Skins and Accents

I have a question. If anybody's able to answer, please ping me. I look at everybody's entries for the contest, and there's so many amazing designs! Many of the designs have transparency to the dragons. That's so cool! I look at the rules for the contest, and rules state: [LIST] [*]Skins must maintain an intact shadow and line art layer that are darker than the colors they sit on top of. [*]Do not erase into either of these layers. [*]Do not make them so light that they do not appear distinctly darker than the colors that they rest on top of. [/LIST] So I look at my design Cape of the Glades [b][url=https://www1.flightrising.com/forums/skin/3336023/5#post_56748879](Shown here)[/url][/b], and I feel odd. When I did the design originally, I made the line art layer from the PDF into the art program hidden. Then I realized afterwards that it's not allowed because colors must be darker than the line art. So I bring back the line art, which makes the design look much better. However, rules state that you can't erase the line art layer. So ALL the line art for the dragon has to stay. If I erase line art for all except the wings and claws, then it'd be against the rules. So I think to myself: If you make the line art layer transparent, and you do line art for your design, and you still see the original line art for the dragon in your design, how do you get away with it without breaking rules? Past designs from past contests have won with transparent dragons and fully visible designs, and they look amazing! For example: [url=https://www1.flightrising.com/game-database/item/29599][img]https://www1.flightrising.com/static/cms/skins/29599.png[/img][/url] [url=https://www1.flightrising.com/game-database/item/36748][img]https://www1.flightrising.com/static/cms/skins/36748.png[/img][/url] [url=https://www1.flightrising.com/game-database/item/45784][img]https://www1.flightrising.com/static/cms/skins/45784.png[/img][/url] and many, many more. Anyway, back to skin and accent creation. How does staff know if the line art wasn't erased? [i]Technically,[/i] there's no rule stating you can't hide the line art layer in the art program. The rule just states that you can't erase, and it has to be darker than your colors. So does that mean that the line art can only be darker if it effects the design only? That does make sense, but how can you pull it off without erasing everything else? I'm not angry with anybody. I really like all the contest entries! [emoji=fae star size=1] I just feel a little weird with my entry. I feel like I'm the only one who kept all the original line art from the dragon PDF 100% visible. It makes sense if I colored the [i]entire[/i] dragon, but I only did her wings and claws. I've never submitted a skin before, though I have practiced with other skin entries. (That I can't submit because lack of gems for blueprints. I'm saving up though.) I'm not looking for an answer so I can change my entry. I don't want to change it. I like my design. If it doesn't end up in the winners circle, that is completely okay with me. I'm just happy I got a chance to submit at all. :) Sorry if this feels like a BIG speech. I'm just really curious.

[font=timesnewroman]Hello, @MagicCove13 ! First of all, beautiful entry. The texturing and colors are gorgeous! As for your question… Lineart layers cannot be erased into. That’s a given. But the LA is to sit atop the accent [i]only[/i]— dragons already have their own lineart. While you don’t have to change anything in your design, if you would [i]like[/i] to, this means you can “”””erase”””” the LA in areas where you have not drawn something underneath. Most art programs do this by “clipping” the LA layer to accent beneath. I’ll use one of my older accents to demonstrate. (While not critical here, note that is does go outside the bounds of the spiral base. This is cleaned up prior to submission.) Here’s the accent: [skin=53830] Just like others, it does preserve “transparency,” and LA does not go outside of the area that I’ve drawn. Here’s a picture of ONLY what [i]I actually drew[/i]. Note the layer setup. The whole accent is shoved into one folder, and I have a lineart folder, a shadow folder, and the actual accent art folder. Currently, the lineart and shadows are hidden. [img]https://i.imgur.com/HxTaTxS.jpeg[/img] Let’s reactivate the LA and Shadows. They are [i]clipped[/i] to my accent art, meaning that they’ll only appear on top of my accent and nowhere else. [img]https://i.imgur.com/6K2uLsh.jpeg[/img] But, the layer itself is actually unchanged. It’s tinted, yes, to allow for slightly better color blending, but the alpha of it is untouched. The reason I keep my LA in its own folder is so that I can clip extra layers to the base, black LA to color it. [img]https://i.imgur.com/ZKQcMN9.jpeg[/img] Same with the shadow layer. Lots of fun colors! [img]https://i.imgur.com/HcOq6u4.jpeg[/img] Now, let’s unclip the shadows and LA from my accent. This is more like what you’re looking at (plus the shadows). The whole entire dragon is now outlined. [img]https://i.imgur.com/XAXPy77.jpeg[/img] While this isn’t against the rules and would still be a valid accent (debating some of the shadow areas outside of the accent portion I drew), the color quality is off. Transparency is lost in shadow regions, and the entirety of the LA is visible. If I put this on a dragon and reactivate clipping on the shadows, you’ll see that the whole dragon is, like, [b]bold.[/b] [img]https://i.ibb.co/nn0xS8s/IMG-6399.jpg[/img] Messy messy messy. It’s a fine look, but it’s not the look I’m going for with this accent. Let’s reactivate clipping on the LA layer/folder. Now, the only thing touching this dragon is my completed accent. LA and shadows rest atop only the area that I’ve drawn something in, and leave the rest alone. [url=https://ibb.co/GxwFLdm][img]https://i.ibb.co/Vjy3ZL6/IMG-6400.jpg[/img][/url] So, why do we “erase” (clip) our LA to our accent? Even if you did like the bold line look, many of FR’s tertiary genes are ever so slightly linebreaking. Even if they don’t go outside the dragon, they interact weirdly with the given LA of the skin and accent PSDs. Gembond, capsule, filligree… not to mention ancient genes! All of these genes do [i]not[/i] adhere to the same accent rules we do as artists. This is acceptable in an accent, because whatever you draw underneath it should work well enough with the given LA for a triple basic dragon that it looks cool. Bonus, it covers up the weird gene interaction, or works with it. Without clipping the LA to your design, it becomes difficult to find a dragon that will wear it well (even if the art itself is gorgeous!). Sorry for the lengthy explanation! I hope this answers why most designs don’t have the LA for the full dragon, and how you can do the same thing going forward, if you so desire! When the rules say you can’t erase into the layer, it means that you can’t alter it to suit your design underneath. Since dragons already have their own lineart, any areas where your accent doesn’t sit atop is already good to go, and doesn’t need another lineart on top of it. And unless it’s sitting atop a jet black accent, jet black LA atop whatever fun accent you have underneath will always be darker. No need to worry there until you tint/color the layers! Best of luck <3

@Airplanefoxx I'm trying to understand, but it's hard. I use the skin folder. Not the accent folder. The program I use is FireAlpaca.

I made my design on a layer above the wings layer. This way the wings layer doesn't get destroyed. I remember I made a layer above base for the face. Line art is still there. Shadows are there. How do I make line art transparent? The layers are already clipped.
I wish I could say more, but I'm too stressed trying to understand, and I don't remember how the rest went.

Thank you so much for trying to help. Usually I'm really good with pictures as guides as I'm a visual learner, so that was cool that you added pictures. Thank you.

@cytopIasm hi fellow first-skin-maker!!!! yours is super adorable and I hope it wins :O if it does I'll have to buy a dustie just for it!

[font=timesnewroman]@MagicCove13 Sorry! Explaining isn't my strongpoint~~ Thanks for the info! I've downloaded FireAlpaca to try to help you better. If I'm understanding you right, I think your initial layer setup looks something like this. "ART" layers are what I've drawn on. The face decoration and belly/back layers are not a copy of anything, and the wing art is a copy of the wing layer. Wing ART is the only drawn-on layer with the protect alpha active. [img]https://i.imgur.com/fydfuiB.png[/img] In this setup, You can erase the "Base" layer to get what *looks* like transparency, but otherwise, there's no other way to get rid of that gray background. Instead, create a new folder! This will be where you draw all of your stuff. [img]https://i.imgur.com/ytNMNAt.png[/img] The layers that came with the PSD (Wings, Belly, Frills, Facial Features, and Base) are all guide layers, made to be duplicated. The duplicates can be placed into your ART HERE folder. You can also add any layers as needed. Clip the LA and Shadows to the ART HERE folder. Now you can hide the "Base" layer while still preserving the clipped LA. Now, the only thing showing is your art, plus FR's LA and shadows in the same area as your art. And, provided that you didn't draw outside the lines, you have your accent ready to be resized and submitted! You might notice that this looks a little bit like the setup in the "Accent Parts" folder. That's because the Skin Parts setup is designed for a skin with 100% coverage. In a skin like that, getting rid of the Base layer and excess LA doesn't matter, since there is no excess. It's often easier to just use the Accent Parts setup, since that has the LA and Shadows already configured to only rest atop your design. You can always duplicate a body part from Skin Parts and move it up to the Accent folder if you'd like to constrain your design to a specific region, but now you don't have to worry about weird layer arrangements! And further note! You'll see that my edges got really jagged after I moved it to its own folder. "Wings" is a jagged layer, and doesn't have full color coverage to the edge of the LA. It was designed to be covered by a unclipped LA layer, so it doesn't bother to nicely follow the dragon's maximum allowable silhouette. By constraining your design to the jagged Wings, then constraining the LA to that jagged design, the overall design will be jagged. This shouldn't change how it looks on a dragon, provided that you keep your LA black, but it's worth mentioning. Newer breeds usually don't have this problem, but it's worth looking at when working with fae and older breeds. I [I]personally[/I] would not constrain my drawing to the Wings layer (instead, I'd draw what I want and then erase later with the wizard tool, demonstrated below) just to make sure I get full LA coverage. Not a big deal! But helpful to consider for complex designs :) [rule] [font=timesnewroman] Now, say you did draw outside the dragon sprite lines. While you could clip the art folder to the base while drawing, you can't get rid of the base without tediously, manually erasing it. At that point, it's no different than just erasing the stray pixels by hand! Let's use the wizard tool instead. I've added another layer of messiness to make this example obvious. First, duplicate the Lineart and Base layers. Make two new folders. One will hold these layer copies ("MASK PARTS"). The other will hold this folder and a single color layer clipped to MASK PARTS. The single color helps the computer quickly recognize what you do and don't want selected. This outer folder is called MASK THIS. Move MASK THIS outside of the "Skin Parts" folder, and merge all of it into a single layer. I duplicated the folder first and hid the folder just to make sure I don't lose anything, but this isn't necessary. [img]https://i.imgur.com/fQZgY7F.png[/img] Duplicate your completed accent ("Skin Parts") for the sake of safety, and merge it to a single layer. [img]https://i.imgur.com/sSLQpr9.png[/img] Now the fun part! Navigate to the wizard tool. Change the Reference from "Canvas" to "Active Layer," and click on your MASK THIS layer. It's a good idea to hide your Skin Parts DUPLICATES merged layer. Hold shift and click OUTSIDE of the dragon! The dragon should tint blue, as well as the inside gaps. Keep holding shift and click on those gaps to close them. Play around with the tolerance to make sure the tool selects what you want it to. Too low a tolerance will lop off parts off the dragon, and too high will put a balloon around the dragon, meaning that you will still have stuff outside the lines. Every dragon will have its own desirable tolerance. Normally I use Ibis Paint, and that program offers the ability to invert the wizard selection. With that, you can just click on the pink area and don't need to worry about all that finicky stuff! [img]https://i.imgur.com/RmFYlOH.png[/img] Move to your accent layer, switch to the eraser tool, and start erasing. Go crazy! The alpha selection will preserve anything in the blue-hued selected area. Anything directly underneath the Mask This will be saved. [img]https://i.imgur.com/OWsGEjI.png[/img] Switch back to the wizard, de-select the region, and hide Mask This. Bam! Your accent is ready to be resized and uploaded! [img]https://i.imgur.com/kATdIAD.png[/img] The wizard tool is necessary when using a folder to draw in, and it's the easiest way to make sure everything is good to go. Same thing applies for accents not constrained to a body part template (like the wing region). I know it's not part of the above lineart discussion, but I've included it just in case :)

@bombcollar aw gee thank you! :D Burble burble

@Airplanefoxx Thank you so much! I've tried figuring it out over and over, but I'm going to try your FireAlpaca tutorial tomorrow. Hopefully a good nights rest can help my head. :)

@Paranorm OH MY GAWSHHH Thank you so much ;_; It means the world.. ALSO YESS HEHE.. im so excited to make more skins :3

@ShadeNest Miiight want to save that entry for next year. It’s super cute though! [quote name="Undel" date="2024-05-06 03:26:06" ] Please note that hatchling skin entries are not being accepted for Greenskeeper Gathering. When hatchling skins are made available, we will have an announcement for future contests. [/quote]

[quote name="MangoMegs" date="2024-05-10 07:21:44" ] @/ShadeNest Miiight want to save that entry for next year. It’s super cute though! [quote name="Undel" date="2024-05-06 03:26:06" ] Please note that hatchling skin entries are not being accepted for Greenskeeper Gathering. When hatchling skins are made available, we will have an announcement for future contests. [/quote] [/quote] [font=times]Was just coming here to say this haha