The Alphaville Herald

Second Skin, part 1: Interview with Chip Midnight

by Alphaville Herald on 10/09/04 at 5:54 pm

by Miravoir Psaltry

There is such an amalgamation of creative talent in SL… everywhere you look you can see the work of a myriad of geniuses. We have Coco Chanel, Frank Lloyd Wright, and Enzo echoed here, and we have modern day Michelangelos and Renoirs in the form of the SL skin artists… those who make our avatars look either mesmerizingly beautiful… or strange… or… down right grotesque… it of course depends on whose eye is looking at it… but the skin artists are reshaping us in their image of beauty… and what beauty it is.. This series in the Herald will be introducing to you and few of these talented artists and give you an insight into how their creative minds tick. They’re a wonderful group of people, and I know you will enjoy meeting them, I did. I begin today with skin artist Chip Midnight.

A Chip Midnight produced skin.

Miravoir: Chip, what is your focus in skin art, are you going for direct photorealism, or do you paint your designs?
Chip: I originally tried to go for complete photorealism but soon discovered that what looks good in Photoshop doesn’t necessarily look good on an avatar. Too much realism is jarring while too little looks muddy. My skins are made from 6-10 base photographs that are fit to the templates and layered together. From there I do a lot of overpainting. My skins end up about 50% photographic and 50% hand painted.

Miravoir: i noticed many photorealistic skins are either mottled or have seams at the arms, if you use photos, how do you overcome that?
Clean seams are a challenge when using photographs as a base. I do a lot of overpainting and selective level and color adjustments to compensate for the light and shadowing in the original photographs. I also have a few other blending and layering tricks I use to get the skins looking seamless. I could tell you what they are, but then I’d have to kill you
Miravoir: why did you decide to go with your style?

Chip: My style evolved over about 9 months of experimentation and ended up being defined by what I found to work well and what didn’t work. Some of my original experiments in skinning would make better costumes for the next Hannibal Lektor movie than attractive SL skins. It took me a long time to find things that worked well and looked good when I got them on an avatar. The style just kind of evolved from the techniques I developed. Ultimately I try to create skins that are pleasing to my aesthetics and hope that other people like them too. So far so good

Miravoir: why did you decide to start making skins
Chip: My initial inspiration for trying to do skins was a dissatisfaction with the default skins. They’re so oversaturated in color that they make everyone look freshly dipped in wax. I always found them annoying since the avatars themselves and the customization we can do in appearance are so great. I wanted to have skins that looked as good as the shapes they were on.

Miravoir: what is your philosophy of beauty?
My philosophy of beauty is that it’s hard to improve on nature. Most of my skins are created without makeup so that people can be beautiful and natural looking. I’ve always though women are most beautiful without a lot of makeup or jewelry. I realize that I’m in the minority on that which is why I add makeup tatts to people’s skins for them. Most people end up getting makeup added but they still have the option of wearing the skin without if they want a more casual look.

Miravoir: how much are your skins
My skins sell for $5000 including free tatt additions. I can add any tattoo as long as the owner or creator can supply a fully permissioned texture. I regularly work with several of the most popular tatt creators like Mistress Midnight, Starley Thereian, Changeling Fate, Fey Brightwillow and many others.

Miravoir: how much detail do you put into your skins
My skins are very detailed from head to toe but I try to make the overall look somewhat subtle. If you zoom into the hands of one of my skins you’ll see details as small as individual veins. The detail is there if you want to look that closely. From a distance the overall effect is smooth and lovely. You forget how much detail is added by the skin until you take it off and see yourself in a default skin again. The difference is night and day.