See More Avatars from: Mutation Industries

18 Aug 09 | List Price: L$

Fresh off the heels of their Fox release, Mutation Industries introduces their interpretation of yet another creature. This time, however, the legendary horned equine is not all rainbows, hearts and wishes, and maybe not all that equine.

Out of the Box:

• Tongue Toggle
• 5 Jaw States
• Moving Jaw with moving lips
• 2 Ear States
• 4 Horn States
• 10 Facial Expressions
• 5 Eyelid States
• 13 Eye Colours
• Custom Fit Clothing for avatar
• Easter Eggs

Measurement	Value
Script Time with HUD	~0.22-0.43
Script Time without HUD	~0.1
Avatar Rendering Cost	~900-1061

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Build and Skin:

The skin for this avatar is less elaborate than the Mutation Industries Fox released just prior. That isn’t to say that the skin is flat, however. While simple, there has been an effort in shading over the body; particularly in the pecs, ribs, and shoulders. The actual skin has clean lines separating differently coloured areas of fur, with artsy square spots on the rump-cheeks and the arms. Complimenting the square spots are the pair of curving markings over the back. Something interesting about this avatar is that the quality of textures increases when moving from the skin to the attachments as one can see from the accompanying pictures. This directs attention away from the emancipated figure to the well crafted attachments.

The feet have nothing particularly spectacular about them, other than that they consist of very scuffed up hooves attached to a slightly dirty-looking foot. These attach to a thin digitigrade leg that makes its way towards the sculpted thighs. In all, this creates a unique look to the bottom half of the avatar that the ordinary body shape could not offer. The sculpted thigh attachments round out the upper legs and make the rear end more believable, both in shape and dimensions. The attachments actually have more depth in their textures, their shading and tone making them more organic.

I should mention that this avatar takes the notion of stylised sculpted fur a step further. On the feet and the digitigrade attachments there are gnarled patches of sculpt fur sticking out to serve as an accent. The tail is curled and thin, but the three patches of fur on it give it real character, each patch hanging limply towards the ground and covered with a dingy-furred colour.

The hands are among the most interesting that I’ve seen. They are a mix between hand a hoof,  but almost like mutated limbs where all the fingers have merged together and the nails extended into cloven hooves. Additionally, where one would expect a thumb is another digit of hoof. All in all, this is a curious, but not necessarily negative addition to the avatar that helps exemplify the style that makes Mutation Industries what it is.

The head is clearly the centerpiece to this avatar, with ruddy, yet glowy eyes partially hidden under clumped, limp hair and framed with dark black eyelids. Dark eyelids augment the numerous facial expressions because they frame already expressive eyes. The muzzle is seemingly in a middle line between a goat and that of a horse’s, though one would be more inclined to believe it is a goat’s muzzle, especially considering the shaggy billy-goat-like goatee. Otherwise, the sculpts are clean cut and textured well, with the same lines and squares as the body over the entire head.

By now, readers would wonder, how exactly could this be a unicorn when it looks more like a goat with a lion’s tail and a unicorn’s horn? After a little searching around for information, I found that some of the earliest and oldest renditions of unicorns were equines with cloven hooves, a billygoat goatee, and a lion’s tail. As such, this avatar perhaps remains truer to the original unicorns than the popular type envisioned in ‘Charlie the Unicorn.’

Regardless, the head is covered with limp clumps of hair that turn into a mane  in-between the shoulders. The ears themselves are long and tufted, though the right ear looks like it had a nasty bite on the side that took out two chunks of flesh. Last but not least, the horn remains one of the most interesting parts of the avatar. By default, users would wear the straight and perfect version of the horn, but it also comes as broken, bent, and even curved.

Heads-Up Display and Features:

There are 5 sub-menus that set options for the Ears, Horn, Jaw, Eyelids, Expressions, and Eye Colour. The submenus are very self-explanatory, so we’ll just go over the details that stand out. The Ear submenu toggles ear states (Up, Mid, and Down), while the Jaw menu allows users to set how wide the mouth is and toggle the long blue tongue that hangs out of the muzzle. Under eyelids, users can set how open the eyes are to enhance the accompanying facial expressions. Eye colour naturally allows people to choose from a number of pre-set eye colours.

The facial expressions are particularly notable. From the default ‘blank’ expression, there are numerous faces that the creature can make. These include Curiosity, Confusion, and Happiness to Sadness, Anger, and even Evil. These expressions make the avatar among one of the most animated and lively that we have reviewed.

Extras:

Like the Mutation Industries Fox, this avatar comes with an outfit of its own in the ‘Extras’ folder. The outfit includes a collar, a Mutation Industries Branded Hoodie, and a pair of trousers in two forms; As pants or as shorts.

Easter Eggs?

This avatar comes with a few Easter eggs that the user must put some thought into finding, or at least accidentally find when using the HUD. Without giving too much away, I’ll say that they include the arrows and some leaves.

Customisation:

The avatar is copiable and modifiable, so users can get a kick of fiddling with the bits and pieces of the avatar. The ears, hair, and horns are all linked to the head, however, so avatar tinklers will have to be mindful of that when trying to make changes. Making changes to the shape could be potentially troublesome as all the parts are designed and fitted to the avatar shape the avatar came in.

Conclusion:

With its goat-ish appearance and eccentric demeanour, the Mutation Industries Unicorn brings an entirely different view on the Unicorn into Second Life with a successful twist. The avatar is fun to wear and very expressive, though perhaps scary for a few people. This is an avatar that once again ventures into the realm of imagination and creativity, leading to an interesting result that is fun to wear.

This review was written by Forepawz - Contributor and Senior Editor | Filed under Avatar Reviews, Mutation Industries
Tagged equine, gallery, mi, Mutation Industries, unicorn.