OMG, Beau and Onyx are doing it again…. after a couple of days of teasers on her flickr stream, it’s almost time for the release of their new range of shoes, Maitreya Gold, and since I’m preparing this post before I go to bed, and Onyx & Beau are still working like crazy to get the sim ready for the release, they might be ready by the time this post appears on my blog… or not… but if not, then they’ll be close to finishing and to releasing their new pretties.

I had the pleasure of being able to pre- and review IXkin, which looks quite basic, at first glance, but is a stylish strappy sandal with an impossible high heel. Every detail has been taken care of, the buckles on the ankle, the baked shadows where the straps cross eachother, the stitches on the leather, and even the soles have gotten plenty of attention.

The Maitreya team has created a special foot texture, for more realism, and you can adjust the skintone of the foot with a HUD. Now that is nothing new, but what is, is that they have made a series of  9 skin presets which you can adjust with H/S & L (hue, saturation and lightness) instead of the more traditional RGB colours. Now every preset is default lightness 100, so you can only make them darker, not lighter than the preset.  Other than that it works just like with most prim feet, except that Onyx and Beau made a notecard with a lot of specifications of some major skin brands so that you don’t have to re-invent the wheel so to speak, but you can just pick your skin from the list and adjust accordingly. Handy, right? Furthermore there are 19 natural nail options and 14 nailpolishes to pick from.

IXkin comes in 2 versions… the single tones and the duo tones, and they each have 9 different colours. On the large pic I’m wearing the single tone Sienna, and on the close up I’ve picked the duo tone Pearl.  IXkin will retail for 1000 L$ per pair. Now I know, that is not cheap, but then again, quality is never cheap, it’s affordable at best, and personally I think that with this, they have a fair price. Maitreya provides demos, so be sure you try before you buy!!!

Other need to knows: Skin Chai Nova (unreleased), Hair & jacket by Truth and pants from Maitreya!