New: “Adam” male skins @ PXL Creations
January 7th, 2008 at 12:27am Ryan Darragh
Every once in a while, a new designer appears more or less out of nowhere (as near as I can tell) and says, in effect, “Hey, hi! It’s me. I’ve been doing some work and I’ve got some stuff. Want to come and take a look?” That’s kind of how I felt when a friendly notecard from Hart Larsson of PXL Creations landed on me not long ago. The extra beauty of the whole thing is that he got my name from a mutual friend (thanks, Kham!). I love it when the network works for me. Turns out that Hart has been diligently, creatively working–for some time now, so he’s hardly arrived out of nowhere–on his new line of skins for men (and women). The result is “Adam” and, although I think that both Hart and his designs speak for themselves, I’m sure I’ll find a few things to say too. 
I had the chance both to meet with Hart “in person” and to exchange thoughts and ideas via notecard (we live on opposite sides of the RL world). I was curious to know what had motivated him to embark upon developing and creating skins for SL. “When I entered SL for the first time, I was all about exploring, finding new places and camping to get me some L$ and buy me some decent stuff. It was a friend that I met in the first week on SL that passed me some full perm skin textures and asked me if I could make the make up look better. It was a hideous skin, but slowly but surely and with trial and error managed to improve it and eventally started selling them. At a very low price initially, but as my skills and skins improved I gradually upped the price. I owe my first skin adventures to this American lady, and [so I] entered the fascinating world of skinmaking.”
One interesting, even fascinating aspect of Hart’s creative process is that he used an “open source”-style, community-oriented model during design and development. “I keep an open line [of communication] with the public when I develop a skin. I use Flickr as [my] communication channel, and people participate actively by giving me suggestions on beards, makeups or other effects. I make those and put them in beta form in my shop. Once the new skin has matured, the offical version is released, which generally meets about 90% of the initial requests. It is impossible to satisfy everyone, but having your customers this involved surely helps [with] making final decisions.” Based on the results, Hart seems to have made the best possible use of this process and avoided the potential pitfall of creating a design that includes everyone’s suggestions but in the end pleases nobody very much.
Being essentially a know-nothing regarding digital art design, except in the broadest possible sense, I was curious to hear about Hart’s own creative process. “I use a lot of ‘bought’ photo material. Either it comes from online catalogues, or from a friend’s photo agency. The skins that I create are fully hybrid–I mix up photosourced and hand-drawn [artwork]. I prefer a not fully photo-real skin, since it is my experience that REAL does not render too well in SL and does not give me the quality I desire. The textures are rendered in 3d to eliminate eventual seams and to enhance the 3d effect. Thereafter I export the textures on the classical SL format (head, upper body, lower body) and edit them in Photoshop to add the effects that 3d software won’t let you…or are not as sophisticated as in Photoshop.” I can’t begin to explain or even comment on all this, but clearly a great deal of careful, painstaking work has been done. The result is a skin that, for me, almost perfectly walks the delicate line between attractively stylized and authentically photo-real, with beautifully smooth, even shading and contours to the body that surely don’t actually exist on the underlying avatar model.
The “Adam” skin is available in Light, Medium and Tan tones, all shown here (Tan at top, Light above and at right, Medium below). On the surface this may not seem like a lot of options, but all are tintable, which gives you full control over how light or dark your skin appears. The light/dark slider comes set at 50 (the midpoint), so you have a wide range open to you as you start tweaking.
A total of eleven facial hair options are available, by popular request of participants in the development process. Only a few of these variations are shown here, but all are attractive and well done. Perhaps the most unusual is the notched eyebrow, shown at right, second from top (in this image, you can also take a closer look at the beautifully shaded, whorled detailing of the ears).
In addition to the smooth torso, the “Adam” line includes four levels of realistic body hair (click the thumbnail image at left to see the progression). Although of course this isn’t unheard-of, smooth skins are still most common, and the body hair options here are extremely well done. Hart says, “I have received a lot of requests from people who were tired of having to ‘wear’ body hair on clothing layers. After testing and trials, I made four different bodies that please both the smooth macho lovers as well the girls who like their mates a bit more hairy.” 
Ultimately, Hart’s development process as well as his business model seem to be rooted in an old-fashioned idea: customer service. “Opening the development to my customers may make the process a bit longer, but it is not my aim to spam the market with new skins all the time. I prefer to take my time and deliver an impeccable product that my customers love. I love the close contact with my customers, which for me is the most satisfying and exciting thing in the process, besides getting loads of constructive feedback that helps me improve future releases.”
“Adam” is priced at L$1850 for a single skin, and there are a variety of “pack” purchase options as well. Demos are available for L$1 in the shop.
The complete “Adam” skin line is available at PXL Creations (Peronaut 22, 52, 49).
Disclosure: Seen in World: Yes | Review Copy: Yes | Friends List: No
Notes: On Ryan: Goldfish boxer briefs by Kitridge DeSantis (UOMO). Picasso trunk by Dragontat Zagato (Brief Encounter). "Colby" hair by Aemilia Case (Philotic Energy).
Entry Filed under: New Items, PXL Creations, Skins
17 Comments Add your own
1. Oscar Page | January 7th, 2008 at 12:50 pm
Oooo progression image. Getting all fancy dancy on us are ya Ryan?
I’m also a huge fan of the modifiable skins that let you go lighter and darker. It opens up your virtual closet and allows you to don a multitude of looks.
I picked up on this skin after teleporting all over the map through the skin collection put together by the motley crew @ YMe (who may or may not take a ride on the wild side). I got the demos, but haven’t pulled the trigger. I think you just pulled it for me Ryan. Thanks for that.
~End of random collection of thoughts about this post~
2. Ryan Darragh | January 7th, 2008 at 6:22 pm
It’s true - the technological wonders will never cease.
And Oscar, I’m always happy to help you figure out how to spend your money.
3. Sean H | January 7th, 2008 at 10:00 pm
The face is wonderfully done, amongst the best I have seen.
A few little comments though, as is my want… The fine demo watermark obscures your ability to look at skin grain and especially the lips. Texture there was impossible to see. The bold watermarks should be enough, look at how Cryo do it.
There needs to be a change room, or some method to look at these skins in store, too many stores neglect this.
Pubes… GAH… Do you sell hairless skins? Pubes are ugly, pubes are unsightly, pubes stop you wearing thongs and very low cut jeans. No need for pubes. Provide a clothing layer or an optional hair free version.
No skin is every perfect, the pecs for me are the let down, they look too feminine, but the face, oh the face… to die for.
4. Blog Coverage « PXL&hellip | January 11th, 2008 at 6:16 am
[...] at Second Style writing one of her skin reviews about Linda, Ryan Darragh who covered Adam for Second Man in a very nice and thourough reviews and then we had Madison Donnelly at The Rummage Box showing of [...]
5. Oscar Page | January 13th, 2008 at 9:40 am
I bought the tan shaved, but I’m not feeling it at all…especially the face. The lips look like I’m wearing deep red lipstick. It shows much more when you pull the pigment slider toward the light end. You have to go past 60 on that pigment slider in order to hide it. This is not shown on the demo. What it really comes down to I may use it for some random creative shots when I need to go dark, but it’s most likely going to the back of my inventory.
6. Hart Larsson | January 14th, 2008 at 12:35 am
Ty for all the feedback. I will try to accomplish all interesting requests…
@Sean
Well probably i will release a body… hope u will be happy. For the watermark.. yes i’ve found a good solution … i need some time to redo the demo textures .. ty
@Oscar
ty for the feedback, u can see a no photoshopped snapshot fo the Tan here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/14216909@N05/2150414357/
I don’t see a red lipstic as you have noticed… probably is my or your videocard that rpocess different colors?
I’ve other men’s development in my mind… i will post the beta version of some idea in my flickr…
Ty again for feedback.
7. Ryan Darragh | January 14th, 2008 at 10:01 am
Hmm, it looks like that Flickr photo is private - I’m not able to view it. Maybe it’ s just me, in which case I feel special.
8. Oscar Page | January 14th, 2008 at 10:38 am
My vid card is a GeForce 7900 GT, but the real clincher on my thoughts about the lips came when I went around and asked multiple friends about what they thought about the lips when the skin was light and my beliefs were mirrored. One said she liked it overall, but when it was light…”cherry red lip gloss”. I’ll upload my photos to Flickr when I get home from work tonight.
9. Ryan Darragh | January 14th, 2008 at 12:07 pm
Oscar - if you post a comment with links to your Flickr photos and it doesn’t appear, drop me an IM or email so I can check for it. If there are too many links in the comment, the spam filter will catch it.
10. Oscar Page | January 19th, 2008 at 12:50 pm
Here are the two images I was talking of uploading to Flickr:
11. Oscar Page | January 19th, 2008 at 12:52 pm
Or not…lol
Maybe this will work
<img src=”http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2092/2204676622_b616342f0e_o.jpg” width=”1024″ height=”1024″ alt=”0 Pigment”
12. Oscar Page | January 19th, 2008 at 1:50 pm
Doesn’t look good, but it works.
13. Hart Larsson | January 20th, 2008 at 5:57 am
Ok Oscar ty so much for your feedback.
I will take alook faster, i think is a bad configuration of my alpha channel of the face but i’m not sure i need to check.
ty again
14. Oscar Page | January 23rd, 2008 at 10:56 am
Simply as an fyi for anybody else that casually strolls into this post, Hart was correct in believing he had a bad configuration on his alpha channel and he has given out updated version of the skin to myself as well as others.
From what I gathered in our conversation he fixed it on the other two versions of the skin, but not the tans. Thus, if you’ve bought the tan version of it, I’m sure you’re welcome to contact Hart and he can get you the updated version of the skin.
Personally, I’d like to thank Hart for getting on and handling it so quickly. The skin looks much better.
15. Ryan Darragh | January 23rd, 2008 at 4:21 pm
Thanks for the update, Oscar!
Hart sent me me updates along the way as he was looking into this concern that Oscar raised. I’ve been very impressed with his professionalism and sincere concern for his customers’ satisfaction.
16. Hart Larsson | January 28th, 2008 at 4:02 pm
As i told to Oscar, i thank him for the feedback because i find a little error and iìve fixed it…
If someoone have bought the tan and have a right buy trasaction i will send for free the fixed version that correct the problem revealed by Oscar.
Ty to Ryan too to give me the possibility to contact people also by his great blog.
Hugs
Hart L.
17. Men’s Second Style &hellip | April 18th, 2008 at 11:43 pm
[...] of the amazing work being done by SL designers. In the accompanying pictures I’m also wearing the “Adam” skin by Hart Larsson (PXL Creations) and the “Jack” skin by Posy Trudeau (Flesh Peddlers). In a highly [...]
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