Ears (+ Snouts/Muzzles, Tails, Horns, Wings, and More)

What is Ears?

The Ears mod emerged as a response to the absence of the Tails modification for version 1.16. It adds ears, snouts, tails, horns, wings, and many other personalization elements to players. Over time, the project evolved into a complete lightweight implementation of the skin system from version 1.9 for older Minecraft releases, which works even if you're not using the mod's special features.

Visual Style Features

Ears maintains fidelity to Minecraft's original style, using predominantly two-dimensional elements with the addition of some three-dimensional details. The system offers a wide spectrum of possible configurations, and everything can be customized to your preferences.

Advantages Over Alternatives

Why choose Ears instead of Tails? The Ears mod easily adapts to different versions thanks to an abstraction system that allows it to work even in web browsers. Although Tails offers wonderful 3D models and animations, it's difficult to update due to its extensive rendering system and data synchronization code, which ties it to a specific game version and mod loader.

Customization Feature: Unlike Tails, Ears requires drawing additional elements yourself and doesn't provide ready-made recolorable templates. Also compared to CPM or Figura, Ears has a limited set of customization options. However, the mod offers a golden mean—it will work in any Minecraft version you choose and receives updates for development snapshots.

Technical Advantages: Ears doesn't use third-party servers, only Mojang's skin server, which eliminates availability issues due to external service shutdowns. This is completely open source with a lightweight patch that also adds transparent secondary layer support for versions 1.8 and 1.7.