Since they were released, I've been having mixed feelings about prim feet. The basic idea of getting rid of the ugly default toes seems good, but after the appearance of prim feet a new problem arose -- the phenomenon known as Frankenfeet -- which, in my opinion, is even uglier. My first shoes with prim feet were a freebie and a nightmare (I won't call names, though); the base colour of the prim was too dark and I never succeeded in matching the feet with the exact shade of my skin. But having seen increasingly acceptable feet around, I decided to go to the shoe expo, get some demos, and make the leap. Here are my results.
Top left are Tied Hunter in Bold, by Heart and Sole. They are not operated via HUD, but through blue popup menus. However, the out-of-the box skintone was quite close to mine and it was a pretty straightforward fix -- besides the RGB that I can't make much sense of, there is a "lighter" and a "darker" button, which worked well for me. The downside is that I couldn't find a way to remove the toe ring, as the shoes are no-mod. On the other hand, they are quite reasonably priced (around 400L) and look extremely sexy.
Top right are Kalnins' Conqueror. Being a Gold Card member and subscriber, I only paid about 225L for them with all the discounts, so I didn't even grab the demos before buying, as I am familiar with their usual level of quality. The shoes come with a HUD that is reasonably easy to operate -- it has three tabs: one for colour combinations, a second one for skin tones and the last one for resizing and extra options (foot light, sounds, and the like). The second and third tab worked great, but I must say I was a bit disappointed with the first one: happy as I am to be able to choose between thousands of colour combinations on the shoe, I missed having less flashy nail options. Also, I'm not too convinced with the build of the toes which, compared to others, look a bit too sausagey for my taste. Ah well.
Bottom left are Zara in Steel01 from Kitties Lair. A special pack was sold at the fair, at 490L for two pairs (pink and black) but I just loved this colour and decided to get it; after all, a single pack for 390L wasn't bad (at least not before I went broke). These also include a HUD; however, it was a nightmare for me to find a workaround. As you can see in the picture, in fact, I gave up before finding the exact skintone, because I got tired of adding and subtracting red, green and blue to the four basic skintones. Having said that, the nail options are really good, and both the shoes and feet are really well built, so I'll definitely give it another go sometime.
Bottom right are the Maitreya Gold Shanti, in Snow Leopard (an expo special colour). What can I say? Onyx LeShelle keeps outdoing herself. The HUD comes with several skin tone presets, which save you from the RGB nightmare (if you want to, you can go there, but the thing is you don't have to). Plus, the pack includes a notecard with the settings for the most popular skins, including my sunkissed Tuli, so I just followed the instructions, et voilà, fine-tuning done in all of 10 seconds. Also, the toes are completely different from all the others I've seen -- perfectly shaded, more realistic... my favourites so far. On the negative side is the price, over 900L, but seeing the results, I went back and bought Esprit too!
Finally, in the centre are the SLink Jolie Pied Achillia Gladiator in tan, the only footed-flats I found. SLink was the first store to offer standalone bare feet and I think their work is quite remarkable; from what I've heard, they've made serious developments since they started. The HUD was the first one I braved, so I wasn't too sure how to proceed -- it seemed easy, but it wasn't tremendously so. At 775L apiece, I'd say these shoes are worth their price, reasonably well-built and generally very wearable.
On all pictures I used a pose from the Foot Focus set (I think it was 09), from Long Awkward Pose, available at the expo.
Now, let me get back to unpacking the boots... in the meantime, you can check the full-sized pictures here.
Top right are Kalnins' Conqueror. Being a Gold Card member and subscriber, I only paid about 225L for them with all the discounts, so I didn't even grab the demos before buying, as I am familiar with their usual level of quality. The shoes come with a HUD that is reasonably easy to operate -- it has three tabs: one for colour combinations, a second one for skin tones and the last one for resizing and extra options (foot light, sounds, and the like). The second and third tab worked great, but I must say I was a bit disappointed with the first one: happy as I am to be able to choose between thousands of colour combinations on the shoe, I missed having less flashy nail options. Also, I'm not too convinced with the build of the toes which, compared to others, look a bit too sausagey for my taste. Ah well.
Bottom left are Zara in Steel01 from Kitties Lair. A special pack was sold at the fair, at 490L for two pairs (pink and black) but I just loved this colour and decided to get it; after all, a single pack for 390L wasn't bad (at least not before I went broke). These also include a HUD; however, it was a nightmare for me to find a workaround. As you can see in the picture, in fact, I gave up before finding the exact skintone, because I got tired of adding and subtracting red, green and blue to the four basic skintones. Having said that, the nail options are really good, and both the shoes and feet are really well built, so I'll definitely give it another go sometime.
Bottom right are the Maitreya Gold Shanti, in Snow Leopard (an expo special colour). What can I say? Onyx LeShelle keeps outdoing herself. The HUD comes with several skin tone presets, which save you from the RGB nightmare (if you want to, you can go there, but the thing is you don't have to). Plus, the pack includes a notecard with the settings for the most popular skins, including my sunkissed Tuli, so I just followed the instructions, et voilà, fine-tuning done in all of 10 seconds. Also, the toes are completely different from all the others I've seen -- perfectly shaded, more realistic... my favourites so far. On the negative side is the price, over 900L, but seeing the results, I went back and bought Esprit too!
Finally, in the centre are the SLink Jolie Pied Achillia Gladiator in tan, the only footed-flats I found. SLink was the first store to offer standalone bare feet and I think their work is quite remarkable; from what I've heard, they've made serious developments since they started. The HUD was the first one I braved, so I wasn't too sure how to proceed -- it seemed easy, but it wasn't tremendously so. At 775L apiece, I'd say these shoes are worth their price, reasonably well-built and generally very wearable.
On all pictures I used a pose from the Foot Focus set (I think it was 09), from Long Awkward Pose, available at the expo.
Now, let me get back to unpacking the boots... in the meantime, you can check the full-sized pictures here.
