Warning: opinion ahead!

The latest project of the multi talented Ms Ryker Beck is skins. Those who follow her on Plurk have been taken on a weeks long journey of development and teasing and finally, the end result is here, and it’s very pleasurable.

Eden has a face that remotely reminds me of some of the skins that I used to wear a lot, it has a full, luscious mouth like Evermore’s Hybrid and the carefully plucked and styled eyebrows like Pixeldeep skins. Said eyebrows are non mod though, and while they are subtle enough to not be “in your face”  for the more fair haired, it would be nice to have options, especially since Ryker has made a tintable landing strip on clothing layers. To tackle the alpha bit in a skin is not the easiest thing to do though, so it might be something for the future to work on. As are the freckles, I really like a freckle face, I even like a freckled skin better, but  for Eden I’ll go with the non freckled version, because honestly, these freckles look more like a adolescent skin problem to me. Eden comes in 8 skintones, ranging from a very pale, desturated skintone to a really dark one.  Some of them more saturated than others, some of them quite orange even.  I’m sharing the fairly neutral Nutgmeg with you which I totally like. Eden will be available in  20 make ups.

On to the body… Ryker is known for some fairly explicit skin reviews in the past, and while you won’t get any spread eagled shots on this blog, I’ll try to be as explicit in words as I possibly can.

At first glance the body strikes as smooth and generally well done. The over all highlighting is done nicely. However, this skin is not flawless. Ryker has tackled the most obvious seams really well, although there still are some on notorious places like the neck, the hips and the ankles. Shading a skin is an art on its own, and it gets mastered over time. Ryker did a great job on the back of Eden. I love the shoulderblades and the spine, and the shading of the bum is really nicely done too. I’ve mentioned on more than one occasion that I l.o.v.e. dimples on the lower back, and Eden has them! I am less fond of the work on the front. The nipples are really hard, an opinion that I share with some of the other reviewers of this skin, and  the general shading of the breast makes them look kinda fake. The ribcage and stomach have a very lean look which is not my personal preference. I like my belly a little softer, and with some meat on the ribs. The pelvic zone is done well, and whereas, after all the beaver shots on Ryker’s blog in the past, I pretty much expected a very detailed vagina on these skins, I am pleasantly surprised that it’s very modest and not explicit at all.  The hands and the feet also leave most definitely room for improvement. The textures used for them need some smoothing, as far as I am concerned.

For a debute this is a really cute skin, and If you like your skins for the face only… you’ll really need this pretty! Kudos for Ryker. I may have some critiques on this skin, but I totally admire her for just starting to work on it and come up with this. I even envy her guts and stamina. It’s an achievement to be proud of. Congrats, girl!

Eden will be released at Genesis on March 17th