The Search for Perfection
i have an extremely critical and discerning eye. i've played SL daily for almost two years now and i think the development of fashion inworld is nothing short of phenomenal. the technical and artistic merits of our creators is exceptional, varied, and complex. i know. i've tried my hand at many aspects of creating with the tools we are all given. my awe for those who can top the rest continues to amaze. i am agog at their magnificent gifts they bring to us. being able to drape our avis in their creations is a distinctly visceral pleasure.
i admire the bloggers who seem to tirelessly bring us reviews of their favourite designers or their newest finds. i really wish i could be so facile with such rapid change as to keep up. unfortunately, my need for change is not as quixotic as it once was. so, when the time came to swap out my Tuli skin, one i acquired and have worn almost exclusively since it was given to me, you can imagine what excrutiating pains i went through to find another. now, i'm sure there are some of you who have oodles of high ticket top designer skins. swapping out your skin has as much significance as donning a new pair of socks. not so in my case.
my skin is me. it's the basis to my very being. my shape (another facet to my steadfast stubborn nature to not change if it aint broke) has been pulled and pushed to suit the skin i wear. it's hard enough to find just the right slider combo to simulate my depiction of avatar beauty. put on another texture to your base and yer just asking for trouble. you can see my hesitance. nonetheless, the search was on.
to equal or surpass Tuli's stimulating full body deliciousness was not going to be an easy chore. as each new skin came up on the feed i went out for the demos and tried them on. if they passed the initial test (with clothing on at the store location) i would then secret myself away at my studio sky platform to pour over every inch of my frame's surface with a super zoom investigation.
i tried many sample skins: Laqroki, Adora, Abyss, Dutch Touch, DragonFly, Lapointe & Bastchild, Soul Skin, Belleza Skins, etc. how i came to eventually find my DLicious skin is lost to the flurry of frustration, disappointment, and time stressed needs yet to be fulfilled. but find her i did. and as the light pierced through the parting thick layers of billowing clouds i stood transfixed, mouth agape. makeup after makeup (with no changes in shape) revealed the ideal woman only dreamed about. how could i NOT know of this designer? how could the rest of the community NOT KNOW? what's the catch? shouldn't she be in the same strata as our most touted skin designers?
now, being uber suspicious and knowing how some corporate shills play the game, i immediately thought this designer was an alt. such finesse and detailed graphic refinement doesn't just fall out of the sky. surely she must be attached to the big players. her ability to enter the market with such a high end product, especially in the brutal skin game, without first "paying her dues" to the anointed was highly suspect. i IM'd the designer, Doofus Mayo, half expecting some cold corporate play-it-by-the-book clerical response.
after a few lines of give and take it seemed this account had a warm and considerate human being accessing the terminal. my initial request was to inform her that while i was absolutely floored by her faces/makeups i wasn't happy with her hands, was there anything we could do to facilitate my endless pursuit for perfection?
i was resolved to accepting the cold brush off. what came next, in this conversation and subsequent interactions, was a continuous climb towards the epitome of designer/customer exchange. something which only SL and its ultimate communication platform can achieve. something only an independant and resourceful individual was capable of providing. there was no degree of separation between the artist and consumer. how would i like it if she customized an existing manicure with a rework on some of the details i had pointed out?
whoa! would i!
within what seemed like mere minutes Doofus provided me a sample of her rework. it behooved me at that point to offer my hand in marriage. i know, the offer's not relevant to a vast majority of women out there, but i just had to indicate my profound love for her artistic gift. unfortunately, his real life preoccupation with his real life wife prevented his acceptance. i learned when meeting him in the "flesh" that my reading of Doofus' profile pic as a woman avi was in error. that's not to say his best expressive and artistic qualities are not feminine. indeed, he is a superlative example of the best of the male gender (insert whatever feature set you might have in mind).
after awaking from the fainting on inspection of his hand rework, i was left with the task of choosing just which skin tone i wanted him to mod for me. he's got a few satelite locations but his Main Store carries all the tones. eighteen in all, ranging from Alabaster to Midnight. each of his makeups can be applied to each tone, as you can see by the following illustration. he's put together thirty lip/blush/eye combinations. while not all the combos might suit your eye for all the tones, they provide a substantial variety. choosing just which makeup suits you best should be an easy task since all his vendors have free Demos.
oh, and you get a Group Discount of 10% off on any purchase. make sure you have your tag on when you buy your skins for it to be applied. he writes all his own scripts and provides special group sales and prizes (2500L$ a week) awarded to the growing numbers discovering and falling in love with his work. i hope this little blurb brings more people to him. he's really a loving person with a lovely eye for beauty. please afford him all due respect.
