Featured In This Review (Hazel Tucker and Cassie)

INTRODUCTION
Fans of Shemale Superstar Hazel Tucker will be rejoicing now that the Official Solo Site of Hazel Tucker has launched. If you’re not familiar with Hazel Tucker, crawl out from your cave and let’s take a short review. Hazel Tucker made the Shemale Porn Industry sit up and take notice with her debut on Shemale Yum in July of 2008. Shortly thereafter, Hazel Tucker captured the “Best New Face of 2008″ award at the inaugural Tranny Awards and pretty much the rest is history! Ever since her very first photo gallery hit the Internet, Fans of this ‘Girl Next Door’ beauty have been clamoring for her to launch a solo site and now their dreams have come true.

Hazel Tucker has rubbed shoulders with some pretty big names in the Industry, including Kimber James, TS Jesse, and Kelly Shore. She was first photographed by famed West Coast TS photographer, Buddy Wood, and he’s been shooting her ever since. I’ve had my eye on Hazel Tucker for some time now and I really like this girl… not in a lustful weird sort of way, but because by all appearances, she seems like a very down-to-earth, no drama, type of girl. Which, given the cattiness and drama surrounding some Shemale Pornstars of her ilk, is a pretty cool thing. That being said, let’s take a closer look at her site and see if it’s as good as she looks!

SITE DESIGN AND NAVIGATION
For patrons of other websites run by Grooby Productions, the look and feel of Hazel Tucker’s site will be pretty familiar so I’m not going to spend a lot of time on this section. Her site is actually the first Solo Shemale site that they have thrown their considerable mass behind and it shows that this relatively new Shemale Pornstar has their full support. The site is done in in pleasing shades of deep pinks which is very easy on the eyes. As you expect from a Grooby site, Hazel Tucker is well designed and navigation is easy to find and follow. Things I noticed right away after the obligatory Adult Warning page (besides the site of Hazel with a mini-baseball bat stuffed up her ass) is a hand-written welcome to the site by Hazel herself, a great little Twitter widget with her latest feeds, and another little widget where you can listen to some tunes that Hazel has listened to recently. The Tour features some great Flash video clips as well as teaser pictures to get you in the mood for more. Speaking of which…

MEMBERS AREA
The first thing that you should do upon becoming a Member of Hazel Tucker is to take a time to read the ‘Notepad.’ It contains some great little bits about the site itself and a good read is the first entry (dated July 6, 2009) which gives some insight into the origins of Hazel Tucker. I found it to be pretty interesting, written by Steven, the owner of Grooby Productions. Here’s a little excerpt:

I’ve been running transsexual websites for over 12 years and always stayed away from doing solo girls site…I had absolutely no interest in making a solo Tgirl site that looked and performed like the many dull and droll, solo Shemale websites that you may have seen. I wanted life, day to day, sex, creativity, zest, excitement… I first encountered Hazel Tucker when she wrote to me asking to model for the site. I knew we were onto something special and when her and Buddy arranged for her to shoot out in LA, I had faith in the fact we were going to get some killer material… what I wasn’t ready for, was the Hazel Tucker experience…

This is very well said and quite the honest truth. There are many Shemale stars out there who have the potential to be Superstars but few have the will to put the effort in and make their dreams come true. Although Hazel Tucker has certainly had some help along the way, she has done an excellent job of maintaining friendships, controlling the sites she shoots for, and just generally being a good business woman. And, although Grooby owns and operates the Hazel Tucker Site, the content, including shoot ideas, come from Hazel herself along with Buddy Wood. With Buddy’s unquestionable eye for great photography and Hazel’s remarkable looks and performances as a Shemale Pornstar, Members will be treated to the ‘Hazel Tucker experience’ and not just one more ‘dull and droll’ solo Shemale site.

PHOTO CONTENT
Photo galleries on Hazel Tucker are split into two different categories, Solo Sets and Hardcore Sets, which are pretty self-explanatory. Frequent browsers will want to spend careful attention to the titles given to the sets as that is the main search component although at the time being, browsing content is manageable through the thumbnails. However, since the site is updated weekly, pretty soon you’ll be wanting to add your favorite Hazel galleries to Your Portfolio for easy viewing and you’ll need the title.

As I mentioned earlier, much of the photography for Hazel Tucker is shot by Buddy Wood, although there are some shoots from Frank’s Tgirl World and Shemale Yum (also shot by Buddy) as well. I really like that Hazel Tucker stays with the Grooby Productions philosophy of shooting models and letting their natural beauty do the talking. That is to say, it appears there is very little post-picture editing going on here… what you see is what Hazel was looking like that day… not her airbrushed and edited to death. Pictures are clear, colorful, interesting, and of course, Hazel looks amazing. Members at Frank’s Tgirl World or Shemale Yum will notice that a few of the galleries are from those sites respectively but there are PLENTY of exclusive, new galleries to make Membership to Hazel Tucker worth the signup fee, and, with new content added every week… well, you get the idea.

VIDEO CONTENT
Well, let’s be honest here… Most persons join Solo Shemale Sites largely because they want to see some hot solo scenes and hardcore videos featuring their favorite Shemale model. I don’t think Hazel Tucker is any exception to that rule so it’s a good thing that the site delivers some of the best, exclusive Hazel Tucker videos around! I mentioned earlier that Hazel is pretty involved creatively with her content and there are some really great videos on the site. The content is varied with some amazing solo videos as well as a mixture of great hardcore videos. Watch Hazel give the blowjob of a lifetime in great POV action, play with genetic girl, Cassie, and have some costume play dressed in a sexy baseball uniform! Coming soon… Hazel Tucker and Amy Daly and lots more!

I think that videos is really a good example of how being backed by a larger company like Grooby can really be beneficial. Videos are edited well and presented in two different sizes, a regular quality WMV (320px) and a high quality WMV (640px). The site is fast and I was able to download files at an average rate of about 300kbps. I did review the site while it was fairly new so it’s possible that with more Members you may experience some slightly slower times but I would doubt it. Grooby is pretty good about download speeds. Anyway, the point being, on Hazel Tucker, you’re sure to get your fill of exclusive content that you won’t find ANYWHERE else. And, with a video added each and every week, I think Hazel’s going to be one busy girl in her first year!

JOINING HAZEL TUCKER
Fans of Hazel Tucker will be very pleased that her site is not quite expensive to join as the other Grooby Sites (which, for the record, I think are well worth the money). The site is a very reasonable $24.99 / 30 days of access or you can purchase a bulk 3 months for $49.99, which if you ask me, is a no-brainer, assuming you have the extra cash on hand. Membership gets you unlimited entry and downloading of all the tasty treats on Hazel Tucker and is a great value considering the caliber of the site and Shemale Pornstar it features.

CONCLUSION AND SITE OVERVIEW
Quite honestly, I feel a little badly for the other Shemale Stars out there running and maintaining their own sites. It will be very difficult for any other independent model out there to live up to what I would now consider to be ‘the gold standard’ of Solo Shemale Sites. Hazel Tucker certainly has been blessed with natural beauty, good business sense, and ‘likability,’ but throw in the full support of a titan like Grooby Productions behind her and you’ve got an unbeatable combination for success. It will be interesting to see where the site is one year from now but I’ve got a feeling that Hazel Tucker will be one of the biggest names in the Industry and sitting atop a mountain of Fans and Admirers.

For the other Shemale Stars out there… don’t despair! I think the great thing about a new site like Hazel Tucker is that it really spreads a little bit of a ‘wake-up’ call around about just how good a Solo Site can be. I don’t think they all need to be as beautiful and well maintained as Hazel Tucker is (although that certainly helps) but ALL Solo Site owners should sit up and take notice at the amount of communicating that Hazel does with her Fans and the amount of work she has put in to create amazing and unique content that they will love… over and over again.

Hazel Tucker just might single-handedly cause the Kleenex shortage of 2009 / 2010… my advice is to make sure you have a box in hand before joining the site…

COME VISIT THE OFFICIAL SOLO SITE OF SHEMALE SUPERSTAR HAZEL TUCKER!

Featured Strokers in this Review (in order of appearance):
Khloe Hart, Jordan, Celeste, TS Foxxy

INTRODUCTION
Shemale Strokers is one of the longest running Transsexual sites still in operation today. The concept behind the site is direct and simple, much like their tagline, “They Strip! They Stroke! They Splooge!” Although simple in conception and design, Shemale Strokers is wickedly effective in its efforts. The site delivers some of the hottest Shemale pornstars in the world, many of them near or at the beginning of their careers, in some of the hottest pictures and videos available. I’ve got to say, I’m amazed at the ability of Mancini Productions, who owns and operates the site, to sniff out the hottest Shemale talents across the industry.

Mancini Productions is also the company behind the famous “Shemale Strokers” series of videos and DVD’s as well as “Black Tranny Whackers,” “Suck My Tranny Cock,” and “Bang My Tranny Ass.”

SITE DESIGN AND NAVIGATION
The design of Shemale Strokers is pretty basic. In fact, I’ll go ahead and say that it’s probably one of the most straight-forward and basic adult paysites in operation. Don’t let this put you off though, I’ve seen a great deal of well designed sites that don’t even come close to the value that Shemale Strokers offers its Members. Shemale Strokers is designed ‘old-school’ with tables accounting for much of the design scheme. This leads to a relatively simple design which flows linearly from to top to bottom. If your hardware is like the site, you’ll want to upgrade you monitor as the site is clearly designed for larger screen resolutions of at least 1280×800 or higher. Viewing the site at a lower resolution causes side-scrolling to be necessary and we all know how lazy we’ve become in this day and age… nobody likes to side-scroll. Otherwise, the interface is fairly easy to navigate and buttons are clearly labeled. The background is a simple black which makes reading the type and finding buttons extremely easy. There are small details which make the design of the site a little unsightly, such as un-centered photos and type, but these do not greatly affect the overall navigation.

The Tour Area of Shemale Strokers is fairly extensive, offering a mixture of pictures and a trailer for each update. An interesting twist to the Tour Area is the ability to purchase the entire movie outright without having to join the site via an attached internet storefront. One movie in WMV format is $9.99 which is expensive considering the relative costs of joining the site for the whole she-bang, but it’s a great option for those who want to see a particular video but don’t want to have to deal with monthly subscriptions.

MEMBER’S AREA
The Member’s Area of Shemale Strokers is again, very basic in design but effective in content. Again, a reminder to set your screen resolution to at least 1280×800 to avoid constant side-scrolling on the mainpage is in order. The mainpage of the the Member’s Area consists of thumbnail animations teasing you with ‘Cumming Soon’ graphics of models to be making appearances at a later date. All actual content for the site can be found on individual pages (Jump To Shemale Strokers Page…) compiled by thumbnails of the models. Navigation could use some help as much of the design elements are text based and tend to get lost amid the animated thumbnails.

One thing I really like about the site is that since your Membership includes the other sites listed above, you can seamlessly navigate to them directly from the mainpage without having to leave the site, re-enter a user/pass combination, and then return to the site again. One things I really dislike about the site is that no dates accompany the updates to tell Members which content is the most recent, although in it’s defense, Shemale Strokers gives Members a little credit in the ‘has brains’ category and trusts that they will understand that newer content is towards the top of the page. But, dates are always nice… especially for new Members.

PHOTO CONTENT
As I stated earlier, Shemale Strokers has some amazing Transsexual models in their portfolio from classic stars such as Megan Chavalier, Danielle Foxxx (pre-surgery), and Joanna Jet to newer stars such as Kimber James, TS Jesse, and Hazel Tucker. If you’ve heard of them, chances are they’ve appeared on Shemale Strokers at some point or another in their careers!

Photos for each of the models can either be viewed individually or else downloaded as a ZIP file. I would probably recommend the ZIP file since viewing each photo from the thumbnail is a slow and tedious process of clicking then back-clicking… there is no self-propelled option for navigating through the photos. Photo quality is very good though and Mancini Productions has done a great job of having quality photographers on the payroll. Sets are varied locations and photos are all well lighted, well framed, and crisp.

VIDEO CONTENT
The video content of Shemale Strokers is terrific but execution could use some help. Older movies are split into segments of either MPEG or WMV AND MOV files. There isn’t an option to download the entire video. Newer videos though do have this option and it’s a good thing… in this day and age of high-speed internet, the days of segmented video clips really are on their way out the door. I don’t quite understand the continued option of offering MOV files since WMV files can play on MACS with a small add-on but since it’s not my site and nor am I a MAC user, I’ll just assume that there’s a good reason for it.

A great feature of Shemale Strokers is the ‘Stroker Shots’ section which includes the cumshots of all the videos in small MOV or WMV files. So, if you’re a big fan of the cumshot… you’ll love this feature. You can also browse ‘Sammy’s All Time Favorite Scenes’ which gives you a look into the mind of Shemale Strokers creator, Sammy Mancini.

Video quality is high with the newer videos and the site is extremely fast. I downloaded clips at approximately 1.1 – 1.5 MB/s which is very fast for most similar paysites. This means that a full movie approximately 250MB to 290MB in length took a blazing fast 3 or 4 minutes to download entirely. In porn, quick is good and this is one of the quickest sites I’ve ever downloaded content from. I’ve already stated that the site has some of the biggest names in the industry and I gotta say… wow… there are some very hot scenes in Shemale Strokers that you won’t find elsewhere!

JOINING SHEMALE STROKERS
For a limited time, Shemale Strokers is offering a “Recession Buster” pricing tier of $24.95 (recurring) for 30 days access (remember, this includes full access to the sites listed above). You can also purchase 2 months for $44.95 which rebills after that time at $19.95. In addition you can purchase 6 months for $99.95 which rebills at $17.95 when the 6-months is over. You can also just purchase a full year of Shemale Strokers for $199.95 which doesn’t rebill at all. Basically, the more you shell out in the beginning, the more you’ll save in the long-run.

CONCLUSION AND SITE OVERVIEW
I REALLY WANT to like this site. The reasons for doing so are obvious… content is awesome, varied, and updated frequently. However, the site has some major design flaws and some poorer execution which makes it difficult to spend time surfing the site. Luckily, the site is amazingly fast so you can ‘get in, grab your content, and get out,’ which, unfortunately, is probably what most Members are doing. I could be wrong, but I expect the retention rate of Shemale Strokers is probably on the lower side due in part to poor design and navigation. In this day and age, people just expect better from a paysite… things like self-propelling photo galleries are no longer options as they once were, only found on a few ‘high end’ sites. Today’s porn surfers are a smart, young crowd and most know that options like this are easy to make and thus expected.

With a little site-wide redesign – and I’m not talking more ‘flashy’ – just better execution and navigation, Shemale Strokers would be at the top of my list for solo scene Transsexual sites. Even with the flaws, it still ranks up there as one of my favorite sites. It looks as if Shemale Strokers is taking some baby steps in this direction… the newer galleries are much, much better than the older galleries. So, perhaps this is in the works… in the meantime, I would say, if you can put up with the simple design and some annoying navigation, then the content is definitely worth the price of admission… whichever one of the 4 billing options you end up choosing.

CLICK HERE TO GET YOUR ROCKS OFF AT SHEMALE STROKERS!