New: Antonio skins @ FNKY! [2]
Cat can be a tough act to follow. When a few days ago he showed me some pictures from the sophisticated photo shoot for his review of the new “Antonio” skins from designer Funk Schnook of FNKY!, I thought, “Hmm, these are good.  In fact, they’re so good…that I kind of hate him…just a little…just for a minute.”  Because this is one of those items that neither of us would gracefully concede to the other for review coverage.  Fortunately, we play well together.  My animosity was short-lived, I got over it quickly, I’ve moved on–and I don’t think he even noticed.  ;)
Funk’s new “Antonio” skins comes in three base tones: Pale, Medium, and Tan. Â The skin tone can also be adjusted across a wide range via the Appearance sliders. Â As Funk told me, you can get a fairly light color even wearing the Medium tone skin. Â I am wearing the Pale skin tone in all accompanying pictures, with the color slider set to 25 (the “out of the box” setting is 50, the midpoint). Â In this first picture you see the “Baby Face” (clean shaven) facial hair option. Â Personally and quite subjectively, I think this might be the most attractive face any skin has ever given my avatar.
Two classic head hair options are available: bald and with hair.  This is pretty much de rigeur for male skins, but wait–there’s more!  There are no fewer than ten facial hair options: Baby Face, Baby Face Soul, Stubble, Stubble Soul, Rock Star, Rock Star Soul, Bounder, Bounder Soul, Hit Man, and Hit Man Soul.  (In this picture, I’m wearing the “Stubble” variation.)  I found them all to be quite realistic–not terribly surprising, given that all the beards are photo-sourced from Funk’s own.  ”The face is actually almost all my own RL face.  It’s all my own facial hair.  If you try the beards, you’ll see lots of variations. I actually shaved them all into my face. People thought I was nuts!” How long did that all take?  ”Well, I grew it out for about six days. I’m Greek, so it grows ultra fast.  :)
“But when people saw me working on this…RL friends and relatives saw the avatar and said, ‘OMG are you making yourself?’Â Because this looks like me. Â Of course the [body] shape and facial shape are not the same, but if you see me you will see [the resemblance] right away.” Â Funk describes this as intentional. Â ”I wanted a face similar to mine and didn’t want to source material for it others may have used. Â It’s not 100% my face–I also sourced some lower rez images and hand painted. Â This skin overall is about 50/50 hand painted [vs. photo sourced], just because I’m not a pro photographer, and some of my own cam shots had really bad light.”
In the I Don’t Think I’ve Ever Seen That Department, there are also two abs options for each skin: lightly and heavily shaded.  While I was trying on one of the skins for Funk’s critical evaluation, he warned me, “One thing with this skin–it’s really made for avatars with a thin waist and bigger chest. I know this can be seen as a fault, but it’s intentional.  It’s just one of the choices I decided to make.”
When I had finally re-rezzed, with some seeming surprise he added, “Yeah, it’s not too bad actually [on you].”  I told Funk that I did see what he meant about about the shape and proportion. After all, I’m a skinny guy.  ”That’s why we have demos.  I don’t want people buying it when it doesn’t look right [on them].  But for those bigger avatars like mine, it works.”  At left you see me wearing the heavily shaded abs and the “Stubble Soul” facial hair; in the picture at right I’m wearing the lightly shaded abs.  Although you should take Funk’s design emphasis seriously, I think the skin works very well on my slighter frame, too.
Overall, I think this is a beautiful skin. Â I’ve commented more than once that I would wear it for the face alone, but the detailing in other areas is top of class as well. Â The variety of beard styles, abs options and ability to lighten or darken the skin tone via the Appearance sliders provide great flexibility and control over your ultimate look.
Single skins are priced at?L$1750; this includes both hair and abs options for a total of four skins.? A pack of all available variations in the same skin tone (forty skins total) is available for L$10,000.  Demos are available in the shop for L$1.
Available at FNKY!?(FNKY Cake 127, 58, 24).
[...] Note to readers: Ryan is bringing sexyback. [...]
Ryan you are simply uber cute with this skin !
Funk told me also he was thinking to large framed avatars designing this skin, and was also surprised by the result on my shape.
Whatever your build is, consider to try the demo, i’m pretty sure you will appreciate what you will get!
aw lol Yeah this skins face looks really good on you.
Better than any of the others i`ve seen you wear in the reviews here.
GOOD JOB FUNK!
Oooh! You’re so damn cute Ryan…I just wanna reach over and ruffle that red hair of yours
Oooh! I’m a terrible commenter! I forgot to say congrats to Funk for making such an excellent high-quality skin with a very unique look… I’m drooling over the pics of Catero and Ryan here.
High-Five!
By all means, all credit to Funk for his workmanship on this skin. I only had the good sense to put it on.
I got the demos, and I love all of the skin…except for the eyebrows. Because my av tends to have a darker tan shade to the skin, it causes the eyebrows to look very bushy when you darken the Antonio tan skin. I thought it was my head shape before, but I just played around with everything on my head and that’s not it. Then I messed with the darkness slider on the skin and that’s the culprit. It ain’t easy bein’ a tan man in this world *sniffles* lol. All in all Preparation H…er…the skin is good on the whole, and you guys look fantastic in it. Well done Funk.
It was really interesting to see the same skin on 2 different avatars. I usually think of a skin as making people look pretty much the same, but this opens my eyes. I’d love to see this in future skin reviews too!
Oscar – I prefer lighter skins and didn’t try out the darker version of Antonio, so I guess I didn’t run into what you’re describing. At the risk of suggesting things you’ve already tried…as the skin includes eyebrow artwork, make sure your Linden eyebrows aren’t “showing through” the skin. I’m guessing this might be possible as the skin does allow the underlying tint to be seen. You might try eliminating your Linden eyebrows or reducing them as far as they’ll go. You can also try tweaking the brow Appearance sliders, as this can affect eyebrow artwork included on a purchased skin. If you have a variety of different “bald caps” provided with different prim hairstyles, try on several of those as I’ll pretty much guarantee that those will have different effects too.
Slithy – yup, it is interesting to see how different avatars can look even wearing the same skin. Cat touched on this in a response comment on his own Antonio review post. We’ll see if we can’t do something to show a wider variety of avatar shapes in future skin reviews, even if it’s just one of us wearing the same skin with a few different shapes.
Yeah Ryan, I tried out a different bald hair that Funk gave me, but it still didn’t fix it up. It didn’t have anything to do with the eyebrow color or density sliders because they were all on zero. I’ve been polling my friends to see if they like it or don’t like it, and I’ve gotten a lot of mixed responses. Although a lot are mirroring my view where the body looks great, but the face just doesn’t all fit. It’s a lot of “Yeah I see what you’re saying about the face, but I really love the body.” I’ll keep searching and debating. If only Leyla would update the textures on her skin…maybe I’ll shake her tree about it. lol
Sezmra Svarog recently updated her Entice line of skins for women, and I read in the SL Forums that she plans to have her new Entice For Men skins out by the end of the month. The first skin I bought was from Sezmra’s Bodyskins by Nora line for men, and I still like and wear it. I can’t wait to see what she has in store for us guys with Entice For Men.
[...] + Photos [MSS (1)] [MSS (2)] [...]
[...] of my favorite skins in every aspect is “Antonio,” by Funk Schnook. When checking out a skin, I find that I always look first at the face, and I love the way [...]
[...] of my favorite skins in every aspect is “Antonio,” by Funk Schnook. When checking out a skin, I find that I always look first at the face, and I love the way [...]