Recently I posted about the difficulty some students had finding Second Life skins in a range of skin tones and I said I would publicly and personally thank any skin designer who contributed some freely available african, latino, or asian skins to the SL community.
I received a wonderful Christmas present of two different sets of full permissions skins from Molly Montale that fit the bill, and then a few days later someone alerted me to Eloh Eliot’s free skins available at Another shop, Lippert (73, 185, 179).
Eloh Eliot’s skins rock!
Even more generous, Eloh makes the PSD files available so you can learn about skin modification and design if you are so inclined.
Now, Prokofy made a couple of good points that I want to acknowledge, 1) that by doing so much handholding, I am robbing newbies of part of the joy of discovery that SL provides and 2) that giving them freebie, quality skins undercuts the business of those who specialize in african, latino, and asian skins.
These are fair points that deserve some consideration and I’ve been thinking about it since Prok posted. I’m not sure what the solution is yet, but I appreciate the challenge to consider the effects of my actions, and in the meantime, I am thankful to Molly and Eloh for making other options available to the wider SL community.
I think those are two valid points to consider but also it’s something to celebrate.
Thank you Molly and Eloh for being so generous!
I think it is ridiculous. There must be a starting point and Eloh Eliot has given newbies a chance to create content and to fuel their interest so that they will do something original. Moreover the business of skin won’t die. There are plenty better qualities ones. Why control or monopolise the market? What she did was amazing and very giving.
Well SF… It might be ridiculous to you… Since I assume that you are not a skin designer?? Right?? When I came across these templates (too late to participate in the fond racing, sad to say – love a good course! Do lots of that in RL) I shut down my computer and cryed…
Don’t read me wrong! It’s great to race money for a good course but… SF says: ‘There must be a starting point’ and YES that’s true! MY starting point was Photoshop, the ‘free linden clothing templates’ and an empty PSD file. It took me 6 months before I was ready to release my first skin line… Good skins are really hard to make – and I’m picky! And to get noticed among all the great, great SL-designers is even harder!
I was planning to start working on new releases with ‘none white’, Goth and fantasy skin types next. But REALLY! I don’t know… Is it worth the effort?
Since we all know that a lot of people in SL want to earn ‘quick lindens’ I think its NOT only a: ‘great – thanks a lot idea’ releasing these free template files!
Many ‘newcomers’ will be fooled to pay good Linden dollars for something that took NO TIME to create – just duplicates.
I already came across skins for 1200 lindens (spending 1 hour) that were just these templates without ANYTHING added!
Only the makeups that comes within the original file!
All those lindens…
For a good course? Yes, yes, yes – I’ll pay that – several times around!
For duplicates down someones personal pocket? NOO! Just fraud!
Again! Don’t get me wrong: These templates are awesome! Really good work! Beautiful. I know – because I make skins myself. But that’s the problem… What took me 6 mounts and 500 uploads to get ‘just right’ is now… Freee?
I don’t know how to relate to these files… It would be REALLY easy for me (since I’m a makeup artist both in SL and RL) to create awesome unique makeups and skintones in minutes, upload it for 10L$ – and then:
– Give it away for free at my yardsale….
– Sell them for 1000 lindens at my shop – because they are unique designer skins?
What would you prefer?
If you new in SL… Well, my darling, you won’t know the difference!
I can see both sides of the argument with regards to skin makers reeling in horror to wanna be skin makers dancing for joy, but for ALOT of us, and I include myself in this category, I want different looking skins!
There will always be those who rip off a basic idea and call it their own, always has been always will be, just look at the stupid business in a box rip off artist sl is flooded with!….but for those of us who want a DIFFERENT look, that’s just not out there or costs 3k+, which we cant afford, you have provided us with a very helpful tool to create our own masterpieces!
I have always worn a purple skin, and finding a decent one, not made by the goddess Munchflower,who always tends to us oddities needs,has been a very hard job in the 3 1/2 years I have been here.
I have tried to make my own, but with crap shading and no real help from the community, except for over complicated tutorials that ALL seem to focus on tan skin or variants of this, its been a long uphill struggle.
Now I can finally get the help I need to make funky coloured skins I WANT to wear!
Eloh, you have done alot of us a great favour and generosity, helping those of us who WANT to learn get a better idea of what it takes to make their basic ideas into something that doesn’t make us look like shiney plastic mismatched idiots!
And for that I am forever grateful!
Where are the templates anyway?? I took a look at the link and there’s nothing there. I was interested in a skin template to make experiments and add make up and all that just for fun and use it myself…
Is it not available anymore?????
Please.
I found it and I am so happy now….:DDDD
Thank you eliot for being so goodddddddddddddd and not selfish personnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn :DDDD
i love these templtes, i have so much fun playing around with colors…ect, my only issue is they have no eyebrows on them, and i suck at doing brows!! i cant seem to get them looking right, and when i load them onto a skin they look a little wonky, buut its all part of the learning i guess!
Thank Eloh!!