The Wild Fox and Wild Wolf are two of the more recent feral avatars by WereHouse, a somewhat updated version of the older Fox and Wolf quads and a middle-sized alternative to the Dire and Critter versions. As they are essentially the same avatar, with some basic species variations, we will be reviewing them both in this single review.

Before we start the review, an apology.

This avatar was given us to review several months ago while I was going through a transition period in my life. It was accidentally neglected until recently, (though Blau was VERY prompt with her review). Before we get to the review, I would like to extend my most sincere apologies to Jakkal Dingo and the staff of the Werehouse Avatars company for any offense or hurt feelings that have occured from the delay in getting this review published. This hasn’t been the first time this has happened, and I really do hate it when it does. I will be making changes to our review process to ensure quick reviews, no matter what. Thank you, and enjoy the review!

-Forepawz Golem

Out of the Box:

Skin and Textures

As with most quadruped avatars, these two are fully prim / sculpted avatars, with no actual avatar mesh showing. Therefore, there is no skin to speak of. The textures are very realistic in regards to the fur, and only have a few places where the tones of the fur don’t match up (the neck and back of the fox, for example). Each avatar comes with four default ‘natural’ colorations and two empty custom slots to save custom texture packs. (That’ll be explained further in the Customization section.)

Overall Build

On the whole, the avatars’ sculpts and attachments are of good quality. There are no places where wrinkling is obvious or where the sculpted prims glitch over each other. Sometimes  the flexible prims clip over one another, like on the neck, but that’s normal when flexible prims with alpha textures are in close proximity to one another.

In-Depth Body

As we’re reviewing two separate avatars here, we’ll format this part of the review like so: First, we’ll do an in-depth review of both avatars, and then an overview of each where they differ.

So, without further ado, on to the general review.

Let us begin this review with the paws. These paws – forepaws and rear paws – are modeled after their real-life counterparts, and the result is a close-to-real paw style, complete with fur overhanging the nails. The pawpad texture is believable – not too rough, not too shiny, not too matte – as are the claws.

Both avatars have dewclaws and an upper pad on the forelegs, purely for decoration. The dewclaws are styled exactly like the normal claws, with the only real difference being its size. In this general area on the rear legs and on the upper legs are decorative fluffs of non-flexi fur.
It’s worth noting that the avatars are digitigrade, and due to the avatar mesh only having three joints to work with, the creator has opted to let the foot paw move and keep the hock stationary. Basically, it’s  the same leg style as an anthro avatar with digitigrade leg attachments.

Both avatars have two tail styles, switchable via the HUD – flexible and solid. They behave essentially the same – wagging, up/normal/down toggle, etc – and, since they’re both attached at the same time, which one you choose doesn’t affect ARC very much.
The flexible tail is well-behaved, with little alpha clipping occurring at any given time, aside from with the alpha fluff on the legs.
The solid tail is, as one might guess, made of solid prims, aside from an alpha prim on the very tip. This poofs out from the solid tail a bit and looks slightly odd when viewed from the tip forward, since you can see the solid tail’s end and the edges of the fluff floating around it.

There’s nothing overly notable about the main body itself, aside from the fluff on the chest. Everything fits together as it should, and doesn’t pop out of place when moving. The neck is made up mostly of alpha flexible prims, which can cause a fair bit of alpha clipping as the prims move. This is to be expected, though, so it’s not too terrible of a problem. The flexible fur makes a great accent to the otherwise stationary-furred avatar.

In-Depth Head

The avatar’s ears are, by default, twitchy. This can be turned off via the HUD, and they can be positioned up/down independently via the main HUD menu. They appear to attach well to the head of the avatar, with the only awkward sticking-out of part of the ear occurring occasionally when the ears twitch all the way back.

Around the cheeks of the avatar are fluffy sculpted prims, made to look like cheek fluff. When viewed head-on, this fluff looks nice, but when viewed from the side, it looks a bit ‘sharp-edged’ and doesn’t cover the rest of the avatar’s cheeks back to the neck.

There are two eye styles – fixed and moving. Fixed eyes come linked to the head and do not move. This frees up the eye attachment slots, if you need them for something else. Moving eyes are separate from the head and, as the name suggests, follow your mouse movements. These do take up the two eye slots, though. Make sure you’re not wearing both heads, as that can cause some awkward four-eyes moments!
The eyes are styled to have no whites – some may recognize this style as the ‘feral’ eye style from some anthro avatars. The eye color is changeable via the HUD, with three options – pupil, outer color, and inner color. The eyes can be colored independently, if you wish.

The muzzle is long and canine, with solid whiskers decorating the tip, organized like they would be on a real animal. When the user changes the avatar’s emotion, though, the whiskers can come out of place and look a little odd – a little high or a little low. Sometimes they even float in the air.
The muzzle’s expression is changeable via the HUD. Some of the expressions, like the ‘big grin’ face, can look a little scary when viewed from the side because of where the ‘smile’ corners end on the mouth line. The mouth itself is well-textured, with realistic and proper dentition and an animated tongue (see the ‘pant’ facial expression!).
The mouth’s openness, the tongue’s state, and the muzzle’s emotion are not separately controllable – the only way to change them is via the pre-set emotions on the HUD.

FOX SPECIFICS

The fox, compared to the wolf, is smaller and more lightly built. The head and muzzle are smaller and narrower than the wolf’s as well, but the muzzle is still a little longer as well. The paws are also smaller and more delicate-looking than the wolf’s more powerful paws.
The fox has two animations all to its own: Squall and Pounce. Squall has the fox let out a ‘squalling’ call, and Pounce lets the fox do its signature jump-and-dive hunting pounce.

WOLF SPECIFICS

The wolf is much larger and more strongly built than the fox. The muzzle is thicker, but close to the same length as the fox muzzle. The tail is also smaller than the fox’s fluffy tail.
The wolf has its own two animations: Howl and Submit. Howl lets out a very wolfy (and good quality, might I add) howl, with an animation to match. Submit makes your wolf cower and roll onto his or her side to display submission towards a dominant entity.

Features and Heads-Up Display (HUD):

Both avatars come with a near-identical HUD. Everything controlled in the HUD can be triggered via text command as well, as outlined in the information notecard.

The HUD contains your AO. You can’t remove the HUD because of this, unfortunately. It does collapse into a smaller size that you can scoot to the side of your screen, should you wish. Clicking the first button gives you an information notecard and a landmark to the Werehouse main store. The second button turns your AO on and off. The third resets your AO (good if something glitched). The fourth opens up the main menu.

From that menu, you can choose your avatar’s facial expression, ear state, tail wag speed, tail up/down toggle, or proceed to the other three menus: Animations (full body animations), Colorizer (customize your avatar), and Settings (control particles, tail solid/flexi, sounds, etc).

As you may recall, the avatar comes with two custom texture slots. However, if you’re into collecting mod packs for your avatars, this may not be enough space. The creator has kept this in mind and included a texture multipacker for users interested in keeping more than two custom texture packs at their disposal.
Basically, you can store third-party texture packs in this multipacker, and then easily load them into the HUD for use. When you’re done and want to load another in, just use the multipacker once more to switch out the texture packs. More detailed instructions are included with the avatar.

The avatar also comes with an update disc. To use, simply rez and click. If an update is available, it’ll be delivered to you at no cost.

Customization

This avatar does not come in different color schemes as most other avatars do. You get one avatar and you can then customize it to your heart’s content using the HUD and third-party texture packs. The creator has done their best to make customization easy for the average user.
There are still some things that require more advanced skills to do, such as making your avatar larger or smaller or recoloring specific prims rather than an entire section of the avatar. If you need something like that done but aren’t able to, find a friend to help you.

Conclusion

The Werehouse has come a long way with their avatars, and this pair of wild quadrupeds is a great example of the progress made over the years. Well-sculpted, well-textured, and easily customized, these are a great option for those of us considering a new feral fox or wolf.