Released just in time for the Rocket City Dragon Festival, the Tokushi Dragonet follows the example of other unique species creations that the creators have put together. In short, this avatar attempts to take traits of Orca/Killer Whales and Penguins, then blend them together with the essence of a dragon.

Out of the Box:

Build and Skin:

This avatar is remarkably short and pudgy as a species, the stature obviously adapted from that of a penguin. The skin is relatively simple, most of the colours remaining true to the typical black and white of orcas and penguins alike. Given that the avatar is mostly the darkest black and the lightest white available, considerable highlighting and shading over the body was needed, and has indeed been employed to give the avatar shape and depth. While users will get a little splash of colour on the front of the avatar just under the armpits, the most artistically detailed part of the body is the head. As usual, the unisex skin that Tokushi provides doubles well for both the male and female shapes that come default with the avatar. Users who buy the alternative colours are treated to the same mostly-black avatar, but with a tint to areas like the belly, webbing, and ear-fins.

The feet on this avatar are structured for swimming, a kind of draconic 3-toed foot with socketed claws. There is not a huge amount of detail for the feet in terms of textures, save for the claws themselves. The feet have been well made and constructed, taking on an interesting construction from the heel upwards. As you can see in the pictures, the arch rises upwards off the ground until it meets the digitigrade leg. Overall, the shape of the lower leg and foot looks aesthetic, smooth and organic despite being textured in a dark colour. The back of the digitigrade legs also include a webbed fin with 3 blades. It is here that we see that fins will be a huge theme for this avatar.

Tokushi also uses the thigh/haunch prims we had seen them use before on their Sugar Glider avatar. These give the avatar a more animal-like stance suited to the wearing of the digitigrade legs. Additionally, as the avatar is on the fatty side, it serves to make the overall image appear stout and chubby; all the more penguin-like. The textures here are reflective of the rest of the body, smooth and with a little bit of highlights and shine.

The tail borrows much from Orca anatomy; starting off thick at the base before tapering off with 2 large flukes at the end. The textures stand out on this appendage because the top side is highlighted with an almost squeaky shine leading up to the tip of the tail. Also, the flukes are smoothly contoured, symmetrical and wide. A common attribute across the whole of the avatar is a little spotty mottling on the top surface of the tail. On the underside, one will see the tail-tip and the fluke bottom to have a white (or alternate base-colour) patch. Like the digi legs, there is a fin near the base of the tail which adds a little extra decoration.

Between the shoulders is a lone Orca-like fin which, with subtle texturing stands out on its own as a distinct body part no matter which angle that you look at the avatar. It is through the ample texturing which, for example prevents the fin from looking like it disappears between the shoulders.

Before discussing the head, we still have the hands to discuss. This avatar has the usual Tokushi fare hands; a 4-digit hand, but with stubby digits. These fingers are not poseable, but that isn’t a necessity. Like the feet, the hands also feature webbing in-between digits. Just above the hands there are simple fins like we see elsewhere on the body. One criticism that could apply on the arm as a whole is that this avatar is of a very small shape, and the hand-attachments are a slight bit large for the avatar’s size. Either smaller hands or a transition prim to smoothen the visual transition from hand to arm would have helped.

Finally, the head. Tokushi has been the most creative here, stressing draconic features the most. It is difficult to argue which part of the face stands out the most between the beak-muzzle, eyes, or the ear-fins. We’ll start with the beak-muzzle. We term it a beak-muzzle because it seems to be a mix of a dragon’s snout and that of a hard avian muzzle. While short and stout, the end of the muzzle looks like a shapely beak with a sharp curve at the tip. The bottom jaw follows suit with a normal-looking jaw and a beak-like end.  The interior of the mouth is filled with sharp teeth and a decent tongue which moves around when the user is typing or using voice-chat. Users can also choose whether to stick out the slightly slitted tongue in or out manually. In all, at default, the face seems set in an innocent grin. Users can choose to stay with the default, or make the grin wider or utilise a frown.

The eyes are another big part of the avatar. Large and oval-shaped, they have been textured to be expressive and captivating. Additionally, the textures over the eyeballs make them look wet and organic. While this method has been used across Tokushi avatars for a long time, it would seem they have taken eye-textures to a new level that is unique to themselves. Users can choose from a variety of eye colours and swap between different eye-lid states and eyebrow expressions. For accent, a little design of colour sits rear the eye, giving the face a little more decoration alongside the colour patches to the cheeks and sides of the beak-muzzle.

Horns and fins find themselves on this head as well, both pointing straight back away from the rear of the head. The fins on the back of the head are the largest that we have seen anywhere on the body. As well, the horns themselves are simple in design, yet textured with detail. The head comes together very well in all of these respects and could be worn as it is even without the ears.

But the ears and the fins attached to the head are a huge part of this avatar. Sloping back away from the head, the ears are mostly black with the secondary colour on the interior of the ear. The appearance and shape of the ears looks stiff enough to hold the fin membrane in place, covered with the same type of skin found over the rest of the body. The tips of the ears have fins at the very end,  circling around the edge with spokes and webbing between the spokes. Like the rest of the body’s fins, Tokushi has used sculpted prims with semi-transparent textures instead of flat, semi-transparent prims. The result has been more realistic curves and contours to body parts in all of the fins.

Features and Heads-Up Display (HUD):

The features for this avatar are controlled by the HUD and through commands. The HUD for this avatar is among one of the best that we have seen from Tokushi in terms of art and design. The HUD functions are as follows:

• Ears: Up/Down/Midway, Toggle Ear Twitching
• Eyes: Individual Eye Texture Selection, Zero-Eye-Rotation, Toggle Blink, Toggle Automatic Eye movement, Pupil Size +/-, Manual Eye Rotation Setting, Eyelid State
• Face: Angry, Normal, Surprised
• Mouth: Idle/Smile/Frown, Muzzle Talking Function On/Off, Tongue In/Out, Mout Open/Closed

The avatar also comes with the now-standard burlap-like Tokushi hoodie with their logo on it. Also included is a ‘feesh’ that the user can choose to wear in their mouth for fun.

Customisation:

This avatar is copiable and modifiable, so there is no real difficulty in getting the avatar to look like how the user might wish it to. However, if the user wishes to wear clothing layers, some modification will be needed as this is a compact and uniquely made avatar. The biggest difficulty will be in wearing any kind of clothing (like trousers) because the entire leg structure is made of prims. People with at least a mid-level experience of modifying avatars can attempt to add third-party hairs or clothing.

Conclusion:

The Tokushi Dragonet is a unique avatar that acts as an entertaining conversation piece and new look for the wearer. Suffice to say, like the Kl’erin or the Qwhilla, there isn’t likely to be much that looks too altogether similar to this avatar. It takes a good bit of work to bring influence from separate species together into one avatar, and it would seem that the Dragonet has done well at achieving this.