Created due to a lack of the Tails mod for 1.16, Ears is a mod that adds ears, snouts, tails, horns, wings, and more to the player. Eventually, it also became a complete lightweight open source 1.9 skin backport for many old versions, which works even if you aren't using its special features.

Ears has a more vanilla-faithful appearance than Tails, with a lot of 2D regions but a few 3D ones too. There are a wide variety of possible configurations and it can all be customized.

Why use Ears instead of Tails? Because Ears is easy to port to other versions, based on a multi-version abstraction allowing the mod to even run in web browsers. The Tails mod has wonderful 3D models and animations, but it's a burden to update it to any version due to its large rendering system and all the data syncing code, causing it to be tightly coupled with the version of the game and mod loader it was designed for. Ears stores all data as pixels in the player's skin.

However, Ears requires you to draw your own additions, and does not come with easy recolorable prefabs like Tails. Additionally, unlike CPM or Figura, Ears has a limited number of customization options. (Note that if you have a simple idea, I may add it. Open an issue on GitHub or hop in Discord.) Ears offers a good middle-ground that will work in any version you wish to play, and will receive updates to snapshots for those of you who live on the edge. It also does not and never will use external servers, just Mojang's skin server, so there's no concerns about a third-party server going down (be it temporarily or for good).

Why use Ears instead of other skin fixes? Ears provides a lot of new features to customize your skin, and is a much more lightweight patch with no usage of third-party servers and is completely open source. Additionally, Ears backports translucent secondary layer support to 1.8 and 1.7.

Come discuss this mod and any of my others on Discord or Matrix, or send me an email.

Downloads

Except where otherwise noted, these link to downloads here on Curse. Just here to make downloading easier, as Curse's UI for a mod available for as many versions as Ears is... lackluster.

Every port is actively maintained. None of these downloads are legacy, and they all receive updates at the same time.

Fabric (1.14 - 1.18)

Fabric API is not required to use Ears on any version.

 

New Forge (1.14 - 1.17)

	Requires MixinBootstrap
	Requires MixinBootstrap

 

Middle Forge (1.7 - 1.12)

	Also backports secondary layer translucency
	Also backports 64x64 skins (Incompatible with SkinPort)

 

Old Forge (1.2, 1.4 - 1.6)

All these ports additionally backport all 64x64 skin features and fix skin download. This makes them incompatible with Lumy Skin Patch. Ears does the same thing.

	Must be put in coremods directory
	Must be put in coremods directory
	Requires special installation.

 

Other — Rift 1.13.2, Legacy Fabric (b1.7.3, 1.8.9), New Frontier Craft, Not So Seecret Saturday

	Having trouble running Rift in 2021? This may help.
	Also backports secondary layer translucency
	Also backports 64x64 skins and fixes skin download Works with either Cursed Legacy API or Station API. Does not require either. Download links to GitHub and is not checked by Curse.
	Requires special installation. Download links to GitHub and is not checked by Curse. Don't know what New Frontier Craft is? Check it out!
	Also backports 64x64 skins Requires special installation. Download links to GitHub and is not checked by Curse. Don't know what Not So Seecret Saturday is? Check it out!

As Ears' primary purpose is allowing character customization across a wide range of versions, requests for porting to new versions or loaders are ENCOURAGED. Is there a version you still play nobody else seems to care about? Let me know in the issues.