All UR Cuteness R Belong 2 Me (Petite Avatar Roundup)
“What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
Lately in SL I have been *loving* the new Petite Avatars from Yabusaka Loon. I know that I’m generally a cynical wench, but !zomg! the cuteness — it burns.
The promotional materials say that the avatar is 1/3 the size of an average avatar, but given that everyone in SL walks around pretending they are 8′ tall, the Petites really come off as smaller. In my Petite I am roughly the size of the bar taps at my new build (pay no attention to the supernova going on in the background, selecting Windlight settings still confuses me).
There are a growing number of small mesh avatars available on the market using any number of keywords like Mini, Micro, etc, but right now my preference leans toward the Petites from Yabu because there is an active community surrounding them and an ever-increasing range of products for them. Yabu’s are a little pricy (roughly L$1400 for the base avatar which comes with an outfit — BUT NO HAIR — with another L$300 for the human head add-on if you don’t want big elf ears) but there’s no question of the quality of the product. It’s also mod and created to accept the same template all SL skins use. So if you are handy in PS/GIMP and have access to Eloh Eliot or other skin files, you can customize your avatar. Yabu also makes mesh clothing templates available for free so that clothing designers can use the same textures they’ve uploaded for full-size clothing to offer as petite clothing. So if you’re like me you can throw a template at your favorite designer and annoy them until they give you your favorite outfit.
Not that I would ever do that.
In addition to the Petalwing lingerie from Solange that I’m wearing in the beer tap photo, there are designers like *G Field*, RFYRE, and Evie’s Closet making goth, fantasy and casual wear. Wasabi Pills has Petite-sized mesh hair and there are accessories like eyes, wings, and even armor. (You can shrink down a lot of non-mesh hair, but more on that later).
On my Seven Veils Sim, my new shopping center build, The Promenade hasn’t officially launched yet, but my friends and I have been inspired to release our own Petite stuff. Sax has scaled down his darling Harmony and Drop Stone necklaces and his naughty Nip Chains for Petites (full size avatars can find them at his Frills shop):
The Script Shanty has put out a Petite version of the particle play magic wand:
And I’ve even gotten into the act with a little Fallen Log Fairy Home and Pose Set:
I’m not sure why the Petites don’t bother me the way the full sized dolls did. I suppose the Petite avatars are obviously a playful costume to romp around in while the full size mesh dolls feel more like a first step onto the road to homogenizing the grid (the standard sizing movement behind mesh clothing is already walking that uneasy line between necessity and one size fits all blah). I’m hoping Doll Coco will hop onto the trend. I would enjoy flittering about in COCO offerings of different heads and clothing as a wee nibblet in ways I never would have enjoyed full scale. Anyone with influence please poke her about that, please.
There are some quirks worth mentioning. First, mesh attachments that aren’t sized for the Petite avatars aren’t going to work. Non-mesh attachments (like hair) can be scaled down, but might take a little trickery. I have a tutorial available for free, along with a help script at Sax’s Petites & Pets store. Additionally there are three problems that Petites encounter on a regular basis. I call them gunslinger arms, turtle eyes, and lewd pygmy.
Every so often the arms of Petite avatars go a little wonky and bend out from their bodies like they’re trying to quick draw. This can be easily fixed by going to Avatar > Avatar Health > Stop Avatar Animations. I’m not sure of the exact cause but I suspect that bending and twisting the default avatar down into a lewd little pygmy has something to do with it. Speaking of lewd pygmy, when you try to switch back to your full sized avatar from your Petite, your avatar will look a little something like this:
Inno, rite? Eww. Although I’ve gotten a few things claiming to fix this while still logged in, they haven’t worked for me and I find I have to relog to fix it. If you’ve relogged and you’re still all lewd pygmy, then you should do a character test (Develop > Avatar > Character Test > Test Female/Male) and then log in/out and put you regular avatar back on. This reminds me so much of the old SL bug where you’d TP somewhere and find all your attachments stacked up your bum.
Ahhh, memories.
Finally there is turtle eyes, where the eyes of your Petite hide in the shell of your head:
The solution here again seems to require just logging out and back in, but I’ve had to do that multiple times on occasion to get they eyes back to normal. Whatever you do, DO NOT try to pull the eyes out and adjust them. It’s not a pretty picture. You will be scarred for life.
Okay, that’s it for my Petite Avatar Round up. Go drink the Flavor Aid and get your tiny on, already.
Where Does She Get Those Wonderful Toys:
Petite Avatars and Many Outfits/Accessories Are Available At Petite Avatar Kingdom
http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/YABU/52/90/24
Sax Shepherd’s Necklaces, Naughty Nip Chains, & my Fallen Log Petite Fairy House @ Petites & Pets on the Promenade
http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Seven%20Veils/224/164/502
Petite Magic Wand @ The Script Shanty on the Promenade
http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Seven%20Veils/223/34/502
Petalwing Lingerie @ Solange
http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Dream%20On%20Bay/89/126/33










