Ok I was looking around the marketplace and was wondering what peopel on the forum though the best skins were. What does everyone think the top 3-5 skins are? I know the Asia skin is a great one and was looking into getting some more exotic skins so it would be helpful to rate them different catagories. Like the best Photorealaistic skin is: X. The best Gothing skin is: X The best Tattoed skin is: X and also simmilar ones for Male. This is just a curiosity of mine but I think it could help some people who are looking at getting the best possible skins for their characters. Thanks.

I can tell you which textures i use:Steffys noa and asia ,and carly and imana from dalinise.the first 2 because of the photorealistic look.the second because i just like them

Personally... I like my own skin. I get cold without it on and people look at my funny if I forget to put it on in the morning.

Hmm. Female: Best photorealistic: my own favourite is magnet's Alex, but I don't have any StefyZZ's textures yet so I don't know if they'd be better. Best handpainted: anything by samildanach and you can't go wrong! Male: Best photorealistic: Syyd's Kane (DAZ) or Catharina Harders's Kain.

I love Asia & Kane by Stefyzz and Sweet Emily by magnet. They are so beautiful and the artists made them look so real, too:-)

I'm not impressed with the alex skin at all but the asia and edo skins are amazing. You might also look at Sakari, I use the skin a lot and not just on the Sakari character. Amazing skin. Also you can't forget Syyd or Cathrina, the only problem I have with Cathrina's textures is that it seems most of the work is done on the face, and the body textures are pretty bland. Just my opinion. Marque

A lot would depend on what character/Mesh you want it for?

If you want to find the "best" I would advise going though the galleries, look at the art that others have made, find the images you like the best and check the credits to see what has been used. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

Of course if you look through the galleries you have to wonder how much postwork has been done. Marque

Yes I was thinking that as well, but there is no way anyone can predict what someone else will consider to be "best" Because of the way the marketplace is set up (sellers designing their ads) it is difficult to compare a texture to another, without buying them all. Here's a thought, why don't we have a contest for that? set up identical settings, poses, morphs (default faces), resolution, lights, camera angle & background color, slap the different textures on and post the results?

if 'best' has anything to do with what i use the most, then it would have to be catharina przezak's sara skin (i have it heavily modified). it looks good, has great skin tones and loads and renders fast for most shots. if i need more detail, for a closeup, then ill use the daz vicky2 high-res tex or asia. im not too pleased with asia, and much less so with noa, because their skin tones are too yellowish and dont match other characters well. noa is extremely 'yellowy green'... almost unusably so. and the tex map is so insanely high-res that it slows down even a powerhouse comp, and 5 times out of 10 it will crash one running windows 9x (seems fine on win2k/XP). but there is no 'best' skin - i personally dont like carly, but ive seen amazing renders done with her. get what you prefer, and use it - dont go purely on other people's opinion. i have a lot of retail textures, all of the ones mentioned here, and i dont have a single 'do-it-all' or 'best' one. theyre all good for different things, different situations, different lighting and camera distances.

To many fav textures to mention :) A few, in no particular order are Zoe, Mira Mats, India, Jose Cortese, and Kane and Kain :) and lots more lol

While trying to compare texture's that are on sale and free I have come up with the idea of evening the playing field. If you have a texture, or are just a fan of one that isn't posted already, go to free stuff for the contest zip file and enter it in the challenge arena gallery. Please allow comments and ratings so everyone can see the results.

Paco and Jamal for Mike are two of the best. Sorry, I forget for the moment who created them (they're two different artists), but those are very realistic and create two gorgeous guys from Michael. Catharina's Tomy is a great one, too. Melanie

Current favorites: Vicki: anything by StefyZZ. Michael: anything by Quim Abella/Quim2001. Both are super-realistic. i like them because i can paint my own, but i can't do the photographic thing. Also, the StefyZZ eyes are excellent. Quim really does the nicest men around. ByteMeOK's textures have been around forever, and look great in the store, but i've not examined them personally. Of course: anything from Syyd, though, with respect, i prefer making my own characters. My favorite goth: get Vicki Vampyre from Handspan Studio if you can pry her out of Ingrid. This one doesn't seem to be on the market any more--more's the pity! Her Cinnamon is a nice non-white texture. And all of Ingrid's characters have lovely, lovely eyes. For a really nice African-American texture, try Marjorie, either the texture or the Vicki character. Been around a while, and still great. i would also say that you pretty much need the basic DAZ3D Victoria & Michael textures. If you have some proficiency with Photoshop, consider getting the MaybeLee "makeup kit" from free stuff & messing with your textures to do your own makeup looks. i find the DAZ A2Z Victoria textures handy, too, though not super-realistic, because they cover a range of ethnicities, and all the MAT settings get you there super-fast.

For more exotic I like samildanich's textures. Also for handpainted I think one of the prettiest, and the one I use the most, is Destiny's Aimee. For realistic, as others said, Syyd, Steffy or Catharina. There are also quite a few nice free textures like the ones Eowyn has done (her Shari is beautiful).

Hi, Vicky? Noa & Asia by Stefy Z if you want "photorealism" I think my personal favourite at the monet is Emmanuelle by Magnet, though Emily by Dave (freestuff) is also right up there at the moment. Mike? I've only got one 3rd party skin, (can't remember which) the face is good, but I think Daz still does a better body. IMO I've bought loads of textures, from many of the best, (I think own 90% of the first two "most popular" pages :) but the above are my favourites for general posing. Probably the best "free" P4 texture is by staale, which you should find as "vickybuster" in freestuff. Other than that, Tim's "happyworldland" has some excellent stuff, (especially in the two big zip files!) later jb