I would love a meerca review! One of my earliest disappointments in life was waking up to find my adorable meerca standing on two feet with a shortened tail and one fist raised to the skies. Of all Neopets I feel like you’d be hard pressed to think of one that was done a greater disservice by conversion than the meerca.
Meercas are one of a only a few rodent 'pets, and between them, the Xweektok, and the Usul, Meercas definitely come across as the most rodent-esq—though which rodent is somewhat ambiguous. I like their faces a lot, which sport little dot eyes and a set of buck teeth.
The Meercas big theme and uniqueness comes from their tails. It's harder to tell with the converted art (which we'll get to shortly), but Meercas have incredibly long tails that they use to balance on. It's a fun premise that gives them a lot of personality, especially when combined with their round bodies.
Beyond that, Meercas have a good use of color, which white around the bulk the body, under their tails, and in their ears. My only nitpick is that in the converted art, the color underneath the tail bleeds a bit onto the outside, which isn't too big of a deal but always low-key bugs me.
Customization-wise, Meercas were unfortunately done pretty dirty. I'm not sure I can call them the worst case of conversion, because to be fair, conversion kind of requires all pets to be standing normally and to have a fist when possible. The issue is more with the entire premise of customization itself, but I'm not going to blame a converted pet for, well, being converted.
The Meerca at least doesn't change that much about the body at random the way the Wocky or Lutari did, and the old art was starting to look very dated, with minimal shading and some kind of janky anatomy. I also like how the converted version did things like remove the little hairs from the top of the head.
However, what I can't excuse with the converted Meerca is the absolute butchering of their tails. The entire point of this species is that their tails are stupidly long. Even if customization means they can't sit on their tails anymore, they could've at least kept the length, as it was the key element of the design. Maybe the concern was trying to keep the pet itself fairly centered, but like... have the tail curled up against the body, have it go vertically up above the body, fold it over on itself, there were tons of ways to keep the length. Unfortunately none of that was done, and we ended up with a sadder Meerca as a result.
Favorite Colours:
Candy: It's a gumball with those sour belt candies! It's absolutely perfect for the species, utilizing both their long tails and gumball bodies beautifully. The shading on the body is also richly detailed and gives it that extra bit of gumball shine, and the colors are nice and cohesive. Good stuff all around.
Striped: One of only two striped pets that doesn't default to being blue with pink stripes, the striped Meerca is a chipmunk, applying some lovely brown shades and lots and lots of stripes but stylizing them just enough to fit the body shape. I also like little details, like removing the outline around the white part of the body.
Woodland: Similar to the candy Meerca, the woodland Meerca takes full advantage of the round body and long tail to make it into a taro, a type of root vegetable. While its very different than most woodland pets, the tail works perfect and the body has lots of attention to detail.
BONUS: Maraquan Meercas, while not the best Maraquan pets, have to get at least a shout-out for the fun pufferfish concept. I do wish there was more color, maybe on the fins (I know pufferfish aren't known for having a ton of color, but this is a fantasy creature first and foremost), but the overall idea is very fun and it's one of the only ways to get the old Meerca expression post-customization. The converted and UC/styled version are literally identical save for the customized version sporting fists, which aren't as good at the original's hands but aren't too bothersome.
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MEERCA!!! Gotta fill in some of the tail and colour the rainbow still but lines are done ✨️💕🥰
Arm belongs to my pal @meatcrime
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