Equines have often been celebrated for their strength, raw power, and loyalty. Most of the time, we end up covering paw’d animals, but this time we get the pleasure of reviewing another hoofed one. In this review, we discuss the Kinzart Equine, as well as the many ways it is expressed, (i.e. Clydesdale, Unicorn, Pegasus)
Out of the Box:
- Male and Female Skins, Shapes, and Hairs (Mature Skin for female)
- Twitching Ears with 2 Positions and Type-turning
- Invisiprim Toggle + Viewer 2.0-friendly alpha skin
- Dual Colour Eyes (Set the colour, contrast, and glow)
- Set Eyeball Dilation
- Hoof Tintability
- 3 Eyebrow Expressions
- Muzzle Talking Function with a Manual Override
- Poseable Fingers (Dynamic Puppetteering hands)
- Programmable Poses
- Tail Twitching with On/Off Toggle
- Wings
- Unicorn Horn
| Measurement | Value |
|---|---|
| Script Time (With HUD) | Unknown / Unknown (Unable to acquire) |
| Script Time / Memory (without HUD) | Unknown /Unknown |
| Avatar Rendering Cost (Scale Here) | ~2100-2400 |
| Modify? | Yes |
| Copy? | Yes |
| Transferable? | No |
Build and Skin:
This avatar comes in a number of different skin styles, which include everything from appaloosa, roan, dapple, and so forth; many of the different colourations that those familiar with horses would be able to recognise. As such, the degree of texture complexity varies. In its most basic form, the avatar features gentle highlights and shadows to accent areas of the body like the abs, rump or the breasts. As usual, females get more emphasis on the chest while males have slightly more emphasis on the belly. More complex varieties of equine, like the Apaloosas or Dapples have a large degree of well-done spots over the body and over some of the attachments. The skins with darker base colours have a bit more detail on body areas than lighter skins, though. If one zooms their camera in, they’ll find the faintest texturing of thick fur.
Females also get a mature skin, while males do not. In this case, the nipples do not appear as much as stick-ons, since the edges have been blurred a good bit. Sculpt-wise, this avatar holds its own by maintaining the standard that Kinzart has set for itself. The sculpts are crisp and put together well, though occasionally you can see the unavoidable seams between prims next to one another. The more noticeable one is across the face, but the creator has managed to minimise its visual impact by ensuring the textures are continuous over the crease.
We’ll also take a minute to mention the creator has decided that a horse avatar should reflect its real-world counterparts; large and thick. To achieve this look, the included shapes for the avatar are rather tall and thick rather than lithe. As such, the attachments all follow suit in reflecting this size.
We should also point out that this avatar comes in two forms; Normal, and Clydesdale. The Normal horse is a little bit smaller, and features thinner attachments. The Clydesdale, however, comes with a larger shape, and thus, larger and thicker attachments. For Clydesdale users, there is even the addition of the fluffy fur on the wrists and just above the hoof which the ‘Normal’ variety of horse does not have. The photo above shows the difference between the Normal Equine (Right), and the Clydesdale variety (Left).
Attachments:
To support such a large equine, then, the avatar includes the unguligrade leg structure, with a very well-made hoof at the end. The hooves look used and slightly scuffed, but with a simple horse-shoe included on the underside. Some may find the horse-shoe too simple (it’s a cut cylinder), but they can very easily change it for a new one. By default, the avatar now comes Viewer 2.x compliant, meaning that alpha layers are worn as a default, and the invisiprims are turned off. For those who do not have the ability to view alpha skin layers, they can turn the invisiprims back on with the HUD.
Click Here to View the Mature Female Skin. *WARNING* The Picture under this link is rated MATURE.
The leg attachments themselves are thick and strong-looking; fitting the extra-tall shape of the equine very well. Aside from looking the part of an anthropomorphic horse’s leg, the textures on the legs are some of the strongest you’ll find of all the attachments.
The tail is typical of a horse’s; made up of a number of flexible prims with semi-transparent textures. The movement is fluid and horse-like, flicking from side to side at random.
The hand attachments included are much the same as the hand-attachments featured on recent Kinzart avatars, but obviously with modifications to reflect the fact that this is an equine anthromorph. As such, there are no paw-pads, but each of the finger-digits have been replaced with single thick nails which mimic the foot-hooves.
The last pair of attachments we’ll talk about on the body are those of the wings. Regardless of what colour the user purchases, the wings will always be snow white, with sculpted feathers jutting out from between the shoulders of the avatar. There’s no animation overrider for this avatar, but when the user does enter flight, the wings unfold and stretch out to their full span. When the user comes back to the ground, the wings fold back again. Using the HUD, users can easily go back and forth between states, or let it switch automatically. Studio Photos of the avatar with wings are found under the “Customisation” heading later in the review.
Head:
The head for this avatar is an interesting one. First of all, the size of the muzzle relative to the head is rather large, as is the head itself. This has created a very equine-looking face; very close to a feral head as opposed to a more anthropormorphicised one with a smaller muzzle. The size of the head as a whole is large too, in order to fit the frame of the body. Some avid horse fans I have discussed the avatar have felt that the eyes were too small for this avatar. Other peers have made mention of their feelings on the head-shape being overly rounded, especially when shrinks the body shape.
The muzzle was well designed, and the mouth mimics a horse’s pretty well, complete with simple herbivore-type teeth, and thick lips. The eyes are another focal point to the avatar; expressive and befitting of an equine. For the first time with a KZK avatar, users are able to set the dilation of the pupil, which means that one can play around a bit with how much iris is shown. The addition of angry and sad eyebrow expressions also ups the amount of customisation users can apply to the face.
The textures on the head are among the strongest on the avatar, especially when it comes to the different facial markings and types we find from the different breeds of horse. Users also get a glowing, sculpted unicorn horn and two different mane-types. The horn itself offers a modest touch, while the manes themselves aren’t quite up to the same quality-level as the avatar itself. While Kinzart usually does very fitting hair for its avatars, the manes included with this avatar are not among the best hairs we’ve seen from them. The ears, however are positioned perfectly and reflect equine ears very nicely.
As a whole, then, the head is very horselike and very well made, but the head size and dimensions make the head look slightly bobble-headed depending on the angle you view it from. Additionally, since the head points towards a slightly more realistic build rather than a cartoony one, the connection between the head and the neck is slightly less fluid thanks to the head shape. These issues may turn off some buyers, but attract others. This is more a matter of opinion than anything else, but experienced modders will find that shrinking the head wouldn’t be very difficult.
Features and Heads-Up Display:
The avatar is completely controlled by its HUD. However, there are also the text commands offered in the included notecard. A photo of the HUD follows. The HUD itself is user-friendly, and features a coloured sketch of a horse’s face.
Customisation:
The avatar is readily customisable, with both copiable and modifiable permissions. With the wings and the unicorn horn, as well as the many different textures that make up the different breeds of horse, users can make a competent horse, pegasus, and unicorn out of one of these avatars. Users who wish to modify their body shape to something smaller need to make sure that they resize the other attachments like the legs, arms, etc.
The head-size, as we mentioned earlier might be an issue when applying third-party hairs, but resizing the head, or alternatively, just the hair should manage to get you a good fit.
Conclusion:
The Kinzart Equine is a competent horse avatar that reflects the qualities of a real-world horse without much difficulty. While we have mentioned the head-size as an issue, the head still performs as a good choice for a horse-lover. All things considered, the avatar does come across as horse-like in its girth while maintaining a touch of equine finesse. We especially do appreciate the work of the creator to make this avatar reflect raw power and the stamina of a horse within an anthropomorphic, bipedal avatar.
