Dark Spot Designs launches into a new category of mammals after their first avatars covered canine and feline varieties. The DSD Ram carries the essence of its counterpart well while showing the continual growth of the creator. Here we discuss the what makes this head-butting goat avatar tick.

Out of the Box:

• Both Male and Female variations
• 5 Horn varieties
  • 3 Horn Textures
• Talking Jaw
  • Tongue Toggle
• Moving Ears and Tail
• Eye Expressions
• Different Eye Colours
  • Blinking Eyes
  • Dilating Pupils
  • Eye Shine Options
• PG & Mature Skins
• Legwarmers
• Muzzle and Collar
• Head and Ear Piercings
• Horns, Tail and Ear Touch Action Dialog Box
  • (e.g. “<Someone> grabs <Your Name>’s tail…  maybe time to worry…”)

Build and Skin:

This avatar comes in a large number of colours, but the same general patterning. Each avatar is dual-tone, with the main colour taking over most of the body, and the secondary colour highlighting areas like the belly and rump. The skin gives the impression of furry fuzziness with fuzzy brush strokes seperating the main colours. In all, the textures are well done, with good tone for musculature and over the appendages. Of the body textures, however, whether male or female, a point of  strength is the quality of the rump cheek and inner thigh textures.

The avatar comes with both a male and a female version as seen above. As such, when unpacking the avatar, users can choose one or the other, or both. The main differences are in the skin, body shape, and the hair. Additionally, there are mature skins for both male and female, included under the link below. For those looking for them, the creator has opted to not include male genitals.

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

Rams are hooved animals, and this avatar makes sure to portray that with well sculpted foot-hooves and prim fuzz to cover the top area above the hooves. These fluff prims are on both the digitigrade leg and the foot prim, so even when one does not wear the digi leg, they still get to keep some of the fluff. A good attribute about the foot-hooves and legs are that they are modest and proportional to the body size.

The tail is short and stubby, wide at the base and thins out at the top. While overly spikey, it creates a unique rendition of a Ram-tail for the avatar. Other than the head though, the hand-hooves are the most interesting of all on this avatar. This is precisely because they are exactly that; hoof-hands. The hand is normal from the arms down to the palm, but instead of fingers are 3 very thick portions of pure hoof material. This is contrary to the popular usage of nimble fingers capped with thick nails at the end. In real life, these hands would be near completely useless, but in Second Life, the avatar can afford the artistic licensing. It is neat to see an ungulate avatar use hand-attachments in this way. Here too, like the legs are fluff prims at the base of the hands.

The head immediately reflects its animal very well. Anyone looking at it should be able to immediately identify the avatar as a Ram when the horns are on, and at the least identify the avatar as a goat-ish creature without the horns. Most prominent on the head are the horns. These come in 5 separate variations that up the ante on customisation. Each style is unique, from using either small horns at the back of the head, to prominent, more feral type that curl right up to the sides of the muzzle. Users can opt to choose different textures (like a black, brown, or grey), or go horn-less altogether.

The ears are small and very thin while remaining perpendicular to the head. These could have been a little bit bigger, so as to better fit the head’s dimensions, but users are able to adjust this as they see fit. The eyes themselves have a lot more functionality than other DSD avatars that the HUD alone needed to split their functions into two submenus. As usual, users can choose eye expressions and change eye colour, but additional functions such as eye blink speed and especially eye shine adjustment make a helpful difference. It is pleasing to see that not only can users change the eye shine levels (which I mentioned was a possible down side for DSD avatars before), but they can now choose between types of pupils. Hence, you could really give yourself goat eyes if you wished.

Unfortunately, at times one eye will blink before the other, but this is a result usually of lag and the usage of separate eye-blinking prims. Last but not least, the muzzle remains true to its source, though the muzzle expression may seem a little serious for some. Then again, depending on angle, it can look more or less expression-less. The muzzle opens and closes, as well as features blunt teeth for grass munching and tin-cans.

Acessories:

This avatar comes, (as with all DSD avatars) with accessories that users can add to the avatar to their taste. As we’ve come to expect, Dark Spot Designs has included ear and facial piercings. The creator has shown themself capable of interesting placements of piercings, particularly on the preceding Fennec avatar. The Ram is certainly no different as is evident in the accompanying pictures. As well, there are the usual collar and muzzle; both leather with metal highlights for definition.

Finally, there are the leg-warmers. These come in two different attachments, so users can wear them on the lower leg, on the upper leg, or both. They are also scripted, so users can click the legwarmer on the digitigrade leg to change colour. Both solid and ‘striped’ renditions are included.

Heads-Up Display and Features:

It’s fair to say that the HUD that this avatar offers is the best that Dark Spot Designs has done to date. In short, the HUD features a Ram Head over a list of Submenu Items: Horns, Hair, Ears, Eyes, Eyeballs, Jaw, Tail.

• Under Horns, users can adjust the horn types and colours, as well as toggle the ‘emotes’ available with the horns.
• Under Hair, users can adjust the primary and secondary colours of the included hair attachments
• Under Ears, users can adjust the positions and save presets of one or both ears. Additionally, they can toggle ear movement on typing, talking, and away, and toggle Ear ‘Action dialogue boxes
• Under Eyes, users can change Eye expressions for one or both eyes, change blinking speed, and toggle eye-state changes on typing, talking, and away.
• Under Eyeballs, users can change eye colour, glow, pupil size (Permanent settings, or change according to daylight amount), Shine amount, full-bright, and pupil shape (blank, circle, horizontal slit, vertical slit)
• Under Jaw, users can open or close the muzzle, and modify tongue settings
• Under tail, users can change twitching speed and Tail ‘Action Dialogues.’

Customisation:

This avatar is copiable and modifiable, so users should have no real issues making this avatar look as they would like, especially with all the included customisation functions. Third-party hairs are easy to install as well. However, users may have issue with wearing pants; the fluff on the foothoves may stick through particularly tight trousers. Amateur users are able to remove them if they wish.

Conclusion:

The Dark Spot Designs Ram emulates its source creature well while anthropomorphising it and giving it character. Users can, with the horns can pretty much choose the species of Ram-goats that they are interested in emulating. From the multiple choices of horns down to the uniquely designed hands, this avatar is well-rounded as a package.