Poor Mike...he's been sitting on my drive for almost a year and has never been installed along with one or two textures at most. I'm having major problems making look 'right' as I use handpainted textures %99 of the time and photoreal textures like Edo are seen much too often in the gallery as it is :( Anyone have any favorite handpainted/semi-photoreal faves they'd like to suggest? Freestuff or Marketplace doesn't matter...

Try the Bishop texture by frank. Photorealistic and FREE. Really nice for the price. On the cheap, the Brad texture from spectre3 is very good and versitle. spectre3's textures are all pretty good, and he doesn't charge that much for them either. Working your way up the price ladded, the BreathGen Iago and Leo textures from Zetastudios are excellent (from SteffyZ who did Edo), and Catherina's Leonardo with the free heads available at her site are great too (met4d). Her site say's they're releasing the new Angelo texture this week too. I've seen the previews in the galleries, and it looks to be one of the best.

Attached Link: http://market.renderosity.com/softgood.ez?ViewSoftgood=14867

I recently purchased Exotica & Hankim's Falcon, spectre3's Shawn & Brad, and LadyJaiven's Men Of Power. Men of Power does not include textures, but it is a new set of faces with bonus light sets. Falcon, Brad, and Shawn are all exceptionally well done. I think you would be very happy with any of them, though Falcon does include a free Stephanie version of the textures.

Brian

dalinise's Boy Next door is fantastic, BreathGen's Leo is one of my favorites. As for a more painted looks, samildanach's gentleman are drop dead gorgeous especially Igor and Dante.

For handpainted go Samidanach. There's a new one-- but I'm sick with a brain killing head cold. Very handsome, I love him. For not so overwhelming photorealistic try Creed's Pretty boy or Galahad at Rdna. They make a good balance, so do Syds Gothicus, but you have deal with a bit of dark-- you can lighten the face choice up though. Some of Evodes are in between photo and paint as well, Blood Brothers, for instance, the non Vamps. Not as many choices as Vicki, huh? Emily

Oh, addition, I wonder what Woe, from Misery and Woe by Sinsister and Dedman would look like with a more robust bod. Beautiful paint job. Emily

Woe and Misery are already on my 'beg' list :) Thanks alot for all the suggestions so far...I've got at least 4 textures that my partner will be bugged about now. Bishop d/l seems to be unavailable right now but I'm patient... Your right Queri, not many choices for poor Mike :(

Attached Link: http://www.cyclopsstudio.com

Or you could try my 15 FREE Mike textures (the "Shades of Michael") at my website. From semi-photoreal to totally painted. And BTW good for commercial use. Also okay to modify and distribute, if you want to add to 'em. Lyrra

Oh shite...appologies Lyrra..totally zoned out about those. I'll nab them tommorrow when I get a chance...they look really wicked :)

Hmmm ... current favorites: Black textures - Brown Sugar by dalinese or Zulu by Quim2001. There's a few other nice looking ones that I'm considering buying soon. Asian - Asian Man by dalinese. (I'd love to see some more Asian textures!) Causasian - Lance by dalinese (darker haired) or Vincent (blond) by ennui. spectre3 also has some nice Mike textures, and there's some nice Steph textures that work well on Mike. (You have to use a different trans map for the eyebrows and eyelashes, but otherwise it works really nicely. I'd suggest using a texture map with little-to-no make-up, though.)

I've been using the PoserStyle textures for a lot of work... for the cost of a 6 month subscription you get hundreds of dollars of fantastic stuff... I think it's around $30.

I forgot about Steff-- Stephanie textures with no lipstick make a fine Mike texture-- he's gotta be clothed but other than that. . And do consider overlaying painted textures with photorealistic. It can be very interesting and fairly easy. You can mix and match characters as long as what you are working with is not precise. I just overlay one of the shas d'akor-- I never get this right of Vicki over Stephanie's Fearie texture-- It added a lot. Emily

If you want really unique, Lyrra and samildanach are hard to beat. Evodes has some gorgeous black men. I mean drop dead gorgeous and highly detailed. Spectre3's textures (especially Shawn, my current must have) are very well done and wonderfully affordable. PoserStyle men, absolutely. Jeff is quite hunky, and for the 30 bucks, it's one of the best "club" member sites out there. I was somewhat shocked to realize that at least some element from that site crops up in every piece I do. Catharina's men are nice ... but her older men are stunning. Not a lot of good older grizzled textures around, but she comes close to topping the list of quality ones. Ooo, and that was the sound of the rest of my brain cells bailing for the Bahamas. Oh well. I know I missed quite a few here.