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(items in blue)
This avi is a rebuild of one of the Arena entries that has since somehow been vaporized, and as such I'm not sure it's 100% accurate. It's as close as I can make it with the exception of the eye item, which I switched to Shonen Prince Eyes (green) because I remember wanting to make this avi as green as possible but just not having any options that I liked at the time.
Other items include Kelp o' the Loch (black water horse's mane), Black Stripes Left Arm Tattoo, Ninja Sword (backmounted r), Ninja Sword (backmounted l), Spartan Spear, Summer Grass Field, Forest Green Wayfarer Bracers, Black Stripes Head Tattoo, Zebra Sukutai (Running), Black Stripes Torso Tattoo, Black Stripes Right Arm Tattoo, Bold Brows (Furrowed brow), Scars of a Corvus, Shin's Courage (Grin), and Greenleaf the Naturalist (butterflies).
I know it seems as though the obvious thing to do here would be to add the white body dye, but now as then I tried it and tried it and tried it, and it just doesn't work. The stripe tattoos are too light against such a stark backdrop, and it just makes the whole thing look weird.
This avi may well be the first avatar I ever made on this site that I really planned and really made an effort on. I had a couple earlier ones that never panned out exactly the way I wanted, but I remember being super pleased with this one and surprised by how enjoyable it was to make it all come together. It was inspired by the stripe tattoos, which I was going to do something with anyway, and then I found the zebra bottom and it all came together.
Some of these rebuilds I'm finding I HAVE to tweak, since I had so few items back then and a couple got reused way too often. Plus, back then on early Gaia everyone had a rough idea of what items were out there and what they were worth, so there was a bit of pressure to use something ~premium~ in every build so as to impress. Nowadays Gaia has so many items, and so many different poses within those items, that it really does free you up to do whatever. A few items are still iconic and recognizable, and it's clear with the Runway that they're trying to bring back some of that early recognition, but it's never going to be what it was.
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