Fashioncracked

Prim shoes are one of those love ‘em or hate ‘em things – people either embraced them as a leap forward in combatting the restraints of the avatar mesh, or they actively and vehemently abstain from buying any at all.

There are market leaders, there are amazing stores, there are a ridiculous amount of XStreet full perm prim feet and there is the ever present question – are they hideous or are they adorable?

I’ve road tested eight different stores offerings. Listed behind the cut are full details – from how hard it was to tint and pictures of the HUDs or menus, to how much they cost.

I hate tinting prim feet.

OK, time for a sob story. My desktop PC is le dead. To fix it I’d need to spend a day patching .dll files in my registry, and frankly I don’t want to. It’s a Packard Bell, ffs. It was never going to be an amazing PC. So I’ve ordered a new one and until that (finally) shows up, I’m stuck with my laptop. It may, or may not, have a graphics card – yes it’s that bad.

I’ve done the best I can but seriously, if you can’t bear the image quality I totally won’t judge you. It’s not THAT bad though. Here we go with the primshooz!

STORE NAME: Aoharu Anexx
SLURL: http://slurl.com/secondlife/AOHARU2/22/125/23
STYLE NAME: Leather Gladiator Heels – Black
PRICE: $L780

Aoharu have been regularly churning out really good quality shoes, both with and without prim feet, for literally years. I love their wintery boots – you know it’s summer when I put my Surf Co flip flops on, and you know it’s winter when I pull on my Aoharu fluffy boots.

The newest addition to the store is luxury footwear brand, Anexx. Not exclusively prim feet, either — there’s some gorgeous boots I may have to go back for!

I loved the concept of these, but in reality the prims are hard to edit so that they fit snugly around your leg, and the feet were a bit of a nightmare to tint. The HUD is really great though, and looks like this:

As soon as you click on one of the skin colours, it pops up a menu asking you to tint the usual RBGs. It’s fiddly though, and I don’t think it tints by much each click.

But the shoe may just be worth it – it makes me want to wear leather, buy a motorcycle and pout. A lot.

STORE NAME: BELLA DONNA / PERIQUITA COLLAB
SLURL: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Hang%20Gu/135/230/23
STYLE NAME: Poison #1
PRICE: $L600

Although I’ve never heard of Bella Donna before this, I’ve loved Periquita shoes for their quirkiness and well textured sculpts for a while. They make some flats, called Funny Girl flats, that were the first shoes I ever fatpacked. *tears up a little bit*.

Again – the concept of these is gorgeous. Beautiful, ornate, detailed shoes – but in my humble and honest opinion, they’d be even cuter with a normal, avatar foot. The prim foot fades into the avatar, but in jerky ways – seen above. It wouldn’t be hard to photoshop this into a smooth transition, but that’s not going to help when you walk into a room inworld.

I’m willing to accept criticism here – maybe I should have spent longer tinting it. But as you can see – in some places it’s too dark, some is too light, and I just don’t think a prim foot can account for every possible variation of shading that skin makers put on their skins. There needs to be some barrier there.

The HUD looks like this…

Isn’t that just so cute! *melts!*

So yeah. The shoes themselves are amazingly sweet, beautifully detailed, and really impressive. I’ve seen photos of these shoes that seem to have perfectly tinted feet – maybe this particular skin was the wrong choice, maybe it works better on lighter tones, maybe I am rubbish. Moving on…

Hi, I’m Katey Coppola and I love J’s shoes.

STORE NAME: J’s
SLURL: http://slurl.com/secondlife/TSUKISHIMA/242/212/23
STYLE NAME: Real Toe Studded Wedge Sandals
PRICE: $L380

I never thought I’d see a pair of chunky platforms with nailed on thick leather straps and go, “Aw! Cute!” — but then I say that about a lot of things, including goth kids, so whatever.

J’s real toes have been snapping at the heels of other market leaders in the primfeets industry for a while. While some charge literally thousands of Ls for their feet, J’s are a few hundred – and so well made, too.

And can I just add here – I had a problem with these shoes yesterday. The menu wouldn’t stop popping up whenever I wore them. I notecarded the creator, and then went to bed. When I woke up, he had redelivered them, along with a notecard about how I could avoid this happening in future. A+ for customer service.

The only flaw with J’s shoes, is that I personally hate the method of tinting the toes. Illustrated…

This is why I say it’s personal taste – it’s a really good method to get an accurate toe. You can use the edit – texture – colour box to find the colour, then fine tune it with the HUD. It’s a really good way to do it! And I hate it. I am unreasonable.

You change the nail colour and resize the ankle straps via a menu and not with the HUD. I’m much better at that.

STORE NAME: =L+R+W=
SLURL: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Love%20Soul/143/96/27
STYLE NAME: Venus (Gold)
PRICE: $L700

You know how many clicks it took me to find a skintone I liked and thought was a close match?

One.

<3

Oh god, the quality of that HUD photo makes me want to cry. Sorry But you get  the point – it’s a fab little HUD!

A complete sculpted foot, with such sweet little toes, and look – the toenails have diamonds on them! Aw! They’re not too high, they’re not too whorey and they’re really easy to edit.

My only criticism is that the general ankle area of the foot looks a little strange, but that might be me and my horrific laptop graphics card. Is it me, or is it a flat sculpt with all of the definition done with the shadowing? But it’s an ankle! They’re lumpy!

OK, breathe, people…

STORE NAME: MAITREYA
SLURL: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Maitreya%20Isle/178/175/23
STYLE NAME: Maitreya Gold – Salience
PRICE: $L1,175

I admit it – I plurk. And all day today I’ve seen so many opinions on these shoes – not one single one has been negative. In fact, I’ve seen more people saying “I hate prim feet but these shoes have changed my mind” than anything else.

LOOK at them. Not on my picture, it’s an insult to them – go to the store and cam. Hard. And all over them. Grab a demo and take it home. Try and find a flaw with these shoes. Any of the new styles that came out today, even. There are none.

The feathers can hide or show. The HUD that comes with these is genuinely incredible. Here’s a picture…

What’s that? Skin presets? Onyx included this notecard with each purchase of the new Maitreya Gold shoes. Click that link to see if your particular skin is accounted for. Just… wow.

Everything you’ve ever wished for in a sculpted foot, has just been boxed up and set for sale at Maitreya. Close this window. Go get some. You won’t regret it.

STORE NAME: STILETTO MOODY
SLURL: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Stiletto%20Moody%202/78/37/46
STYLE NAME: Bare Katherine
PRICE: $L2199 + 295 for accessories pack

*sighs*

Oh Moodys, I loved you. I loved you a lot. My best friend and I used to buy each other Moodys as presents. We couldn’t justify spending that much on ourselves, but for each other as a gift? That was fine!

They have lead the way in prim shoes for a long time. Were they the first to do it? I don’t think so, but apparently Stiletto does – the rumour mill spins wildly with “Did you know she files a DMCA against anyone who makes a prim foot?” (which I’ve heard, from multiple people – worrying, huh) style whispers. Is everyone jealous of her success? Maybe. Does she actually make any of her shoes? No. Is her business model one to be admired? Absolutely. If you’re out to make money, Stiletto Moody pretty much owns your ass.

I can think of no better example of someone who cares quite significantly more about her brand than about the people who have made her brand what it is.

This is all by the by. Moodys shoes are excellent quality, yes. The best quality, however, is debateable. I actually really like the method to change the skin colour, but many others are less keen.

I get on well with them, I like being able to choose just how much I tint by with each click, and the menus are relatively simple to use.

It’s worth mentioning something that mortified a lot of people at the big release of the new line of Moodys – the cute little tattoos and anklets and toe rings that you see on all of the pictures? Those are an extra $1,295L on top of the $2,199L you have to plunk down for the shoes.

LOL!

They’re going to have to make better pink textures to get me to drop L there again. Just sayin’.

OK, an apology. I didn’t notice that these images fell victim to the zoom too close and lose your prims glitch. I don’t usually get that glitch, didn’t look hard enough, and blah. I’m sorry Fail train, woo woo.

STORE NAME: N-CORE
SLURL: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Shopping/203/206/38
STYLE NAME: INFINITY XtremeHeel Black
PRICE: $L595

N-Core are a real competitor of Moodys — they make slutty heels for a quarter of the price. The heels are ankle-shatteringly high, the platforms are platformy, the skin is adorable. Editing it is unique, too – they give you a hud, but also a menu – take your pick!

The HUD is the standard colourwheel for you to pick your skintone from, but here’s the menu option for you…

Oh yes – 50 preset skintones! Not matched to popular skins like Maitreya’s is, but yes, these were perfect for me to find my colour!

The options menu was really great as well – you can customise everything, from which metal is used, to whether or not there is a diamond by the buckle. Cute!

There isn’t really any skin shadows, though – compare the intricate shadowing on the Maitreya foot with this, and you’ll see why it’s worth double the money.

N-Core are worth checking out for their adorable schoolgirl shoe with a rolled up sock instead of a prim foot – it’s just as high as the recent version by Kookie, but no bent over heel!

STORE NAME: SLINK
SLURL: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Sanctum/93/152/35
STYLE NAME: Glamour Platforms – White
PRICE: $L500

I’m not a regular SLink customer – I think the bare feet are really cool, but generally the shoes aren’t really to my personal taste.

With that said, I was blown away by these. I bought them specifically for this blog post, but the more I played with them and the options, the more I loved them. Inside the folder, you get the option of metallic or coloured heel – my preference was coloured. Then I merrily started tinting the skintone, which was actually quite easy for once.

Then I clicked *Options*.

Wow. How much do they WANT to pack into your prim feets? Just SO many options there. I was so impressed. And for only 500L…

So yeah.

Lots of prim feet for you to mull over there!

If you want something slutty…

Go to Stiletto Moody.

If you want a prim foot for grown ups…

Go to SLink.

If you’re a fashionista…

You’ve already fatpacked all the new Maitreya.

My personal choice is the Maitreya shoes. If this blog post is a news flash to you, do go and check out the other styles – there’s some amazing new things there and I’m excited to see what comes next.

Skin worn throughout was League – Misty – Medium.

With thanks to those to suggested prim feets makers for me – the skanky Kaete Guisse, my Moody-hating partner in crime Eboni Khan and the terribly juicy (ew) Gogo.