AION - Mix-matching Aion skin - Rentus Recovery Cloth Armor Set

So far, I have mostly focused on showing the skin mods that I have created in Aion. But there is another way that gamers can have fun with the numerous armor skins in Aion. And as the title of this post has hinted, it's mix-matching.   :)    In fact, I have been doing that all the while when I show you guys my mods. For example, remember the Vampire Outfit, in which I chose matching shoulder, glove and shoe? And this mix-matching is only possible because Aion has such vast number of armor sets and the ability to re-skin the look of an armor piece onto another (i.e. replacing the look of an armor without changing its attributes or stats). Wonder how many artists and graphic designers did NCSoft hire to achieve this feat.  xD

 

But some may wonder how a mix-and-match would work. Well, from my previous posts or for fellow gamers who have played the game, you will know that Aion armors come in a 5-piece set (as in design) such as chest, pants, shoulder, glove and shoe. Of course, there are also some chest pieces that includes the pants (e.g. Kunax Hauberk) and special full body costumes that is a 5-in-1 (e.g. Sexy Leopard Tights). So, it is quite obvious that mix-and-match can only be fully possible for armor sets with 5 separate pieces, partially possible for chest-with-pants pieces, while not possible at all for those 5-in-1 costumes because the full costume overrides any worn pants, shoulder, glove and shoe... >.<

For armors that is not a 5-in-1, you may take a liking to one or few of the pieces while disliking the others. This is where mix-and-match enter the scene by choosing armor pieces of other sets to complement your primary set. The armor pieces of different sets need to complement each other in terms of style, theme and color. But if you wonder whether there's a standard for mix-and-match, I would say let your imagination be the only limit. But remember though, beauty in the eye of beholder, one person's perfect match may look weird for another.  >.<"

For my first mxi-and-match example, I will show you guys the Rentus Recovery Cloth set, which I think has a really nice chest armor. By the way, the way I make my selection is to first find a chest armor that I like, and thus I would address the mix-and-match set using the set name of that chest piece. Here's the screen capture of the original full set.



Original Rentus Cloth Set

As you can see, this is actually a beautiful set by itself with combination style of ancient Egypt and Celtic. However, according to the "Beauty in Eye of Beholder" law, I kind of like the chest, glove and shoe but not the shoulder and pants (or long skirt). So I look among the massive collection of Aion cloth skins to find suitable replacements. I can only choose from cloth armor because skin of different armor types cannot be used for re-skinning (e.g. Cannot re-skin leather armor onto cloth armor).  ~.~   The only exception to this is the clothes type which can be re-skinned onto any armor type (Clothes type are mostly costumes without  stats or attributes e.g. Sexy Leopard Tights).

Finally, I chose the Ophidan Leggings and Veille's Pauldrons (shoulder). The Ophidan set is a crafted armor set that uses Balaur (dragon) materials and Veille set comes as special reward from participation on Balaurea siege or bought off Black Cloud Marketplace (BCM).

And the end result of my search? Look below :D



Mix-and-match Shoulder and Skirt

Do I look awesome now? Actually, the shoulder and pants (skirt in this case) are really nice too in that they complement each other in term of style, and the Rentus Recovery Tunic provided the missing piece to bring them together.  :D

However, like I have mentioned before, the pieces needed to complement each other in terms of not only style but also color. With the white transparent "feathers",  the gold colored chest piece just look kind of out of place, isn't it?  :(    So the next step is to dye (or recolor) the chest skin to white as shown in the screen capture below.

Chest Armor (Tunic) dyed white

See the difference now that the tunic has been dyed white?   :D

However, after the mix-and-match, I still have some problem with the armor set....   :'(   Yes....that 2 golden mini 'wing' like accessories on the waist... Not only do they look out of place but also the fact that they are not dyed like the rest of the tunic, remaining gold in color.   -.-"   And, yes... certain parts of some armor pieces will retain the original color even after applying a dye (like the purple collar on this tunic), which is fine unless someone prefers all red, all green or all blue like the Sauro Commander Tunic, which I have mod before.

Well...for the casual players, this is as far as we can go about making our own favorite customized armor set, that brings out the individual characteristic of our avatar.  >.<" 

But having access to armor skin mod, I can modified the armor skin to my satisfaction as I will show in my next post. So stay tuned for Rentus Recovery Cloth Armor Set part 2.  :p

As a side thought, having skin mod can bring character customization right up to the next level, that is, if any game developer dares to take on the challenge... But hey, you guys already made face and body customization possible, didn't you?   :D