Take two

[profbutters]

Continued foray into custom skin land.  Because with a big pile of grading and laundry, it's not as though I have anything important to do. This time I tried Lyran's custom defaults.

No surprise--it looked better on some of my sims than on others.  It also looks way better in the photos than it originally did to me in-game.

For example, I think it looked really nice on Ginger.  I also put some Lyran eyeshadow on her, which I like, but ultimately took off.  I don't know why her extreme Parsimonious eyelashes look ok to me, but her actually having eyelids seems odd.



Flavius, well. . . hot diggetty.  In fact, I think mostly the black haired sims looked best with Lyran #1.



Cassius, well. . . not so much, maybe?  Here's where I kinda get stuck.  I wanted default replacement eyes, and they had to be default replacements that had contacts, including red eyes, because I originally put Cassius in with Maxis brown.  Ben uploaded him without the CC eyes.  In fact, I suspect Flavius may originally have had grey eyes, but I'm not totally sure.  Anyway, I was sold on the red eyes and hunted around to find these.  They're called Eye Candy and they're meant to look good with Maxis skin. 



Fred:  I woke up with Maxis skin and I got on the school bus with Enayla skin, and now I come home from school with Lyran skin?  Make up your mind.



Cassius:  Move over, I want to clean up your plate.

Fred:  Who are you again?

He's your great-grandfather and he's got ten neat points and one nice point.  I say just let him do it.



I summoned Cassius, De and Flavius using InSim, because it was less trouble to take all my photos at Ginger's house.  The only problem was that it was winter and Cassius and De insisted on pillow fighting. . . .and pillow fighting, and more pillow fighting. Finally. . .

Ginger:  Cassius, I'm going to say goodbye to you and De now for your own good.



Some Sims have a better sense of self-preservation.




Then, of course, I was forced to play my own house to get Cassius and De un-blued.

Flavius:  Don't you have sense enough to come in from the cold?



I actually like the skin on SimMe.  It's waaaay closer to my own.  In fact. . . .



Yup, the hair color is just about right, only now I look like Amelia Finch from *Puritanical Green Thumb*.  And nobody is going to recognize Sim Me with brown hair.  Poor me, stuck with a Simself who doesn't look like me, doesn't act like me. . . though I would *like* to poke people sometimes.  Anyway, SimMe, you're back to Maxis red. 

Sorry.



OK, OK, I'll let you have some new CC clothes, anyway.

I'm practically perfect in every way!

. . . .Ok, fun's over, Sim Me, you can change back to the tweedy stuff.

Sim Me:  Oh, *yeah*?  Who's gonna make me, huh?  Do you want me to poke you?



So now I'm running around my own Legacy dressed as Mary Poppins.

Back to Appius, who was the original cause of all this fuss with his weird furry custom skin.



Numa:  Congratulations on finding a really good hair remover!

Appius:  Electrolysis, actually, and it hurt like Hades.



Once again, can't decide.  Casca looks a lot better.  Secundus doesn't.  I don't know if that's because the Lyran skins look better on black and blond haired sims than they do on brown haired sims, or because I'm just used to seeing Secundus with darker skin, or what.



Well, Brutus, look at yooooou.

Brutus:  Can Appius have his custom skin back?  He's sobbing in the bathroom.  Also, it's cold in here.



I thought I'd check out what some of my principal players would look like.

Sophia, I think, looks smashing.



I wasn't so sure about Cecilia.  She looked a bit washed out to me, the same way Secundus did.  When I took this photo, I thought, "ik, she looks as though she's been sick," but now that I look at the photo, I think her skin looks all nice and creamy.  I also thought, "the eyes are too sharp against the skin," but again, not sure.



Of course, I'm not going to make any decisions about this without checking in with my arbiter of the aesthetic, Dante Gabriel.



Usually, he, Aubrey, and Lytton look like this:



As far as I can tell, the main difference is the absence of a yellow undertone.



DG:  URK.  Not at all aesthetic.

I think he was objecting to the Healthy Glow blush, actually, and I totally agree with him there. 

DG:  I'm morbid and melancholy, and you're trying to give me a Healthy Glow?  Ew!



DG:  Are you just about done fooling around now?



Yes.  I put back Appius' furry custom skin and deleted the Lyran defaults.  They take up a heck of a lot of room if I'm not going to be using them. 

I may decide to use the Lyran defaults  some time in the future, but not immediately: it would look really weird to change skin tones mid-chapter.  I don't think it would be so noticeable in between chapters, as long as I wasn't going to use older photos, and it might be nice to change something up between all those weddings. . not as though I'm going to be getting Celebration Stuff, after all (kicks Aspyr.)

PB

Comments

[docnerd.livejournal.com]

Yeah, Secundus does look a little weird with the Lyran skin. But overall they're less strange-looking than the Enayla skins.

I'll re-recommend Stacielee's skins--there's actually a Skin tone 0 that's much paler than the others, so the 1 and 2 skin tones are a little darker, which might help Secundus not look so pale.

I definitely like Appius better without the pelt, though.

[profbutters.livejournal.com]

Do you know what/where Stacilee's skins are?

PB

[robinoli.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty sure she has links to them in her first post in the Whedonberry thread.

[orikes13.livejournal.com]

http://www.insimenator.net/showthread.php?t=29574

I looked it up on her LJ.

[orikes13.livejournal.com]

Hahah!

Did you take a look at Lyran's eyes? I've heard a few people swear by them (Simagroop and Strange_Tomato both use them - they post on LJ). They look similar enough to Maxis eyes that I don't think Cassius eyes would look out of place.

I have some red eyes I found to match my defaults that I like. They're vampire replacements for me, but I think the might be able to be set up as contacts.http://www.rensim.com/details.php?file=70. They make allt he difference in the world for my vampires now. They match the rest of my sims.

I do like how creamy the Lyran skins look. It's one of the reasons I've thought of using them. At this point, I haven't added any for a couple of reasons. First, it would look a little odd to add them halfway through the legacy. It's weird enough for me when I look back to where I added the new eyes (and the fact that I went through two sets before deciding on the one to use). Second, I know they're hefty size wise and if I can keep myself on track to not use them, I avoid adding that much to my downloads folder.

[ndainye.livejournal.com]

I like the Lyran ones much better than the Enayla defaults.

I've been looking at various defaults for awhile, I really like some of them (Lyran, and Ephemral in particular) but I can't find good blends with them for my supernatural creatures. Most sets that do have them change them so much that they no longer look like the original creatures or they don't have a full compliment. I like the Louis ones and there's a wide variety but I just don't like them enough to use them.

[profbutters.livejournal.com]

Good point. I'm still on the fence about them. I kind of like Skin #1 on most sims, but I'm not sure about Skin #2, or is it #3? I think I'll put them back and try playing a couple of my spare houses. There's one where there's someone with almost every kind of skin tone, and there's another with a plantsim, an alien, and a vampire. I like the Maxis creatures' skin tones just fine the way they are.

I notice Lyran doesn't have any red eyes or other alien or fantasy eyes/contacts. I really enjoy the semi-realistic doll-like look, but I guess it doesn't go with creatures too well.

[mmmfobbs.livejournal.com]

These aren't such a huge change that I dislike them. DG does seem to have lost a bit of glow but not enough to break the deal. But if they look weird in-game, well, I guess it comes to your own tolerance level, really.

I think, except for descendants of Denise and a few other simselves, my own sims are stuck with default!

[profbutters.livejournal.com]

There's nothing wrong with Maxis skins, I think. If I go to Lyran, it'll be because I enjoy them. The difference is pretty subtle, and I think overall I like it better on females than males.

[swhedonberry.livejournal.com]

All of the defaults that I use are posted in the Whedonberry thread at boolprop. I especially love that it adds an extra pale skintone that will mix with darker skins so that you actually have 5 skins from which to choose instead of 4. It made my world a better place.

Also, I think that alkaloid (whose townie and default eyes I use) has a set of defaults that includes red. Anyhoo, they're worth checking out!!

ANNNDDDD, I really like the contrast with Sophia's green eyes and the creamy skin.

[smoothiesims.livejournal.com]

*pops in quickly to put in vote for Appius without custom skin*

I'm sure he'd look good with whichever skin, though, and good grief, did he get FIT? *stares*

[profbutters.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I really did want your opinion. :) Yeah, Appius got fit. His choice. I was OK with his being "fat," but some of my other sims don't look right that way, so I put in a Dance Sphere. Next thing I know he's on it every second that Brutus wasn't. Brutus is like, RIPPED.

The custom skin changes his face substantially, but I think he looks cute either way.

I am soooo tempted to change to Lyran skin after this chapter, but I don't want it to be distracting. Anyway, thanks again for opining, and have a great trip!

PB

[robinoli.livejournal.com]

If you change to Lyran skin after this chapter, I don't think most people will notice unless you point it out. Honestly, it's hard for me to tell Lyran and Maxis skins apart unless you put them right next to each other for comparison.

[profbutters.livejournal.com]

You know, I actually did that?--took some cross-comparison shots? and you know who looks really good in Lyran skins? Your granddaughter Leia. I'll try to get a picture or two of her up later. I took almost all my "test" shots in your family's houses, because Judy's house has got most of the creatures in it, and Bar's house has got almost every skin tone.

I tried out the Lyran eyes, too. Didn't like them so much. I like my unrealistic candy-colored eyes.

PB