Skin Review: Minnu Model Skins

There's a been a plethora of new skin designers showing up in SL, and established designers that I have not heard of releasing new skins. I was dropped a Sample pack of Minnu Model Skins a few days ago. I had not heard of their creator, Minnu Palen before, and gave them a try. Originally I was not planning on doing any kind of a review, because when it comes to skin reviews, my boss Sabrina Doolittle is the best skin reviewer around, in my humble opinion. But she's away from SL, and I thought these skins deserved a review, at least on my own blog.

Lets get the basics out of the way. Minnu Model Skins (which I will abbreviate to MM) are mostly hand drawn with some photosourcing on the body, but not too much photosourcing, because Minnu believes too much can ruin a skin. There are 5 skin shades, Pale, Light, Mid, Tan, Dark. I, of course, am a pale face. Pale is the new tan! This is the Pale skin shade with the Dominate makeup.



First thing I thought when I put them on was: zOMG, I've got the "Aspire" look a la Colleen Desmoulins or Isabella Sampaio. I have to admit that I think the overall look is "generic SL glamour". There are a lot of skins that can give a look like this. However, most of those have much more photosourcing, which in most cases makes them look like crap on my avatar. MM skins keeps it more subtle. The abs are defined but not too over shaded, the knees are nicely done, and it's a very pleasant and easy to look at skin. It does everything reasonably well, even if it's not a "stand out from the crowd" skin.


There's a been a plethora of new skin designers showing up in SL, a

I even like the brows! They only currently come in this brown shade, though Minnu has said that different brow colors have already been requested. The faces themselves have that generic "slightly exotic SL glamour" look on me with the high contoured cheekbones. The lippies seem to be all frosts, which is a downside in my opinion. (I prefer matte, creamy and glossy lippies in RL) The faces worked well with full lips and thin lips as can be seen. I tried them on a bunch of different shapes and the face flattered them all, even the famous Spin Spin Sugar shape. That may be the reason for the "generic SL glamour" look, that look may work on more shapes and faces than other basic looks.

Here's the Light shade in the 40's makeup:



Now the standard MM skins may not be "stand out" skins but the Mia's are. The Mia's are "Asian" skins. Very pretty skins. In fact the Mia's are IMHO the best "Asian" skin in SL that I have seen:



On the left is the Mia Deep on the right is Mia Ice Queen. You can also see the boobehs, which are the standard boobehs on all the MM skins. Yes the nipples are blurry but that could just be my shape, which seems to make ALL nipples blurry. They could also use a bit of highlighting/shading to enhance the cleavage, IMHO.

Now, I am no Sabrina Doolittle but here's a kitty shot:



The kitty is important to some. Now I'm not that familiar with kitty's in SL, but I think this kitty's pubic hair is a bit sparse. As for the bits themselves they aren't scary looking. You can also see the hands, which are very nice with knuckles and prettily manicured nails that don't look like someone dipped them in white paint.

So overall do I recommend these skins? Yes, for those who want the look this kind of skin gives, and for those who want a bit of photosourcing but not too much, and for those who want a reasonably good skin that's very pleasant to look at. Single skins are $L 1100, fatpacks of four are $L 4000, older skins are $L 900, and eyes are $L50.

Minnu Model Skins is located at: JT World VI 211,208,22 The build does NOT suck, and you know how I am about builds. There are also other locations. In addition to skins, MM also sells shapes and eyes.

One other note, the location above has a small fashion runway with seating suitable for a small fashion show. Minnu has said that she wants to support new designers and give them a place to show off their stuff, which I applaud. Contact Minnu Palen for more details.

Sorry for the image problem folks, I had a duplicate of this post saved thanks to a glitch and when I deleted the duplicate it deleted the images too, and I didn't realize it was doing that fast enough.