Friends-Grid News
Made at Jan 03 2026 6:03AM
Edited Jan 03 2026 6:03AM
How to - Skins and Shapes
We are blessed to have Gentle Dragonheart at friends grid who is sharing her extensive knowledge on the subject to help us all.
Bom skins and EvoX – Tips and trics
One of the elemental things in making our avatar look good is the skin we choose and the way we wear it. There are a few things to know that will hopefully help you.
Evo and EvoX
An Evo skin uses the SL avatar maps for both the face and the body. All the older SL skins are like that and for a long time, this was the norm in Opensim as well. All the skin appliers in Opensim are Evo skins, too.
EvoX is newer. It uses a different map for the face with a higher resolution and for that reason, EvoX skins look better and sharper that Evo skins. Because of the different map, an EvoX skin will look very strange and ugly when worn on a system body or on a mesh head that is meant for Evo skins. If your face is blank and your lips are somewhere halfway your neck, you are wearing an EvoX skin on a system body/head that is set to Evo. Luckily, most of the newer mesh heads let you switch between Evo and EvoX via the HUD, so you can wear both. Be aware than when you wear an AvoX skin you will also need evoX layers (like hairbase, face freckles, BoM make up) for anything worn on the head.
Where older Evo skins can be found as one piece that covers both the face and the rest of the body, EvoX skins tend to come as a body skin and a face skin separately. There are no EvoX appliers because EvoX was created to be worn on BoM (baked on Mesh) heads.
So here are the choices:
For a system avatar: Get any skin as long as it's not EvoX.
For an older mesh body that is not BoM: get appliers for the face and the body and make sure they match. You will also need to wear an older mesh head that uses appliers. Even then, getting them to match can be an adventure and in many cases: a total headache.
So if you're up for it: choose a body and a head that are BoM. The easiest way to explain BoM is that it shows everything you are wearing on your system body, only it bakes (think of this as making a copy of what your system avatar's surface looks like, so the skin, all the system layers like tattoos etc., everything you are wearing that is not mesh) and turns that into an image that covers the entire surface of your body or head. It then projects that layer on the mesh body/head as if it is the texture your body/head is covered with.
With BoM, it is very important to not wear any alpha layers. You can wear an alpha for your eyes if you're going with eye appliers and not BoM eyes, but the head and body alpha can NOT be used. You'll know if you're still wearing an alpha: the body part you are wearing it on will turn bright red on the mesh body or head.
SO, now that you are wearing a BoM body and a BoM head: time to wear your skin! Here, the order in which you wear the different parts is vital. Get is wrong, and you will see ugly seams, especially in your neck.
Buying a skin
There are lots of skins all over Opensim. Apart from the older Evo skins, you can find newer EvoX skins which usually come as a body skin and a separate head skin. Very important here is to get both in the same skintone. Start with buying a head skin. Once you have found a head skin you like a lot, you will need a matching body skin. The most used skin tones are velour skintones. The Velour bodyskins themselves are in Opensim too. So if the head skin you like is in the tone “Sunkiss”, you will need a body skin in the tone “Sunkiss”, too. For women: some head skins are made for specific body skins so if a skin is called “MaryJane Picaso Sunkiss” you will need a body skin in the skintone “Sunkiss” of the Picaso type. Can't find it? No worries, most body skins come with a “neck fix” layer that will even out any seams around the neck area.
Now that you have found your perfect skin.. here is the correct order to wear the different skin parts for EvoX:
1. Wear your body skin.
2. wear your head skin
3. If needed, wear a neck fix.
4. Wear the ears layer that comes with the head skin
5. wear any additional layers you want, like cleavage, hairbase, round butt, tattoos, body or face freckles etc.
If you end up with a strange looking face, you may need to set your head to the correct skin type (Evo or EvoX via the head HUD) Also make sure the shine (glossiness) level on your head and body is the same, if your body is glossy and your face is not, that too will cause visible seams between head and body.
Shapes
Many head skins come with a shape that works perfectly for that specific skin, even moreso if the head skin was made for exactly the head you are wearing (but don't worry, most EvoX skins work on ANY EvoX head, not just the one they were created for). The body shape on those shapes that came with the head skin tend to be very tall and skinny, but this is easier to adjust than the face. You can also wear a shape you bought separately or adjust the one you were already wearing.
Change it as much as you want (but make a copy first) to make your avatar 100% you.
A few rules of thumb for making a shape with life like proportions:
1. your groin has to be halfway your total length. (set leg length to 40 to 50 depending on how long your torso is)
2. .Arms need to be long enough for your fingertips to reach halfway your thighs (set arm length to around 80)
3. Your head has to take up about 1/7th of your total length. That means setting head size to around 50 in most cases.
4. For women: with your arms hanging down alongside your body the width of your shoulders has to be about the same as the width of your hips. For men the shoulders can be a bit wider but don't overdo it, nobody likes a body looking like a gorilla on steroids.
I hope this helps!