Tips for a Better SL Avatar!

Here are some tips to help you avoid common proportion mistakes and create a more attractive avatar!

One of the older starter avatars. The original is on the left. On the right is my altered version. The only things I changed were the shape and the skin, but what a difference that makes!

• Most avatars are HUGE but due to the slider limits it's easier to make an attractive human shape if you stick between 5' to 6'4".
• Measure your head w/ a prim then see how many "heads" tall you are! Should be 7.5 to 8 heads. More means your head is too small!
• Groin should be at half your body hight. 
• Hips are roughly as wide as chest. 
• Arm "wingspan" is about equal body height.

Here are free shapes to use as a better starting point:
http://tinyurl.com/pbyqktg
Here's a detailed look at proportions, shape making and the appearance editor:
http://tinyurl.com/3rq5uxq

On the left is the default shape that comes with the Aesthetic avatar. On the right is a shape made using the proportions guide linked above. You can see that it looks less goofy and a lot more human!

 If you're using a giant beast avatar (minotaurs, werewolves, trolls) reduce the size to about 7 to 8' to make it compatible with most furniture and animations even with human sized partners.

 It's generally a good idea to keep your draw weight as low as possible. "Draw weight" or "ARC" isn't a perfect means of knowing what avatars are difficult to render, since it doesn't account for everything that results in a laggy avatar, so basically a low ARC doesn't always mean your avatar isn't laggy, but if your ARC is high then that is definitely bad.