Skins are obviously the new black. Everyone and their mother is trying to make them, and with the full perm skins of Another Shop, playing around and painting by numbers gets easier even for the total skin skill nono’s like yours truly. However, nice as it may be… I will always crave high quality skins and make ups that have a layer complexity and depth that I could never reach, not with the best PSD files at hand. Ultimately one of the new emerging talents in skin making is Hart Larsson of PXL Creations. His skins are of great quality, with clean make ups and exquisite bodies.

Carissa Crimson did a nice review of Hart’s latest skin, Crys. Personally, my favourite skin in Hart’s shop at the moment is Linda. Linda has a skin that is smoother than Crys. Smoother as in maybe a wee bit less realistic, with hardly any pores. Which is good for me because I have a pore phobia in RL, so I don’t want visible ones in SL at all. Before I jump to the actual review of Linda, I would like to mention the really cool and open way in which Hart Larsson develops his new skins. He posts photos of the work in progress on flickr, and asks his clientele and people who visit the shop to give input on that and to try on the beta demos he puts in his shop, so that he will have maximum customer feed back in the developing stage. Hart renders his skins in 3D first, before texturizing in Photoshop and that gives his skins an exceptional depth.

Allright, let’s do some body talk. Linda comes in 2 skintones (well… 3 really,  since Tan includes both the gold tan and the rose tan variety), so not really a very large range. Luckily I do not crave the very light or very dark tones, but you might want to bug the flickr comments if you do. As said, Hart is open for suggetions (oh and a VERY cool dark skin is in the early stages of development, so keep an eye open for that if it is your thing). The over all body shading on Linda is lovely. This man knows where to put the high and the lowlights to make a woman’s body look awesome. There is the slightest difference in lucidity between the face and the body, but this gives the face more impact. And unless you have a trained eye, you will probably not even notice it, but it is there. The details are also very well done. You know, no naked photos from me, but the nipples do have a nice texture (although they always blur a bit due to the fact that you actually have curves in your shape. Try making yourself flat chested to really judge the quality of your nipples *smirks*). No 6-pack on the tummy, but a well defined rib cage and even a hint of shading for the upper ribs as you see in naturally lean bodies. My favourite part of the body is the tush, which is really bootilicious and for those who are interested:  there is a nicely trimmed landing strip and a well defined, but not obscene pussy on this skin. Hands and feet are done nicely too, although the cute french manicure that Carissa reports on on Crys is missing on Linda. Evolution in progress. The skintone is modifiable, so you can tweak it to your preference

Over to the make up. Linda has 28 make up varieties… combinations of 4 different eyes: cat eyes, dark eyes, natural eyes and fashion eyes and 7 different lipsticks, ranging from demure nude to flamboyant red, and everything in 2 different eye brows. The brown eyebrows go rather well with a very vast range of hair colours, even blondes will find them matching well. The eye make up is done really well… nice and tidy.. no blotches and symmetrical.  Over all this skin has a very healthy glow to it, with a lovely highlight on the nose that makes it quite sassy. Hart succeeded very well in the highlight on the lip cleft. No milk drinking moustaches here, but a subtle sensual curve of the upper lip.

Linda sells at L$ 1500 for a single make up (black and brown eyebrows included) L$ 3700 for a lipcolour set (all eyes and 1 lipstick, so 4 different combinations with black and brown eyebrows, 8 skins in total) or L$ for all 7 lipsticks in one eye option (14 skins). You get the best deal on the tan packs, as it includes everything in both gold tan and rose tan.