For their tertiary avatar, DERP has ventured into the realm of a more commonly covered species. By now, DERP has set itself in the market with a unique style that identifies them strongly whenever you see one of their avatars. In this review, we look forward to seeing how they reimage the tiger species.

Out of the Box:

• Male and Female Shapes with Unisex Skin
  • Male and Female Hair Attachments
• Moving Eyes with Tri-Colour Irises
  • Custom Eyelid State Slider
  • Output Eye Colour Settings to text for saving
• Talking Jaw Function
  • Custom Jaw Rotation
• 3 Tongue States (In/Out/At the side)
• Tailwag Toggle (3 Speeds)
• Customisation Hints and Tips Guide

Build and Skin:

The defining trait for a tiger is usually it’s fur with the iconic striping. The DERP tiger manages to recreate this with their avatar, but with a few little tweaks and modifications along the way. Most of the work has gone into the stripes on the back where the patterning shows itself as most complex. The further towards the front of the body, or into the limbs like the arms and the legs, the stripes start to become fewer and further apart. The result is that while there are some stripes on the torso, abdomen, and thighs, you will find no stripes on the lower arms and the legs. This is an example of how creators can take liberty with an avatar design despite basing their creation on a real life creature. Appreciably, there is considerable texturing on these areas that are free of stripes so they don’t look flat.

Click here for the mature skins. Please advised that they are Mature.

In a shift towards helping out people who would like to add a little ‘maturity’ to their avatars, DERP has included a nipple undershirt layer. What’s interesting about the nipple skin for this avatar is that on males it looks like it is sized appropriately, and when the user switches to a female shape, the nipples become larger to suit the breast size. We appreciate DERP’s effort to avoid the stick-on nipple effect by using texture fur to frame the nipple as if it were under a fur coat, rather than on top. The skin does not include genitalia for males or females, so users will have to get those elsewhere if they wanted it.

Over the whole of the body, there is an ample amount of shading and highlights which varies depending on the colour and contrast of the fur colour purchased. As one would expect, the avatar usually has one colour covering the back and most of the body with a secondary white/cream colour on the belly, muzzle, underside of the tail, etc.

A change from their prior avatars which is applauded is the movement to include non-unisex skins. DERP puts considerable effort into defining the body textures on their avatars, and having a unisex skin held them back from giving male and female users a separate visual appearance. Now, males receive a skin with a slight bit of definition around the abs and pecs; but not so much that it’s overbearing. Females, on the other hand get some extra shading around the breasts for emphasis.

Now, we’re on to the attachments. This avatar is the first one that we’ve reviewed since the appearance of the SL Viewer 2.0 that has taken full advantage of the transparent clothing layer options. We are excited to see what creators will do when they take advantage of transparent alpha layer clothing. As a result, by default, the body parts do not come with any invisiprims, making the avatar all the more visually aesthetic if you use Viewer 2.0. But since a number of users refuse to upgrade to the new viewer or remain on third-party viewers like Emerald, DERP has taken care to include a box of attachments which still use invisiprims. All you have to do is unpack and add those attachments to your outfit instead of the non-alpha-layer attachments.

On to the feet. Both paws look and are structured very much like human feet. That is, they are fairly long and flat, with exception of the toes, which themselves are thick and wide; four toe-digits in all. Each of the toes is tipped with a grey claw, dual-coloured (except for the White Tiger), and feature a texture pad on the underside of each. Moving to the soles of the feet, it is basically human-like with the exception of the single texture paw-pad on the underside.

Next is the digitigrade legs. Compared to the last two avatars, we see a literally seamless transition between the leg itself and the foot, which in and itself is a far cry from the leg structures used in prior avatars from DERP. THe digitigrade leg is a little on the chunky side; thick, but not unbearably so; with a good angle at the bend of the leg. As there are no stripes here, the creator has ensured there was ample shading and highlighting to guarantee the legs some dimension. Overall, the legs are technically extremely well made, despite the curious mix of plantigrade and digitigrade structure.

The tail that comes with this avatar is the usual flexible tail. The textures are observably tiger-like in their make, tapering off to a black-tipped tail. The tail can swish from side to side as the user chooses through the accompanying HUD.

Last, but not least before the head are the hand attachments. Keeping in theme with their previous avatars, the hand attachments come with 4 fingers instead of the human number of 5. As such, each finger-digit is thick and somewhat cartoonish, which suits the avatar well. The position of the fingers is relaxed and suits any general pose or attitude the avatar has at any given time. In general, the hands are meaty and thick, but they fit smoothly with the shape arm, meaning that there is no wrist prims needed.

Finally, the head. Immediately drawing the user’s attention is that of the eyes; large with milky irises. As usual, users can use the accompanying Eye Colour HUD to change one or both of the three (e.g. Middle, Edge, Shadow) colours available in one or both eyes. A colour randomiser is also included in that same HUD. The colourful eyeballs are framed by jet black eyelids which only defines them further as the focal point of the face.

At this point, it’s plain to see that this avatar is aiming for a more cartoon-ish, stylised tiger avatar as opposed to one that aims for realism. This is most prevalent in the shape of the head, the muzzle’s proportion and the chin’s appearance. The muzzle is fairly wide, putting some distance between the eyes, but giving the nose enough space to imitate that of a tiger’s. In and of itself, the mouth is set in an altogether regal facial expression. The insides of the muzzle are well textured and detailed with thick, but not-very-threatening teeth. The tongue inside is sculpted and textured realistically. Users can stick their tongues out in two different ways as well; both using sculpted tongues for extra effect.

The chin is another focal point for this avatar. Some people have noted that they felt the chin was a turn-off. It is a little bit on the large side, but for those who like an avatar that has a little bit picturesque, animated-cartoon-like style and vision, the chin really does add to the over-all look. For me, the avatar’s style is ever-so-slightly reminiscent of the animation style used in Disney’s Emperor’s New Groove movie.

The sides of the head are framed with some sculpted prims to flesh out the overall head shape and identify it furthermore with tiger traits. At the top of the head, the ears are simple and concave with slightly darkened behinds and grey interiors. For a final decorative effect, the muzzle and just above the eyes are dotted with long and thin white whiskers.

The avatar comes with two hairs; males receive a medium-length hair that goes down to just above the shoulders, while females receive a slightly more whimsical hairdo with ‘bunches at the back of the head.

Features and Heads-Up Display (HUD):

This avatar is completely controllable through the two very user-friendly and graphical HUDs. Both HUDs are colourful and minimise the amount of text in favour of intuitive graphics and icons. We are very pleased to see that DERP has taken a move to ensure that the Main HUD is hideable. Click where it says ‘DERP Tiger’ and the HUD folds away.

The options are as follows:

Tiger HUD v1.0

• Tail: Motion On/Off
• Mouth: Muzzle Talking Function On/Off, Mouth Width Slider, Tongue In/Out/Side
• Eyes: Open – Closed Slider, Blink On/Off

Tiger Eye Colour HUD

• Choose the Eye Colours of three parts: Middle, Edge, and Shadow
• Saturation Level slider
• “Automatic” random eye colour generator
• Independent Eye Colour Options
• Export Colour Settings to Text

As mentioned, there is a guide that comes in the notecard which helps users who wish to modify the shape to ensure that the head still works well with the avatar.

Customisation:

This avatar is easy to customise thanks to it being both modifiable and copiable. Users are able to wear just about any clothing with little issue. Hair may be a little difficult because the head shape is relatively unique and doesn’t conform to the regular human-shaped head. This is both a strength because of the unique look the head has, and a slight weakness because users will need to work at getting some third-party hairs to fit the heads.

Conclusion:

The DERP Tiger is a fun avatar that has carried their now-signature design style. On one hand, this Tiger has a lot of character and has presence in the way it was designed. On the other, hand, some may appreciate the large chin while others may not. Either way, with this avatar, the creators have moved to not only implement new Second Life technologies quickly, but to improve the avatar with HUD, skin, and feature improvements. As a company, DERP manages to blend a cartoon-ish presence with good texturing and sculpts to make a visually interesting avatar.