How to become a tiny or a dinkie?

How to become a tiny or a dinkie?
Since I am posting a lot of pictures from tiny/dinkie events and some of their fashions, I thought I would get back to the basics and show you how one usually starts off.

The classic experience for a tiny is walking into the Wynx store and beholding the big wall of tinies. It is almost a sacred feeling to be picking your new you. But of course one can pick as many looks as one likes. The avatar comes with a basic Tinymatic ao, but you can buy a special 2,5 version with more features.

I really like CABS too for tinies. There is a lot of character in these avatars.

Dinkies are becoming more and more popular. Currently the originals are cats or bunnies. You can replace the head and tail, though. If you look in the picture above, you can see there is a fox in the vendor on blue background. That is the mod kit Tiny Inc has to help you make your own dinkie look. You could get a tiny avatar and use the head with the dinkie body, use a tail from a furry avatar maybe. There are endless possibilities.

Suzume Zuki has some mod looks for sale, too.

The most important thing to remember is that tinies use special poses and animations. They are made by folding up a regular avatar. So for example in a regular chair they look stretched and a regular avatar looks folded in a tiny chair. This is due to how tinies were made when it all started. Now we have more choices in how to do avatars. Older tinies are made of prims and sculpties, but CABS now does mesh ones, too.

Dinkies can use regular poses and are all mesh. They just might be at the wrong hover height because of avatar sizing. You should always try poses and animations, and anything using them, before you buy. Or use the adjust options that many products these days have. Dinkie designers of course make their items to work with dinkies in mind.

A lot of the times people want to decorate both for regular and for small avatars. There are ways to get around the pose and animation difference. You can get a Wynxlock for your tiny avatar. It keeps your tiny from stretching when using regular items. And many designers now take this issue into account and either sell separate tiny and dinkie versions of their items, or combine both in the same menu. Just make sure to pick the right set.

Get the Wynxlock  for free at the Raglan Shire welcome center, or ask someone for it, tinies are usually very happy to help. The welcome center has other useful and fun freebies, too, such as the low lag tinymatic ao, safety pin fp for clothing creators and a lot of gestures popular in the tiny community. Plus a ton of information. And the library is upstairs.

To buy animations and poses for tinies, some really nice dances for example, I recommend Abranimations. Many like the small avatar aos at Kuso (pictured) for dinkies, just try demos first. Kami-hitoe has many different ao's and animation sets, too. These are just to name a few places.

Clothing is avatar specific and you need to pick things that work with your avatar's body. Many people use the same avatar head with tiny and dinkie bodies, though, to get to use both types of items. Tinies look cute and round. Dinkies are a bit skinnier, with an adorable round belly. You can get fullperm dinkie fashion kits at Tiny Inc if you are a creator. Tiny clothes can be built with prims, sculpties and mesh. I recommend rezzing the tiny avatar pieces and using them to size your project.

I will blog more about the different tiny sims, my favorite fashions, decor, vehicles, buildings, tools etc later. But you should probably join Friends of Raglan Shire and Smalltalk groups to keep up to date with the tiny world. And if you like games, you can meet up with tinies, dinkies, hatchies and a lot of other types of avatars at the Isle of Wyrms game area.