On May 26th in appreciation for their customers’ dedication, Tokushi temporarily released the normally 500L Armadillo avatar in the Tokushi Group as a notice. Having acquired this avatar, we post a little review on this unique animal.

Side Note:

This avatar is regularly 500L from the Tokushi Vendors. At the moment of writing this, the avatar is free. To get it, users need to join the Tokushi Avatars group and look under the Notices Tab for the free Armadillo.

Out of the Box:

• Animation Overrider
  • “Ball” State
  • “Roadkill” State
  • Sculpted spinal plating

Build and Skin:

This avatar is among the first, if not the first commercially available avatar from Tokushi. Dating back to Mid-2008, this avatar reflects the period of Second Life when new creators began to enter the field and take advantage of newer techniques in avatar construction. Given that the body shape is covered with sculpted body parts, the skin doesn’t need so much detail since not much of it would be seen. What is seen is mostly the chest region where there is soft, blurred impressions of skin.

Rather, the focus of the texturing lies on the body parts and the back plating. These textures are not as strong as on the newer Tokushi avatars, but one can see the origins of their texturing style on the armour shell. The style of armoured scutes continues to cover most of the avatar attachments, from the legs, tail, and arms, and have the most detail on the head. The hands and feet are notable for their gangly appearance, and being tipped with sharp-looking claws.

The head has a simple but effective design, with a muzzle that channels the look of an armadillo to a good extent. The armadillo has a prim that makes up the entire jaw and gives the muzzle a grin-like expression. This could have only been made better with the addition of a muzzle-talking function, but given the time it was created, this is not so much of an issue. Experienced users can easily modify the jaw to add the moving muzzle function. The eyes lack clarity in the texture, instead of a clear eyeball with pupils, the eye are a blurry brown-red mixture.

Heads-Up Display (HUD) and Features:

Equally important to the avatar’s design are the little features that have been included to further the experience of wearing it. The HUD is simplistic, though, like nearly all the Tokushi avs after it, the cartoon animal on the menu is sure to bring out a few smiles. Using the HUD allows the user to choose whether the eyes are open or closed, and toggle the blink. Additionally, the user can between the “Ball” and Roadkill” States.

These two states as shown in the accompanying pictures are nothing short of fun and easy conversation starters. The HUD also allows the user to manage the Animation Overrider that controls the animations. As such, a default standing animation is included in which keeps the giant claws against the sides of the body so that the arms don’t unrealistically go through the armour. Additionally, one can not only ball up, but if they run while the AO is on, they can roll around on the ground comically.

Customisation

Despite there not being many built-in customisation options, the avatar is easy to customise manually. As it comes Copy-Modifiable, one can easily modify the armour, among other parts of the avatar. Given how the jaw prim is a separate sculpt linked to the head prim, one can attempt to make the jaw its own seperate attachment, add teeth, and install their own talking jaw function.

Conclusion:

As mentioned, it really is an experience to be able to compare the works of a creator over time and watch their growth in style and form, whether the creator strives for ‘realism’ or works towards a ‘toon’ theme. Either way, the Armadillo avatar brings the unique animal to Second Life in a fun and effective way. If you do end up getting the avatar though, beware the Pick-Up trucks.