Avatar building?

Can anyone give me some ideas as to how you create avatars exactly? Like the non-standard ones you see! I have a few ideas for avatars but have no idea how to go about doing so. I've already tried just building & attaching parts but it doesnt seem to totally work.

That's exactly how it's done. Some people seem to have the knack for it, others spend a lot of time customizing and texturing. Of course, don't forget the reason you're in a community sim: ask! If you have no clue how a certain effect or object is possible, see if the owner knows. If they bought the avatar, they'll know who made it. Also, spend some time in the sandbox figuring out the various shapes possible by tweaking all the parameters for each basic shape. I'm pretty sure there are some tricks that still haven't been found yet!

Some of the most complex avatars use a custom animation in order to get the parts to move correctly. You'll notice this with the tiny avatars and even quadrupeds. Those are bit out of the new builder's league, unless you buy an animation kit that you can adapt.

The only trick to building pieces for your avatar that makes it different from building normally is positioning them on your avatar, and it's not that difficult

It's hard to envision how it will looked attached beforehand, so you just do the tweaking when it's attached.

1 - you can move, rotate, stretch, etc an object that is attached to your avatar. then when you click 'detach', and reattach it again, it will not lose these changes; it will be positioned on your avatar the way it just was

2 - there is a limited range that you can move an attached object when positioning it, so choose the most logical place so you have a maximum range of movement. you can move things to they're above, to the side, etc if you like. this, again, will not be lost when you detach it. for example, to get something floating above your head, you may attach it to your head then move it up above you

Yep, what they said... and... a pose stand is a must.