An incomplete guide to shopping for furry avatars
Preface: This is a video companion tutorial, and is basically just the script for the corresponding video. There’s a list of resources for things mentioned at the end.
Today’s subject will be something I've seen people ask about a lot: finding parts and putting together avatars. There’s a lot of tutorials out there for humans, but pretty much nothing for furries.
Furries have it special in that there’s a HUGE range of prices and investment to choose from, as in you can quite literally make a furry avatar with nothing OR go all in.
This tutorial will NOT cover putting avatars together, as that was covered in my very first newbie tutorial.
Also, I haven’t factored the prices of clothing, hair, animation overrides, etc. into the price -
I’ve sorted everything in tiers based on price, so let’s dive in with the first tier!
TIER 0 -
Ah yes, the only true place to start is rock bottom. Maybe you think spending money on microtransactions is stupid, or you don’t have a credit card or paypal. Any reason is valid and I salute you!
Unfortunately, your options aren’t… great. But you have some! And let’s look at them.
Most of the ‘true’ freebies are included in monochrome’s newbie furry kit notecard. Probably the most ‘up to date’ free furry avatar is TMG’s bladencat, which is fully bento and comes with multiple skins. HOWEVER, it is chibi style, and as such probably won’t be allowed in most adult sims. It’s also a game rip, so if you don’t like that, maybe look away?
I have a list of most of the free furry avatars catalogued on my website, feel free to take a look if you feel inclined! The link will be in the description.
TIER 0.5 -
Or as I like to call it, the ‘i had a friend who’s already on SL lend me a couple lindens to get started’ tier.
In my opinion it’s honestly not worth it to buy this little lindens, but you do you!
There’s two ways you could go about this -
Gacha avatars sell for criminally cheap, especially commons. Some more common commons can sell for as low as 15L$, and come fully bundled with a premade skin. Feral gacha avatars also come with their own AO’s.
Some good gacha avatars to start out with are the Cerberus chibis slash pupkin, or the Nutbusterz collection for feral avatars. There’s SO MANY gacha avatars that I can’t possibly list them all, so get useful with the marketplace search.
The more expensive option would be to buy only a furry head, which will cost you anywhere from 150 to 700 Lindens, depending on the make and model. This also depends on if they include a tail or ears, which you may need to buy separately -
To find a head, simply navigate to the ‘furry’ section of the marketplace (on the sidebar on the main page), then to avatar components, to cosmetic enhancements, and finally to heads. There’s a lot to choose from here! Make sure to read the description of what you’re buying carefully -
Now, most furry heads don’t come with skins, so you’ll have to get one. On a budget, this either means making a skin yourself, or again, relying on gacha mods. If buying a gacha mod, it’s best to buy the gacha first and THEN the head, so you’ll know what parts you need.
You could also search for free gifts, though they’re few and far between.
As for the body, you can use your default Linden body or any cheap or free body that utilizes BOM, or bakes on mesh. Examples of these are things like the Ruth or Roth bodies, or the free legacy body.
With that in mind, make sure the mod you’re buying supports BOM, otherwise it won’t work.
TIER 1 -
This is where things take a jump in quality. If you’re willing to invest some money, but not a lot, this is the tier for you.
Now, one of the biggest temptations for SL newbies will be to search ‘furry avatar’ or something similar and buy whatever shiny full avatar shows up (usually kemono). DO NOT DO THIS. Nowadays, modern furry avatars are made of parts, remember? Many of these full furry avatars are either old, or have very little clothing and mod support. Or they’re the kemono.
‘But Tewi, why do you have a hateon for the kemono?’
I don’t, it was actually the avatar I started with -
It’s just not the best choice for new furries these days.
The best body choice for new furries is probably the SUGARCULT Regalia (my beloved). It comes with 6 body types that fit the majority of mainstream body’s clothing, and built in furry feetpaws. At 1,500 Lindens, it’s a much more economical alternative to mainstream bodies.
The main draw of regalia is that you can’t use normal BOM mods with it, only specified Regalia mods, either applier or ‘BOMR’.
I won’t go over head shopping again, so I hope you remember all the from before. Generally, look for a mod first and THEN find the parts it requires instead of finding parts first and trying to find a mod that fits (unless you plan on making your own mod).
To find most premade furry mods, go to the furry section of the marketplace, then avatar components, then anthropomorphic skins.
TIER 2 -
This is where most furries are in SL. They use a mainstream body, along with their head and misc parts of choice.
A ‘mainstream’ body, in my words, is a body you’ll commonly see in the description of mesh clothing -
Examples of mainstream bodies are Maitreya, Legacy, Belleza, and Kupra (RIP Slink).
Despite how popular these are, they aren’t ideal for furries. You have to buy feetpaws separately, and they’re usually no mod, so you either have to mess with HUDs or BOM to make your own skin.
Luckily, there’s LOTS of BOM skins for these bodies out there -
TIER 3 -
I’m gonna be real, this is the standard price for human avatars -
Other notes
Now that we’ve found parts for an avatar, you’re gonna be thinking ‘wow… I’m naked’.
Not to fear!
If you don’t mind investing more money into your avatar, then go wild buying clothes and hair and whatnot -
The latter seems to be a good source of staying on top of sales, while the former is a master source of everything free.
Conclusion
In the end, I hope this helped ease SOME confusion when it comes to shopping for furry avatars. I can’t go as in-
Again, the first tutorial in this series is probably a good basis for how to put together avatars -
It all seems complicated at first, but once you get the hang of it, kinda makes sense?
Alright I’m done here I’m bad at conclusions.
