Snow leopards – more endearingly called snow mews – are gaining popularity in the fandom as of late. In this review, we’ll take a look at one of the newest additions to the ‘mew’ family, the sweetly-colored Raawr Snow Mews.
Out of the Box:
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Observations:
Skins and Textures
Most of the available colors for the Snow Mew are pastel or bright colors, like sky blue and lime, with a few more neutral and natural tones, like silver and cream. Aside from the two black options, there are no dark or dull colors available at this time.
As such, the shading for the skins and textures on its own is very light, hardly visible. However, the natural SL light brings out the shading, making it ‘pop’ out visually. Four skins are included with this avatar – male and female, with mature and PG versions of each. The gender-specific shading (abs, breasts, etc) are somewhat muted, as if hidden under the fur.
WARNING: Link is Rated Mature. Click to see Mature Skins.
The textures on the prims have similar shading to the skin, but the shading here is more visible. The textures line up very well prim-to-prim and prim-to-skin, with no glaring texture mismatches.
The shapes, according to the vendor picture, are similar in size. In reality, the female is larger and more built than the male. This may make adjustments necessary for those who wish to be larger, more muscular males or smaller, more dainty females.
Note: There are, at the time of this review, four colors that have a white muzzle version. These colors are identical to their colored muzzle counterparts aside from the removal of color from the muzzle, a more leopard-like pattern.
Overall Build:
The avatar is largely sculpted. For a creator new to the market, these sculpts are extremely well done – they flow together, usually don’t clip, have no wrinkles, and are textured smoothly.
There are a few spots where the prims do clip a little due to positioning, most noticeably on the footpaws, but that won’t take any points away to the sculpt quality of the avatar on the whole. Very good work.
In-Depth Body Summary:
As always, let us begin our in-depth review with the feet. The pads are a desaturated color, fitting the muted palette of the rest of the avatar. The toes have the same texture as the main paw pad, making them look somewhat wrinkled. There is a small amount of texture clip on the inner side of the paws, but this is not noticeable unless looked directly at. The ankles are a little awkward, suddenly tapering off into a narrow point to attach to the legs.
The legs are slender, with a low hock and long shin. The mesh legs and feet are covered by an alpha layer, eliminating the need for bulky and unsightly invisible prims. The texture seam can be seen along the backside of the legs, but, again, this is not easily noticed unless looked directly at, and the markings do match up rather well. The knees flow very well together, with no alpha layer peeking up over the pri legs.
The tail is very snow mew-ish – it’s long, thick, and flexible, giving it a very fluffy and huggable appearance. The HUD allows the user to adjust the gravity on the tail, making it stiff, light, weightless, or anti-gravity, via a slider. The tail also has an on/off tail twitch feature, which is on by default. Because the tail prims have alpha layers, they will clip though other alpha layers from time to time – again, this is a SL glitch, and for the most part cannot be helped. The tail also has a chatty menu, accessed by clicking the tail and selecting an option. The menu is clean, with some silly chat responses. These responses can be changed by editing the “_clicky” notecard in the tail.
The handpaws do show that they are sculpted – the edges between the fingers and wrists are very defined, making them look somewhat mannequinlike. The pads on the hands match those of the feet, but instead of the main pad texture used on the fingertips, there is another, smoother texture used.
The feet and hands both have retractable claws, controllable via the HUD, through a slider.
In-Depth Head Summary:
On the whole, the head is very smooth and catlike, possibly one of the best cat-style heads I have personally seen. The markings are true to the species, with no circle-style marks on the face, just stripes and spots. The textures all match up very well on the head, especially around the jaw, even when talking.
The nose is not a separate prim; rather, it is textured onto the main muzzle prim (which stretches from the muzzle itself all the way around the back of the head). The fur/flesh edge on the top of the nose is nicely defined, looking very much like what would be found on a real cat. The nose itself is the same tone as the pawpads, a little rough-textured, and a little dirty looking. (Where were you snooping, kitty?)
The ears are small and have the correct leopard markings – solid black with a spot on the back. As with the tail, they have an on/off twitch feature, controlled from the HUD, in addition to voice and type reaction toggles and several emotions (up, down, etc).
The eyes are free-moving, attached to the mesh eyes. They have many features, all controllable via the HUD – eye color (left, right, or both), eye dilation, round/slit pupil, glow, and brow expressions. The eyes themselves are very lively and colorful, and when the slit eye is chosen, they look very catlike.
Finally, the hair. There is one unisex hair attachment included with the mew, and the colors are the same across all variations – mainly white, with black and pink highlights. The hair fits both genders well, and is tintable.
Features and Heads-Up Display (HUD):
The avatar includes two physics layers – both adjusting breast bounciness. Please make sure your viewer supports physics layers, because if it does not, trying to wear them will cause problems.
The HUD is very neat, with everything organized into tidy tabs – eyes, ears, mouth, tail, and claws. Each of these tabs has, as one may guess, options for customizing or controlling the selected body part (twitchy tail, tongue expression, claw retraction, etc).
The HUD does have a tendency to scramble itself upon wearing. To fix this, just click a tab at the top. This is by no means a fatal error, just a script glitch.
Customization
The head is shaped very similarly to a human head, so fitting third-party hair should not be a problem. As always, try to purchase a demo first, or at least, find a modifiable version of the hair you’d like, just in case it doesn’t fit or needs adjusting beyond simply resizing.
It’s not advisable to resize the paws, as this may break the claw retraction feature. If you must resize the paws, do so with caution and keep a back-up in case something happens.
Conclusion
Snow mews are becoming quite popular both in Second Life and elsewhere, possibly due to the general love of fluffy big kitty cats, or possibly due to the beauty of the snow leopard itself. Regardless of the reason, this avatar is a great addition to the quickly growing ‘leap’ of snow mews throughout the grid.
