Do you recognize this skin? If you’re a fan of LeLutka heads, you probably do. You might even own it if you attended Skin Fair earlier this year. If you’re a regular reader, you might also know that it’s one of my (top three easily) favorite skin appliers in my entire inventory. That’s one out of a wholeeee lot. Of. All. Time.
It’s also unfinished.
Let me explain
When I try on facial appliers, I am laser focused on one thing only – the face (obviously). Does it fit my head/shape and aesthetic preferences? I will even accept small errors/anomalies on an applier if I like the look (like this, this and this). In this particular case, the Murray skin is glowing, the makeups are perfection and it even came with body appliers when it was available (it no longer is). I legit loved every single last thing about this skin.
But when a reader messaged me about what she found – or didn’t find, more specifically – when she went through her process of trying out the skin I so effusively praised, in different looks and poses, she discovered…the inside of the mouth is not textured. Then, she found more examples from other creators. Then she messaged me again.
So?
You may say, “So? No one sees that.”
OK. BUT, if a someone happens to do more than I do in Second Life, (i.e. pose on a platform taking closed mouth snapshots of my avatar over and over zzzzzz), then they likely very much do care. And in addition, you should get a finished, quality product for your money. Period.
It got me thinking: how many more unfinished skins have I been raving about and recommending? It turns out…a lot. How embarrassing -_-
Many, Too Many
I have a stupid amount of mesh head skin appliers so I didn’t go through every single skin in my collection – but I did go through at least one from each creator in my LeLutka heads collection. To be clear, that doesn’t guarantee that all the inventory from a skin maker is properly textured or that all is flawed (in fact I found instances of both flawed and fine from the same creator). It just means that the one applier at the top of my folder for each creator was properly textured, or it wasn’t, and I made a note of it.
But, there are numerous unfinished skins in my collection. Many, in fact. More than I ever would have thought, not to mention more than I care to detail in terms of my blogging without knowing and then actually sometimes fawning effusively over them -_- This issue has annoyed me enough to write this long, long post. Why? Because of my credibility. I should have noticed but I never thought to look there. But had I known, I would have pointed out the error/omission when I blogged them.
Last Words
To consumers: If you happen to care about this issue, you’ll want to always open your avatar’s mouth when you DEMO a skin applier for a LeLutka head going forward (I know I will be even though this issue does not bother me enough not to buy a skin if I love everything else). I will definitely note anything like this in the future.
To skin creators that sell appliers with unfinished inner mouths: if you know that you’re leaving parts of the skin unfinished, your price should reflect that. Period. Ideally though, creators for LeLutka heads should go that extra mile and complete the inner mouth with an appropriate color of … you know, an actual mouth – not the color of the outside of the cheek. Last time I checked, my inner cheek shouldn’t be “sunkissed” too – and it most definitely shouldn’t be unfinished.
xoxo