Kinzart Kreetures has established itself as another unique player in the avatar market with their assortment of Theiss, Tiger, and Wolf avatars. In this review, we cover the strengths and weaknesses of this wolf avatar. Kinzart will no doubt be added to the creators to keep an eye out for in 2009.

Out of the Box

• Dynamic Eyes with 5 blink settings
• Innovative EyeColor HUD that incorporates the NexUI MonoTOUCH system, providing 16777216 color possibilities.
• Tintable male and female hair
• Scripted ears with settings
• Scripted tail with settings
• Toned male and female skins; female skins come in both PG and mature versions
• Tintable, removable tattoos
• HUD interface that tucks neatly out of the way on your screen
• FREE updates

Build and Skin

Kinzart Kreatures has made a complete wolf avatar from the ground up. Starting with the textures, the skins are well done, especially considering how the avatar includes both female and male skins. Additionally, for females, it offers a mature skin with female genitalia and nipples included. The skins are well done, with good colour schemes, including a Timberwolf variation that may not be the most realistic in terms of colour tone, but manages to look rather presentable. On a side note, however, some of the lighter skin tones may look slightly washed-out and less clear-cut than their darker variations, (e.g. light grey vs. dark grey).

The fur lines are distinct and emulate soft fur well. While still looking at details, one could note that the male skin comes with very, very sculpted abs and chest so the wearer looks very fit. If one wants to go for a lanky build, they may have to wear the PG female skin or somehow get the abs toned down. The texture quality does not decline once you move from skin to the attachments, so one can expect a continuity from head to toe.

Moving to the feet, the avatar comes with well designed wolf paws and digitigrade legs; they’re textured well and help to round out the avatar. The avatar also includes sculpted hand-paw attachments. In principle, these are well done, but a slight bit large for the avatar unless one is going to have a large shape. Like a few other avatar creators, the hands come with different settings, ranging from Flipping the Bird (The Middle Finger Insult), to fists, or just relaxed.  These do not use any invisiprims, which means there’s no ‘see-through-the-body’ effects, but also means that every now and then, the hands underneath will peek through.

Finally, we reach the head. From the start, the head is mostly sculpted; straight from the detailed uvula in the back of the throat of the avatar, to the interesting usage of sculpt texture cycling for blinking. Starting with the muzzle, it’s easily recognizable as belonging to a wolf, both from the outside and when one notices the many sharp teeth inside when the jaws open. The interior of the mouth is another notable point, especially the uvula (which may be a slight bit too large physiologically and can’t be seen unless one looks inside the mouth; but a cute detail).

Next is the headprim that houses the eyes. Some peers of mine had suggested that the head looked more akin to a fox’s rather than a wolf’s, but that is really a matter of personal opinion left to subjective debate. For others, the avatar may seem a little scowl-ish and look grumpy. If this may be an issue for someone, they should note that there are no ways to change the mouth expression, without one manually changing it themselves. Again, this is a matter of personal preference.

The eyes are attached to the eyes-attachment points under the head, allowing for free movement of the eyes. The eyes are covered with 2 semi-transparent prims which allow for more organic-looking eyes but open a door for transparency flicker if one wishes to use their own semi-transparent hair or even glasses. Finally, a note deserving of mention is the fact that the avatar comes with two hairs. Males receive a modern-type haircut that looks good right out of the box; and the females receiving an extra-long ponytail.

Heads Up Display (HUD)

The HUDs are really nothing exceptional (other than a good appearance), but wholly functional. The avatar comes with two different HUDs, one for general apperance options, the other for eye choice. The General HUD offers the user the ability to change eye expression (open, closed, squint, etc.), modify tail-wagging options, decide whether they want the ears to twitch, or whether they want them up or down. Finally, one can change the setting of the hands. The eye colour HUD offers the ability to choose colours based on a gradient as seen in the accompanying picture.

Customisation

As a whole, the entire head is well done; though one issue that could possibly arise is the fact that the shape of the head includes a somewhat prominant brow-ridge which may make it difficult to place human-type hair onto the head. Other than that, this avatar is completely modifiable; one can easily change the size of the irises of the eye to personal preferences, for example.

Conclusion

The avatar conveys itself as a well-rounded wolf avatar. The sculpts and textures are well done, no doubt, so the only real issue of contention could be whether one likes the overall image the avatar gives or not. For our first Kinzart Kreetures review, we are impressed.