You know, sometimes I wonder what it is about SL that gets me to play it. It’s buggy, laggy, and unstable. It’s hard to find people on and things to do. A pack of monkeys could design a better interface. Seriously, what is it about SL that’s so compelling?

This, friends, is why I play SL.

This is a heavily modified black Avarian Plains Dragon from Grendel’s Children.

Now, it will come as no surprise to regular readers that this is not how this avatar shipped. For some reference, here’s a demo video showcasing the capabilities of this line of avatars:

What I originally started with is a black plains dragon. Here’s a quick rundown of the modifications I’ve made so far:

- Horns swapped out for ones with the fancy bits you see in the picture. Those also came from Grendel’s. This entailed un-linking the original horns from the avatar, resizing (the fancy horns are originally sized for normal avatars) and positioning the new horns, and then linking them to the head (making sure to keep the head as the main prim, so as to not break any of the scripting).

- Collar (and shackles, but I’ll address that later) added. I used the collar from the Bondage Witch Project magic cuffs, since I thought that style would really go well with the avatar. In short, this entailed sizing, fitting, and linking to the neck so it is all one object. Sizing was rather simple, but the fitting took a while since the collar had to be smushed into more of an oval shape. Then I had to link it to the neck. The neck bit of the dragon is unscripted, so I didn’t have to worry about breaking things too much.

For scripting, I used Open Collar scripts. These are a set of full-perm collar scripts, and are really great, especially from a collar builder’s standpoint.

- Cuffs added, also from the BWP magic cuff set. These were pretty easy compared to the collar, since they didn’t really need to be fitted. Just resize and link. Unfortunately this broke the BWP scripting. I’m going to have another go at it to see if I can’t retain that.

- Muzzle made to fit the head. This one I’m probably the most proud of, since it’s entirely custom made by yours truly. I took the rune part off of the BWP cuffs, and put them on the muzzle so it would match the cuffs. To top it all off, I used a set of Real Restraint ballgag scripts.

Originally, I had attached the muzzle to the mouth slot, but ran into a hiccup. In some of the dragon poses, the head and jaw are scripted to move, and of course the muzzle isn’t. I solved this by attaching the muzzle to the jaw. This means that anything that moves the jaw will move the muzzle, but I shouldn’t be using any of those animations while muzzled anyway. :P

Above: pictures taken by Shuggi while leading me around Stonehaven.

There are still a few things I’d like to do with the avatar:

- Link the magic cuffs to the avatar so that it doesn’t break the BWP scripting. I really like how the runes change color depending on the lock status, and I’d really like to retain that.

- If possible, set it up so the runes on the muzzle and collar change color with the cuffs, while still keeping their respective Open Collar and Real Restraint scripting.

- Figure out a way to get big, hefty particle chains to link up the cuffs and collar.

Going back to my introduction, I don’t think there’s any other online setting where you can have this happen. Someone took the time to build an incredibly complex dragon avatar and starts selling it, I buy it, and can start tinkering with it and adding bits to it.

THAT is why I play SL.

Over and out;

- Vel