Switching gears, Dark Spot Designs releases the next avatar in their line of species. This time, they revisit the feline line of animals, approaching the King of the jungle with their own interpretation. With a few new design tricks added into their skill-set, we review the DSD Lion avatar.

Out of the Box:

• Both Male and Female variations
• Talking Jaw
  • Tongue Toggle
• Moving Ears and Tail
  • Ears and Tail with Custom Positions and Options (See HUD section below)
• Eye Expressions
• Different Eye Colours
  • Blinking Eyes
  • Dilating Pupils
  • Different Pupil Type
  • Eye Shine Options
  • Eye Blink Frequency Settings
• PG & Mature Skins (for both sexes)
• Leather Legwarmers
• Head and Ear Piercings
• Tail and Ear Touch Action Dialog Box
  • (e.g. “<Someone> grabs <Your Name>’s tail…  maybe time to worry…”)
• Claws In/Out Toggle
• Whisker and Pawprint Colour choices

Build and Skin:

Lions do not have particularly elaborate fur patterns, so a lion avatar does not require a creator to go to great lengths to make a true-to-real-life skin. This avatar does as such with a dual-colour skin texture; with one colour making up most of the body in one shade or another, and another; usually a cream-ish colour to take up the belly and chest areas. To avoid flatness, however, there is a good degree of shading and highlights, as well as fuzzy transitions between body colours for an organic look. A major difference between the two sexes which have been offered with the avatar are that the females have accents in the breast area while males are accented in the abs. Both skins come with mature skins; the females with large nipples and female genitelia, while males have slightly smaller nipples.

Take Notice: The pictures under this link are rated Mature - Click here to view the Male and Female Adult Skin

The feet that come with this avatar are slightly petite, but fully feline. Tipped with retractable claws, these attachments come with 4 toes and dark black pawpads on the underside. All of the pads are sculpted and lift the bottom of the feet a fair bit off of the ground. For emphasis, the toes themselves are a seperate colour from the rest of the foot itself. As well, surrounding the toes is prim fluff for decorative effect. Leading away from the foot attachments are the digitigrade legs which are less pronounced that one has come to see from many creators. The subtle leg looks sleek and fits nicely with the kneecap of the avatar shape. The digitigrade legs make the avatar look like it is truly standing on its toes; the very definition of digitigrade. The texturing on these is a straight-up base colour, but ample shading and highlighting help them stand out. Surprisingly, there are no dewclaws on the feet.

The hand-paw attachments take their design template from the feet, but with decidedly more hand than paw traits. The fingertips are coloured in the secondary tint, and pawpads take up on the surface tips. The general shape is neatly done, but the fingers look as if they have been merged together at the base. This looks a slight bit odd for a good portion of the hand. The palms are also a bit large, which makes the fingers look somewhat tiny in relation.

The tail is the expected tassle-tail that people have become familiar with on lions. The tail is made entirely of flexible prims, so the tail itself swishes around as the avatar moves, and comes with an appropriate ‘wag.’

Of note on this avatar is the chest attachment of ‘fluff’ that comes with both sexes. At the base, these prims are the chest-colour, but at their tips, become the ‘base’ colour of the body. The ‘mane’ is basically the same for both male and female sexes, with the exception of size and what the mane does in-between the pecs. The mane covers the upper portion of the chest and moves over the tops of the shoulders, and finishes partway down the back. In females, the mane forms around the breasts to accent them a little. Males’ mane stays flat against the pecs.

The head for this avatar is well constructed technically, with no kinds of sculpt wrinkling or very much clipping or ridges where sculpts meet. The muzzle is smooth and broad, typical to that of a lion’s. The tip of the muzzle remains a fairly close distance to the face, but the shape is very much lion-shaped. The muzzle is slightly rounded at the sides, but the top is outright flat, giving way to a thicker, slightly protruding feline nose which suits the face well.

When the jaw is closed, the jaw articulates well with the face, but when open, we see a slightly weak connection, with a pink prim peeking out at the sides of the mouth. This is fairly unnoticeable to most, however. The inside of the mouth is textured decently and the teeth are arranged neatly with a bit of a glisten to their surface. The tongue itself is slightly out of place because it looks photo-perfect while the rest of the mouth has been hand-textured. Both sexes receive a little bit of semi-transparent chin-fluff for decorative effect. At the sides, there is the obligatory feline whiskers, but users now have the option of tinting them through the HUD.

The eyeballs are fairly well the same as we have seen on the preceding few avatars. While effective, the eye design could have benefitted with a slightly more life-like texture-job and make-over which Dark Spot Designs is now more than capable of. Users can choose different pupils, whether they are simply round, slitted like a cat’s, or even sideways like a goat’s. You can also choose the dilation amount of the pupil or have them change automatically to Sunlight amounts, and adjusts different levels of eyeball ‘shine.’

The eyes themselves move according to your mouse-pointer position and are oval shaped, with a range of different eyebrow expressions and eyelid states. The head textures in general follow lion facial patterns by imitating markings around the eyes and just on the bridge of the nose. The head textures themselves are among the better that DSD has accomplished. In real-world lions, these markings are very subtle, but on the Dark Spot Designs Lion, they stand out a good bit more. In general, the changes in tone and shade of the head colours makes for a depth-filled, organic appearance.

At the very back of the cheeks, the fluff prims give the sides of the head a little fluffiness up towards the base of the ears. The ears themselves are smoothly shaped and hollowed out with a small amount of semi-transparent fluff lining the interior. Both sexes utilise the same hair; a spiky, mane-like haircut that goes to shoulder length.

Features and Heads-Up Display (HUD):

This avatar is commanded exclusively by the included HUD; of which the functions we briefly list below:

• Ears: Individual Ear Positions (Up, Down, Back), 4 Custom Ear Position Slots, Ear Rotation (X, Y, Z), Toggle Ear Movement (During Typing, Talking, etc.), Twitch Speed, Ear Action Dialog/Reaction Toggle
• Eyes: Eyebrow Expression, Blink Enable & Frequency, Toggle on Type/Talk/Away/Busy
• Eyeball: Dual Colour, Pupil Type, Pupil Size (Manual/Automatic), Fullbright On/Off, Eye Shine Level
• Jaw: Custom Jaw Rotation, Tongue Position Toggle, Muzzle Talking Function Toggle
• Tail: Twitching Speed/Type, Tail Flexibility,  Tail Action Dialog/Reaction Toggle
• Misc: Pawprint Toggle On/Off and Colour,  Whisker Toggle On/Off and Colour, Claws In/Out

As usual, the creators have included versions of the head with various piercings over the face and the ears. They have somewhat consistently found new ways to be imaginative with piercing placements with each successive avatar, and this avatar is no different. Over the face and ears are a variety of studs, bars, rings, etc. The body parts with these piercings are found in the included ‘accessories’ folder.

The other attachment that is usual DSD fare, are the leggings. Instead of the normal cloth stockings that we have seen on their avatars up until the Ram, DSD has gone a new route with a kind of leather strapping. The result has been leggings that look extremely realistic and have many options for the user in terms of colours. All of the colour choices for the avatar are not mere re-tints of the laces, buckles, or the siding, but texture replacements which look excellent. By themselves, the leggings could probably be sold for even half the price of this avatar.

Customisation:

This avatar comes completely modifiable and copiable, so users should be able to employ as much customisation to the body parts as they wish. The head size is well sized, and most third-party hairs fit on it with very little adjustment.

Conclusion:

The Dark Spot Designs Lion is a testament to their continued growth as a creator of avatars. It also stands on its own as a unique interpretation of the feline royalty of the African Savannah, but yet joins a family of interpretations by numerous creators. With accessories such as the leather leggings and multiple customisation options, users will be able to have fun with this big cat.