach revealing and feather trimmed long sleeve top and long open-front skirt.  I had somehow never heard of Discord before - and damn I went nuts buying stuff there once I knew the price.  Orange Meili is a Japanese designer and the scale and volume of her store remind of BareRose - only with less lag.  So many absolutely incredible things come from Japanese designers.  I often wonder what’s out there that I don’t know about because of the language barrier.  I’ll find them eventually.

Here’s the details (after the break):

Hair: Curious Kitties, by Ameshin Yossarian
Nyanotech Hair - Zroaterarukapan - L$ 200

Skin: LeLutka Beaute, by Minnu Palen
Gift skin, no longer available for sale – Other skins ~ L$ 1500 each

Eyes: Miriel, by Miriel Enfield
Absinthe - L$ 50

Clothes: Discord, by Orange Meili
Items from two different outfits
Yakushin (Only sweater shown above) - L$ 90
& Ro-Ji (Only pants shown above) - L$ 99

Shoes: Maitreya, by Onyx LeShelle
Dune boots, feet only - L$ 350

Shape: My own, not available.

I was finally broke the proverbial umbilical cord when I spotted Lano Ling’s Poetic Color Eyes - Christmas Freebie on SL Free*Style.  Free, high quality eyes were something I simply couldn’t pass up.  I popped by Zusshon and grabbed my freebie.  I was not impressed.  The eyes appeared HUGE with my tiny little eye openings and I felt like some sort of demonic sprite with my glowing black eyes with the glowing orange rim.  The adventure into the world of foreign optics didn’t end there.

Checking my ‘Your Contacts’ photo feed on Flickr for the 50th time of the day, I found a fantastic new shot from the beautiful Kekona Aichi featuring the same eyes I’d already blown off.  They looked fantastic on her fair skin and round face.  I couldn’t resist posting my opinion on what appeared to be a poetic disaster on my avie, and Lano Ling himself spotted the comment and sent me a pair of his lightest eyes for testing.

Enough with the boring prologue!  Pictures and my analysis after the jump!

I can’t deny the quality of detail in Poetic Color Eyes, but I also didn’t want to look like an alien without any iris.  Lano Ling’s contacted me about my enmity towards his eyes and pointed out that each package of Poetic Color Eyes came in three different sizes.  This is the first time I’ve spotted eyes other than my own that come in different sizes.  While I have no doubt that he was copying my idea (sarcasm), I’m glad to see it’s catching on.

The Christmas Freebie eyes came only in medium, but the set of Quicksilver eyes Lano Ling sent me offered large and small options as well.  I was glad to see that ‘Quicksilver - small’ were the exact same size as my own eyes (which may be based off of the original eye template size offered by Linden Labs).

I have the right size now for a more accurate comparison and it’s a real shock to the system.  Through the many versions of Zieen’s Eyes I have made them darker and dirtier to try and get away from the horrible anime eyes you see all over SL (a solid white sclera w/ no veins or imperfections).  And now with Poetic Color Eyes, my own eyes look much like the anime eyes I’ve fought to differentiate from.

The question now is, has Lano Ling taken it too far.  While my eyes are comparable to a neon sign when put next to his, I find his eyes much darker than the average eye in a quick Google Image search.  Another gripe I’ve always had with SL eyes, is the complete lack of veins and redness as you near the outer-most edges of the texture.  Lano Ling’s eyes possess a much more subtle ‘dirtiness’ to them, with a much more realistic ‘redness’.  Although there are no visible veins in the sclera, this is something that people will seldom notice unless they’ve actually zoomed in for a closer look.

The next thing I looked at was the iris.  This is the most difficult area to compare, as the iris has such a great range of colors, highlights, and shadows in the human eye.  I will not give either eye and absolute thumbs up for thumbs down based on this area.  I favour the lightness of my iris, but there is a more detail in Lano Ling’s Poetic Color Eyes.  Here’s a quick reference on some human eyes if you need something to compare against:

The final two areas I compared are the pupil and the lighting glare.  When it comes to the glare, I feel Lano Ling is the unadulterated victor.  The pupil is my only big gripe with Poetic Color Eyes.  It’s just too big!  Even with the small eyes, I feel like my avie must be standing in a nearly pitch-black room.  In a bright area I look some something out of a the Roswell files.

The entire eye seems to scale uniformly from large to small, so my conclusion is that the pupil is too large across all sizes.  In my own eyes, the size difference between Large and Small is ONLY the pupil size.  Lano Ling has taken it one step further by offering three wholly different sizes, but I would like to see an option for a smaller pupil as well.  While the eyes have grown on me as I wear them, I still feel all too awkward with the overly dilated pupils.  The question is, is Lano Ling prepared to commit the added time and money to offer six or more different options with each pair of eyes for one dissatisfied avatar?

The Final Verdict

Lano Ling’s Poetic Color Eyes stand on their own with the high detail and production quality. The sclera (white part) seems too clouded and dirty to be healthy; almost jaundiced.  While the darker nature of the Lano Ling’s eyes sets them apart from those of other designers, I don’t think it would hurt to lighten things up just a bit and try to eliminate the shadow/halo around the iris that inexplicably rears it’s ugly head after being uploaded to SL (I’m assuming this dark halo wasn’t intentional, as a similar phenomenon occurred after uploading my lighter eyes).  The pupil also seems a tad large for my taste, but that’s something I’m sure will just take some getting use to.  *UPDATE* I spoke with Lano Ling about his eyes and he’s taking into consideration a slightly lighter sclera and smaller pupil.  With his next series of eyes — which are to be lighter in color — I’ll post another review.  Until then, I’m wearing these eyes to get use to the massive change from my own.

Poetic Color Eyes are definitely in a different league than Zieen’s Eyes, which is not only apparent in the design, but also the price.  Zusshon’s eyes come in at L$200/each.  That’s quite a chunk of change when you consider you’re forking out almost USD 1.00 for a piece of intangible digital media, but the deep, beautiful colors present in the iris, it may just be worth it.

*UPDATE* I’ve spoken with Lano Ling and it appears that the eyes, as presented in this article, appear much darker than he’d previously witnessed.  It appears that the indescrepencies may be due in part to the lack of a good face light.  I went and purchased the face light he was using, FaceFX Designer Facelight, and the eyes really did brighten up.  And a note on FaceFX’s face light…  After forking out the L$375 for this little gadget, a friend sent me a 100% free face light produced by CogNation.  The CogNation offers nearly every feature that FaceFX does for absolutely free.  While CG Facelight lacks the ’softness’ setting and a few added facelight positions, I think it’s more than enough for conservative facelight use.

Aside from Young Urban, I bought one of the rather expensive, but high quality, jeep hats from AKEYO and I grabbed 3 sets of the AWESOME jeans from Kari.  Kari is probably my new favorite distrubutor of jeans.  I’ve heard the owner is very picky about his finished products and I think it really shows.

Details after the jump…

The Details:

• Skin: Millage Valenti — SKA-007 (3rd Edition) Nude L$999
• Shape: Zieen’s Custom Shape N/A
• Hair: Little Heaven — Ley [Cocoa] (Modified) L$200
• Hat: AKEYO — Jeep Cap [Flakes] L$350
• Eyes: Zieen’s Eyes — [Gen2] Zlue [Large Pupil] (IM Me)
• Shirt: Young Urban — Halfway Hoodie [Grey] L$150 (L$500 FP)
• Pants: Kari — The Scoundrel [jeans] L$100
• Shoes: SOREAL — Superstars L$399 (L$3,499 FP)

Some notes about the outfit… I modified the hair A LOT.  I changed the hue and I rearranged each prim of the hair (piece by piece).  It’s time consuming, but it’s the best way I’ve found to match a hat with hair.  I also copied the shirt layer of the Halfway Hoodie and edited it to make a small puffer layer (between 3 and 5 for me).  The hoodie has some almost skin-tight features/shadowing drawn in, so you don’t want to make it TOO puffy or you’ll risk looking pretty silly.  Also, Kari jeans rule.

I’m going to be making a couple of changes to the blog in the coming days (after I get back from a little mini-vacation).  I’ll be whoring out the page hits by moving ‘The Details’ after a jump (gotta click ‘read more’ to see them).  It’s not all bad! I’ll be going back over what I’ve posted and making it a rule for future posts to add the price (as of the post) of all featured items.

On another note, the great Trevor Turner has provided me with a few demos of new and upcoming hand-drawn clothes for his store, Young Urban.  Expect to see some great things from him in the next few posts.  If any other artists would like provide me with demos in-world, I’ll be happy to take a look and consider posting them here, on ARF.

Credits and prices after the jump…

The Details:

• Skin: Millage Valenti — SKA-007 (3rd Edition) Nude L$999
• Shape: Zieen’s Custom Shape N/A
• Hair: Find ASH — High Wind [Charcoal Gray] L$280
• Eyes: Zieen’s Eyes — [Gen2] Sullen Amber [Large Pupil] (IM Me)
• Shirt: Truth –Pistol Shirt [lemon] L$200
• Pants: Truth — Blade Denim [luna // unisex] L$125
• Shoes: Awori Cassini — Men’s Half Shoe [black] L$275

Also, I’m continuing to experiment with snapshot presentation.  I started out with the white background collage, then multiple photos, and how the SL-scenic collage.  It’s my favorite yet, but I do apologize for the fake (if a pixel world can appear fake) or awkward appearance in some shots.

P.S. — Ducknipple is just a fun word.

You feeling froggy? Hop on over to see the details…

The Details:

• Skin: Millage Valenti — SKA-007 (3rd Edition) Nude L$999
• Shape: Zieen’s Custom Shape N/A
• Hair: Uncleweb Studio –  St Grain (Type A) - Mesh Lint L$130
• Eyes: Zieen’s Eyes — [Gen2] Empty [Large Pupil] (IM Me)
• Shirt: Ducknipple –Vaga brown collar L$75
• Pants: Girlie-Relax -Jeans (Straight Cool) L$250 (Part of Set: Tressles)
• Shoes: SOREAL — City Steps Sneakers Brown Suede L$395

As far as modifications go with this one, aside from some standard resizing, I did a lot of sizing and adjustment to the hair to fit under the beanie and added a Meiko button to the beanie.

Details & prices after the cut…

The Details:

• Skin: Millage Valenti — SKA-007 (3rd Edition) Nude L$999
• Shape: Zieen’s Custom Shape N/A
• Hair: Uncleweb Studio –  St Grain (Type A) - Mesh Lint (Modified) L$130
  
• Hat: Eat Rice! –  Knitted Beanie - black L$150
• Eyes: Zieen’s Eyes – [Gen2] Empty [Large Pupil] (IM Me)
• Shirt (Jacket Layer): Armidi Limited — Devilish Freedom Hoodie [Red] L$145
• Shirt (Shirt Layer): MODERNO — Basic Thermal - Black L$50
• Pants: Canimal - Streetwear Boxer Jeans (black) L$325 FP
• Shoes: SOREAL — Superstars L$399 (L$3,499 FP)

All the important stuff is AFTER the jump…

The Details:

• Skin: Millage Valenti — SKA-007 (3rd Edition) Nude L$999
• Shape: Zieen’s Custom Shape N/A
• Hair: Uncleweb Studio –  Derick - Brown Wolf L$130
• Eyes: Zieen’s Eyes — [Gen2] Sullen Amber [Large Pupil] (IM Me)
• Shirt: Nylon Outfitters — Fawn Polo L$100
• Pants: GearShift — Maverick Jeans ripped faded blue L$200
• Shoes/Sandals: Desert Moon Clothiers — Survivor Men’s Sandals L$150

The mp3 player in the pocket came with the pants.  It has different attachments including some headphones that actually go in your ears.  PEW PEW!!!

Details after the jump…

The Details:

• Skin: Millage Valenti — SKA-007 (3rd Edition) Nude L$999
• Shape: Zieen’s Custom Shape N/A
• Hair: Little Heaven — Rabi [black] L$200 (L$1,000 FP)
• Eyes: Zieen’s Eyes — [Gen2] Olive [Large Pupil] (IM Me)
• Shirt: Rooster — Parker “Spright!” [black] L$100 (L$350 FP)
• Pants: Kal Rau — Skate Pants + Ipod and Phones L$280
  
• Shoes/Sandals: Urban Bomb Unit — PornStar Slip-ons MultiColor L$495