Second Life has just released mesh starter avatars for new residents. I tried them and here's what they look like:
Alejandro
Alicia
Alison
Angus
Archer
Barry
Brandon
Delilah
Fabian
Hugo
Johnny
Julian
Lucy
Mariah
Marissa
Sara
Tristan
Curtis
Vanessa
Zoe
Vampire Beast
Werewolf Beast
Zombie Ian
Sadie
I must say that the humanoid avatars look really weird and totally unproportional. Just look at the huge hands on the female avatars e.g.
This again proves, that Linden Lab does not have an eye for any aesthetic or beauty or let me just say, no taste at all. I can understand that not everybody has an eye for "nice" things, but don't they have anyone responsible for art or a creative department or some sort?
Cuz if they hired a professional artist to create those mesh avatars, that professional should have great knowledge about body proportions right?
Anyway, on the other hand, this avoids LL competing with SL creators, which is a good thing. Obviously, newbies will sooner or later purchase better looking avatars, if they want individuality.
So all in all, the mesh avatars aren't that bad for starters. The only thing that I find really poor, is that all starter avatars set the standard of really tall female avatars, like all of them are more than 2 meters tall.
This is why a lot of giant female avatars walk the grid. I also realized how tall I was, perhaps a almost a year after I first joined SL.
I didn't know I was that tall, cuz I based my shape from the default library shape. I only felt gigantic, when I met oldie avatars back in the day. I wondered why most of them were so short. So I tweaked my height after having troubles of being always taller than male avatars, cuz it's height plus high heels, equals to super tall.
By SL setting this standard, we will always have gigantic avatars and huge furniture. Another problem will be, when newbies will have problems trying to figure out, which alpha they are suppose to use, cuz in the avatar folder, there are more than two alpha layers as a choice.
New residents will have to be educated about the differences between, system layers, prim, sculpts and mesh, and how to use and combine them.
I like the none-human avatars and mesh is definitely the future so... cheers!
