For a while now, every new user gets to choose from a selection of avatars.

A while ago Ebbe Linden announced that these would be updated soon.

And just now I’ve learned that the first of these starter- or stock avatars has already been revealed… by none other that Ebbe himself!

Ladies and gentlemen, one of the new starter avatars as worn by our lovely model Ebbe Linden;

This is interesting news for more than one reason.

Not only is it nice to see more realistic and dare I say it, handsome avatars being given to new users who join SL.

But it is also interesting to note that this avatar is a lot closer to a more realistic scale (aka Prim Scale) than the previous ones.

It seems that the many topics about scale in SL by people as Penny Patton and myself may have gotten trough.

Either way, I think this avatar is a step forward and I can’t wait till the other avatars are announced,

However… there is of course a downside to this.

I think that mesh avatars are harder to customise and finding clothes for them that go with the mesh avatar may be trickier as well.

Especially if you’re new to SL, it can be quite frustrating to discover that the old types of clothing won’t fit and that mesh has issues of its own.

For instance, Ebbe himself took some while to rez properly in my viewer today.

This was of course in an extremely busy area of SL, but still.

I can imagine quite a few confused and frustrated new users who aren’t sure how to deal with mesh avatars.

Having said that, coincidentally 😉 Linden Lab just announced that they are going to try and make it easier for people to buy the right clothes for their avatar.