I'm not a fan of the virtual avatar-based Gaia Online, but the avatar items can get pretty interesting at times. Here's a few gems:
Yes, this is a Penanggalan, the disturbing Malaysian vampire I've talked about both on Bogleech and Cracked. An absolutely adorable, beautifully illustrated Penanggalan, actually created for Gaia by
o-8, an artist whose skills I'm incredibly envious of.
The same artist is responsible for this gorgeous "bogeyman," closet monster, and even a Popobawa. If you don't know what a Popobawa is, I suggest you google or wiki it.
Most of the items here will run you tens or even hundreds of thousands in virtual Gaia money, but this superb giant fly costume, eyeball mask and tentacle limbs run pretty cheap!
I'm very impressed by these beautiful marine animals, actually created by our friend Tengu - artist, writer and webmaster of obakemono.com! The Blobfish and the firefly squid are actually "hat" items! The last one is none other than a flamboyant cuttlefish.
I'm a pretty big fan of medieval plague doctors, and you can also collect some absolutely adorable rats and fleas to go with it.
You have to love these slimy mutants and tentacle critters, also by Tengu and all part of an item called "The Experiment!" The second one covers your avatar's face. I can't even pick a favorite of these.
Here we have various growth stages of the "Dionaesil" item, which are some of the coolest carnivorous plant sprites I've ever seen. The largest stage gives you the option of completely replacing your human avatar and *being* the plant! The dionaesil item was designed and started by o-8, but finished by Tengu.
Dionaesil also includes a variety of other fly-trap decorations. This is combining six of them at once.
The last dionaesil item I feel like pointing out, this fly-trap door is a direct reference to the online horror story,
Dionea House. The item is even titled "The Door is Open," one of the tale's memorable lines.
Finally, Tengu created these cutely creepy Youkai monsters!
Whether you play Gaia or not, you can play around with the avatar simulator on tektek.org to make all kinds of stuff. For example:
