People can't make legs

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That's also my problem with "people can't make legs" - to the best of my observation, it doesn't look like people even tried to match top to bottom or, in many cases, even tried to make a bottom that wasn't horrible.

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^^^^ I think that goes back to the concept that its not that your character has to have a matchy-matchy top half & bottom half; but for best results there DOES have to be a flow between the two halves, and someone's post suggestion leaving the belt off for a bit and seeing how the costume looks then, is a good point.

Not many of my people wear belts these days anyways, i find that they disrupt the flow of the costume. No belt usually = much sleeker, more streamlined outcome. At least, imo.

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Actually, for a passable stocking, I use the 'Heel2' option (usually on Stilettos) and then the 'Disco' option for the upper legs. With a short skirt, it actually does look like my female character is wearing stockings instead of pantyhose.

And I do agree that in terms of the 'Fishnet' option, we need to be able to seperate the stocking from the shoe. As I pointed out about a year or so ago in Jay's costume request thread, we can do it with 'Heel2', why not with 'fishnet'? (Or, for that matter, 'Full Fishnet'?)

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Global: @All-American Teen
70 toons across 11 servers.

Top hero -All-American Teen lvl 50 eng/invul Tanker (01:10 EST; 1/24/09)
Top villian -Poisoned Plum lvl 30 robots/devices Mastermind

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What's the matter with half-naked chicks...

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I knew what Bad was referring to because I've seen her post about it in the past...

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Ah, you had the advantage over me. I see what you are saying re near-naked chicks in high heels now.

While I agree with most of your suggestions regarding the costume creator and most of your aesthetic as I understand you, I hate to agree with the topic heading. My taste isn't someone else's and that was sort of what I was alluding to in quoting my father.

While color taste is almost a science, style taste wanes and waxes over the years and I've never seen that it is set in stone. So who's to say one person's taste is better than another - what you hate now may be very much in vogue 2 years from now in the real world... who knows? I know lots of people that used to "hate" thin glasses and praised big rims who now "hate" "clunky" rims and wear tiny glasses now. And don't even get me started on all the hair styles that have come and gone during my lifetime.

I'm sure what you are saying is probably considered good and proper among people who know such things... right now. But I know what I like and that's good enough for me and I am certainly not going to be bothered by what someone else does.

It is one thing to be the comical Arbiter Fabulous but quite another to have the same attitude in a serious "I hate" or "rage" sort of way. It just seems a little strange to feel that way about a costume to me.

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Some of my alts costumes call for armor on the top with a short skirt & stiletto heels (the heels mainly because both the platform & flat heels cut off the leg and make it look shorter). I like the longer leg (I use the sliders all the way up on Legs, even for my short alts) - to me, it fits my own personal picture of how a superheroine looks based on the comics I enjoyed as a child (and still do enjoy), even though those comic superheroines rarely wore stilettos (with a few exceptions).

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As I said before, it's not the very concept of "armour + skirt" I hate, and if you can make it work, then that's very good. But I've seen far too many females that look like someone stole Judge Dredd's pants for the sole reason of them showing a bikini. I firmly believe that EVERYTHING can be made to work. I've managed to work a skirt into a trenchcoat + heavy boots combo and made it look reasonably good. The key here is actually coming up with a design that works together, be that through symmetry or contrast, NOT come up with a design that looks like you spliced two different people at the waist.

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I also frequently mix & match the patterns for the various "Tops with Skin" and "Bottoms" with skin. Some of the Bottoms are (again) ugly. Some of the Tops don't even have a corresponding Bottom. Sometimes, a "Top with Skin" costume looks good with a skirt or regular shorts - BUT that needs a belt to divide them because (as you implied) the pieces don't flow together well, You seem to be saying that should be a big "no-no", that dividing Top from Bottom violates some aesthetic rule. Not in my book, sorry.

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Actually, I only suggested removing the belt so that you could see how the top and bottom go together. Having a hard border really works against getting a good perspective on the whole model, so removing it only temporarily allows for a better look. I've never been against the use of belts or against the use of mismatching top and bottom. Hell, I have a guy who's using Leather Pants and the Flack Jacket tights top, despite the fact that those don't normally go together or flow very well. That was the only thing that looked enough like a uniform at the time. It's very possible, and in fact not actually all that hard, to make a top and bottom that don't flow together, but rather contrast or complement each other.

That isn't happening. I've seen so, so many perfectly good costumes ruined because it seemed like people designed from the head down to the waist, ran out of steam and though "Screw it, let's just get into the game!" and slapped something together so it's not just tights and smooth leather. A very crucial step that is so often missing, or at least appears to be, is the final tally where you're done designing, zoom out and have a good look at how all the pieces of the puzzle go together to form a complete picture. Very often, that picture will end up crooked and imprecise, because even though every piece looked perfect when you were working on it, it just didn't work when you put it together. Maybe you used a very heavily-detailed tech set like Enforcer for gloves and shoulders, but then went with a simple smooth set of boots like the wingless Valkyrie. On their won, both are great. Together, they're hard to make work. Or maybe you tried to make a costume that flowed, but it didn't flow well enough and you decided to go with something completely different. Say, pants instead of a Tights with Skin bottom to match your Tights with Skin top, or a full Tights bottom despite having a Belly Tee up top.

For me, my most common failure is overboard details. Each peace on its own is exquisite and intricate, but put them together and the whole thing becomes too busy, usually requiring me to flat-colour or replace a whole item set. That's not really on the topic of bottoms, but it's much in the same vein - the act of designing a perfectly good two thirds of a costume.

Typically, what other people wear doesn't even register in my head unless it's spectacularly unusual (non-human skin colours always do that), but for the most part I don't stick my nose in other people's business. However, when I spot a costume that looks like it'll be VERY cool, only to come closer and see it positively ruined because someone slapped a pair of legs that do NOT work with that look, well... That makes me angry. And not angry because someone made something I didn't like, but rather because someone made something I ACTUALLY LIKED... And then ruined it.

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While color taste is almost a science, style taste wanes and waxes over the years and I've never seen that it is set in stone. So who's to say one person's taste is better than another - what you hate now may be very much in vogue 2 years from now in the real world... who knows? I know lots of people that used to "hate" thin glasses and praised big rims who now "hate" "clunky" rims and wear tiny glasses now. And don't even get me started on all the hair styles that have come and gone during my lifetime.
I'm sure what you are saying is probably considered good and proper among people who know such things... right now. But I know what I like and that's good enough for me and I am certainly not going to be bothered by what someone else does.

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I'm reasonably sure hairy cloven monster legs with backwards knees won't catch on within my life time, though I'm not confident in saying the same about exposed brains. You never know

Seriously, though, this isn't about fashion or clothes or anything as... Well, trivial. For someone who spends so long debating costume design on the 'net, I dress very casually and unassumingly in real life, sticking mostly to baggy pants, trainers and t-shirts. This is about general design and character creation, more something akin to drawing or painting than dressing yourself up. To goes beyond what's ON the body and even into the interaction of shapes and lines, of colours and tones. Yes, obviously not everyone will agree on what's good and what's not, but I'm sure many will agree that there is a marked difference between those costumes where people made an effort to tie everything together and those where people just slapped stuff together with no rhyme or reason. Again, it's a lot like hitting Random a few times - it comes up with cool designs, just... Never a combination of them that isn't positively hideous. Random is actually pretty good for sparking ideas, but it still needs an actual brain at the controls to put the ideas together in a coherent whole. A good costume is so much more than a mere sum of its parts, and it just bugs me when I see it almost succeed and still fail. I can deal with designs that never moved me at all, but when I see something that could have been, that bugs me.

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It is one thing to be the comical Arbiter Fabulous but quite another to have the same attitude in a serious "I hate" or "rage" sort of way. It just seems a little strange to feel that way about a costume to me.

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People have fun in different ways. For me, one of the most rewarding, most fun activities I'm aware of is making, finding or using a good character design. It's rewarding to such an extent that the few characters I really like I just can't take my eyes off. I'll log into a character and then spend pretty much a full day going "Oh, man, I love this costume!" I'll run by someone standing at Wentworth's or waiting at the station or sitting by the trainer and I'll do a double-take. "Wait, that looked interesting! What was it?" Then when I run back and have a good, long look, I'll be taking mental notes for when next I make a new costume. Hell, just yesterday I rescued the Iron Widow and spent a good, long while examining her costume, because her design is subtle, yet VERY GOOD.

I LOVE a good costume and, unless it's something specifically ugly like Colour-Blind Lad or I M Fancy, I don't notice bad costumes. Focusing on the good, as it were. But there are times when I see people start with really good ideas, such that have so much potential... And then totally butcher them, that actually makes me very literally angry. It's like someone took a knife to a painting you liked, or your favourite show's creator died mid-season and the rest of the episodes SUCKED. Or like someone made a horrible sequel to your favourite movie. I wouldn't have even bothered with this thread if I hadn't seen so many costumes that looked SO COOL in their waist-up mugshots, only to discover that they were completely ruined by a stupid choice of legs. In fact, I thought to make it when I caught myself thinking "This mugshot is pretty cool! I'll give it four muscle men. Oh, wait... Let's see how much they ruined it with the wrong legs. Yuck! Hideous! I'll give it two for the effort!" When you're expecting that every cool torso you see will be ruined by the legs that come with it, something is horribly wrong.

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I wouldn't have even bothered with this thread if I hadn't seen so many costumes that looked SO COOL in their waist-up mugshots, only to discover that they were completely ruined by a stupid choice of legs. In fact, I thought to make it when I caught myself thinking "This mugshot is pretty cool! I'll give it four muscle men. Oh, wait... Let's see how much they ruined it with the wrong legs. Yuck! Hideous! I'll give it two for the effort!" When you're expecting that every cool torso you see will be ruined by the legs that come with it, something is horribly wrong.

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LOL Ok... I gotcha now. I have to admit I have been disappointed by seeing a glimpse of something cool only to realize when I get a better look that their front didn't live up to the back, or the face to the body or the bottom to the top. Not literally angry but a sort of let down in the pit of my stomach and a muttered "oh".

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To the OP, I remember that Sing Sang Song can make legs.

http://www.plexigrass.com/singsangsong.jpg

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Triumphant Defenders Forever
Psylenz FF/Psi, ArticQuark Storm/Rad, Symon BarSisyphus Bots/psn, Max VanSydow Thugs/Dk, Cyclone Symon Bots/stm, Blue Loki Ice/Cd, Widow 46526
HelinCarnate:OMG it is so terrible. I have the option to take 3 more powers but no additional slots. Boo F'ing hoo.

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To the OP, I remember that Sing Sang Song can make legs.
http://www.plexigrass.com/singsangsong.jpg

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The real irony is that, for all his many faults, Sing Sang Song's costume isn't all that bad

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My first complain about the legs in game is that they are too long, which tends to make characters look very 1992. I always set leg length sliders to minimum, regardless of which physique settings and size I use, except on Huge Male characters, of which I have but few.

But its true - the options are all on upper body. There need mostly to be a few leg details - kneepads, scabbards, pouches. A lot of effort seems to have gone into making silly puffy legs that I never see in game - the Oriental pants styles come to mind - but the only ways to get detail on legs is with tights patterns that use them.

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<《 New Colchis / Guides / Mission Architect 》>
"At what point do we say, 'You're mucking with our myths'?" - Harlan Ellison

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My first complain about the legs in game is that they are too long, which tends to make characters look very 1992. I always set leg length sliders to minimum, regardless of which physique settings and size I use

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Same here. Even minimum length looks a bit odd to me.

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My first complain about the legs in game is that they are too long, which tends to make characters look very 1992. I always set leg length sliders to minimum, regardless of which physique settings and size I use

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Same here. Even minimum length looks a bit odd to me.

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I disagree. I tend to use very long legs, because my legs are fairly long, and I tend to proportion characters similar to myself. That said, I'm very tired of using baggy pants and some form of tight boots.

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To the OP, I remember that Sing Sang Song can make legs.

http://www.plexigrass.com/singsangsong.jpg

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That just never gets old...

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My first complain about the legs in game is that they are too long, which tends to make characters look very 1992. I always set leg length sliders to minimum, regardless of which physique settings and size I use

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Same here. Even minimum length looks a bit odd to me.

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I disagree. I tend to use very long legs, because my legs are fairly long, and I tend to proportion characters similar to myself. That said, I'm very tired of using baggy pants and some form of tight boots.

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Same here. I like the aesthetic of longer legs, and short legs make characters look chunky and square and, above all, short. One of the first things I do, especially for tall characters, is to pull the legs slider almost all the way to the right so they LOOK tall even before proportions come to play. I'm not sure what happened in 1992, but I like the look.

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