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Like you said, it's a trend, what's ever the hot thing to do is what will get higher scores. I notice it's because most people are doing clutter, they will like other clutter avatars alot. I been in the AT on and off for 3 years, and there are cycles to what is "in" and what is "out". I remember when I started I would wear buckies and they were so unpopular, people would knock 3 to 5 points off my score just for the teeth. Now people don't even bat a lash at them.

But I think that if you have a good avatar, you still get good scores. I don't think my look is too cluttered and I get 10's.

"Clutter" and "Complex" are two entirely different animals. A cluttered avatar is what happens when a person just throws a whole bunch of stuff on without being very selective, and it has the effect of mixing prints with plaids in real life. Cluttered avatars do not cohere into one solid outfit, and pile on more and more layers just because the colors match. The color balance and weight are normally off.

Complex avatars, on the other hand, are avatars with many small details that are carefully chosen to aid in color, theme, and skin distribution.

These avatars are cluttered.

These avatars are complex.


See the difference? It's the complex avatars that get good rates, because they're planned well and look nice. Clutter is by definition incoherent, so it will never look good.