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Charmed vs. Vogue
By Celebrity Trollop | April 18, 2007
At the beginning of 2007, Starley Thereian made a long anticipated announcement about an updated line of skins she named “Vogue.” Earlier, when I had the chance to interview Starley for Second Style Magazine, I asked her why she felt like she needed to create an entirely new line of skins — because I felt (and still feel) entirely pleased with my extensive collection the Charmed skin series. Starley replied that there were a set of features in Charmed that — as time went on — just annoyed her, even if customers were perfectly happy with the way the skins looked on their individual avatars. So the new set of skins (64 makeups, 2 skin options (freckled and not) in 5 different skin tones — that’s 640 different skins in total!) were developed detail by detail, pixel by pixel.
Because the way the Vogue skins handle color-matching different hair textures — an unintended, and unfixable consequence was that the system lashes on the skin would themselves be tinted the same color. Blue eyebrows meant blue eyelashes. And while some might be content with that result, most customers, she guessed would not be. Enter the prim lashes.
Yesterday, Starley released a huge expansion on her line of prim lashes — lashes which I consider to be the best in Second Life. They’re now available for the first time to people who didn’t purchase the Vogue skin line. There’s two different styles: 13 “Classic” lashes in the vein of the lashes which come with the Vogue skins, and 13 “Club” lashes which are more theatrical and dramatic false eyelashes. They’re tintable and modable for perfect fit and color. Implemented using cylinders (rather than tori as the Vogue lashes were), Starley notes these may be slightly more difficult to fit. If you’re comfortable checking the “edit linked prims” box, you shouldn’t have any trouble though. (As always, making a backup copy of your prim objects is a Good Idea(tm) before you edit them.)
As excellent as the prim lashes are — and they are highly! recommended! — I really wanted to write about a comparision between the Charmed skins and the Vogue skins. I remember talking to various friends and colleagues back in January about whether they were going to take the plunge on Vogue or not and something that I kept hearing was that they didn’t really see anything in the Vogue demos that’d make them want to upgrade. That’s a fair conclusion to make, of course — it isn’t like I never wear my Charmed skins any more, or that I think they’re just horrible skins (they’re still extremely lovely, in fact) — but I wanted to really lay out some of the key upgrades that I see in Vogue.
Since there are potentially NSFW photos (naked! boobies!) to come, I put them beneath the fold.
OK, so take a long look at this photo mashup, and you should know everything you need to know about why I don’t spend more time in Photoshop. :-) I wanted to highlight some of the detail work that’s changed from the Charmed skins to Vogue. On the left is Charmed Neutral 4 (Tone 30); on the right is Vogue Deviant Nation (in Cashmere). My avatar is on a regular pose stand inside a Photosphere. I am wearing the exact same shape in both photos. For good measure, I should also say that any shadows you see in this photo are due to the lighting conditions I set — not flaws on Starley’s skins.
Starting from top to bottom, the first thing I wanted to highlight was the detail around the small of the neck and collarbone area. As you can see in the Charmed series, that area has *some* definition, but look at all of the refinement in skeletal structure and shading in Vogue.
Next, I drew a big red oval around the torso of each skin because that’s an area that’s obviously gone through a lot of revision. Charmed gives a soft toned tummy, but Vogue is clearly a little gym rat with time to do all the crunches I don’t do — she’s got well toned, impeccably shaded abs of steel. Another notable change is the shading around the breasts — I know this is an area that remains highly subjective from person to person, but I personally prefer the shape and shading on the Vogue skins — although both skins are knock outs in bikinis.
Charmed skins have a painted on belly ring — Vogue does not (although the Deviant Nation skins have a drawn on tongue barbell!) I wonder when Charmed skins were released if prim belly rings were very popular. And around the pubic region, the Charmed skins have a wispy landing strip while Vogue has a maintained, trimmed but still way more au naturelle look. (And this is not a big deal, but sometimes while wearing very skimpy lingerie or bikinis in the Vogue skins, I’ve had a few Chewbacca moments.)
One of the areas that really blew me away was the detail on the knees. In Charmed, you can see hints of articulation, while in Vogue there is a very definite knee cap and skeletal structure underlying the joint. The back of the knees look no less impressive in Vogue with full on tendons and shadowing.
Finally, one of the trouble spots for any skin maker is how to deal with the unarticulated foot mesh of an SL avatar. At best, skin makers have taken many pains to draw in pixelated toes which look “reasonable.” At worst, they are in the words of Ginny Talamasca, “right off a gargoyle.” Feet are likely to remain troublesome until the SL avatar mesh implements articulated toes — but even here, it is clear to see the improvements between the Charmed skins and the Vogue skins. Back in January, Salome Strangelove wrote a review of the Vogue skins which mentioned a bothersome shadow that seemed to affect the Vogue feet in particular. It’s probably worth noting that this shadow may have been the result of a bug in the SL viewer — fixed in 1.14 (as noted in this change log to the First Look Viewer back in February.) At any rate, I didn’t find any sign of that problem in my Vogue skins the the 1.14 viewer.
All in all, I think the Vogue skins are qualitatively and quantatively better skins than the Charmed line. The Vogue skins represent two years worth of experience wrangling the SL avatar mesh into a beautifully packaged base to express your personal style — and all that experience shines though especially when each skin is side-by-side for your inspection.
Prim lashes, Vogue and Charmed skins are available on Celestial City sim. (Vogue Deviant Nation skins are available on Dazzle.)
Topics: Accessories, Reviews, Skins |
Great review! At first I wasn’t sure I’d invest in these skins simply because of something I read in another review, but pointing out the details and how realistic they look and the color options available, I just may have to splurge on a skin.
The feet still leave much to be desired, but with as much definition and realism as she’s tried to achieve with them, it’s to be expected that the avatar mesh is going to make it look weird (I wear shoes most of the time anyway).
Please continue with reviews like this. It’s very impressive and the time you took in doing it is great! Thanks.
Posted by: Me on April 18th, 2007 at 7:07 pmI just wanted to give you a great big thank you! I’m just about to purchase between 6 and 8 skins, so this helps me a lot!
Posted by: Smokie Signals on April 18th, 2007 at 7:26 pmI must piggy-back on the commments above — I would love to see more reviews like this.
I’m relatively new, but the Vogue vs. Charmed skin debate still made it on to my radar… I’m glad to have a nice simple detail by detail comparison of the two lines. You get a gold star.
thankyouthankyouthankyouthankyou.
Posted by: Aike Repine on April 18th, 2007 at 7:34 pmI love the Vogue skins! I haven’t found any skins that I like better — including RaC! The freckles are amazing and the makeup is very well done. I have one Charmed skin and about 8 Vogue skins — in my opinion, the Vogue skins are more realistic. I’m a Vogue girl!
Posted by: Tamara Kirshner on April 19th, 2007 at 9:39 amI got 2 charmed skins and 20 vogue skins i prefer the vogue but still like the make up on the charmed skin the silver and the gold one thank you for the review i agree totally
Posted by: claudine jewell on April 19th, 2007 at 12:59 pmI have all of the Charmed skins in my preferred shade and most of the Vogue…I would agree that the Vogue skins are overall an improved skin, but I miss being able to modify the skin tone and I actually like the softer tummy better. Also, I prefer some of the Charmed makeups, although I understand why Starley wouldn’t want to just schlep the old makeups onto the new line…I just can’t get into the bright lips and eyes, so I’ll never own those skins.
Hmmm, and can I mention that, with the addition of the Deviant Nation and Spring skins, there are actually 84 Vogue makeups now? Of which I own 56…
Posted by: Ann Launay on April 19th, 2007 at 1:18 pmI have the charmed skin in several skin tones and makeups and I also have the vogue in the bronzed skin tone in several of the mid makeups. I love both of the skins. I love how you can modify the skin tone of the charmed skin but I love the details better on the vogue. I plan on purchasing more vogue skin in the light makeups as soon as possible. Starley has a way of making us feel beautiful in her skins. You did a lovely post on the comparison of the two.
Posted by: Angela Robertson on April 20th, 2007 at 1:51 pmOne detail you didn’t mention, and the one that consequently makes the biggest difference for me, is the eyebrow shape difference between the Charmed and Vogue. If you take eyebrows out of the equation, I do prefer the Vogue skins. However, the eyebrows are heavier and lower on the Vogue and no matter how many different bald bases I use to shape them, I just can’t get used to it. So I’m back to Charmed and just a little sad about it. I wish the Vogue came in a series with eyebrows a bit more sparse and higher, and then I could really get on board.
Posted by: Madison Carnot on May 6th, 2007 at 10:26 am[...] the style of my earlier Vogue vs. Charmed post which compared skins from Celestial Studios, here’s another post which compares older [...]
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