Souler the
Red Ridix

Owner: SoulerClash

Orille the
Blue Ori

Owner: GinSan

Goob the
Green Cobron

Owner: Sir_RawrBurt

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General Style:

Soft, cartoony, and fluffy. Realism is a no go for pets, but sometimes it is hard to get the style just right. Using references from previous pets is recommended. Add lots of personality to your pet. Props occasionally allowed, it mostly depends on the Species/Colour combination.


Tips:

- Photoshop is highly recommended.
- When using Photoshop use the "Save for Web" feature instead of regular saving.
- 400x400 px Canvas is a good standard size to work with when drawing a pet
- Take up as much canvas space as possible. If you have a lot of blank space, something is wrong.
- Once a pet is completed, shrink the canvas to 200x200 at 72dpi.
- Save as a .png with transparent background.
- Save another copy at the size of 60x60 px, this will be used for the Closet.
- Some Colours use background/foreground objects, look at other pets of the colour as references.


Line Work:

The ink layer should be thick enough that it doesn't get lost in the colouring layers, but not so thick that it would be considered a bold outline. The ink layer is always black except for very few exceptions.



Both the pen tool and brush tool are acceptable, as long as you make consistent lines with both of them. Try to avoid wobbly and jagged lines.


Pose:

There are two basic styles for poses.



Left Image - When a pet has both feet on the ground (or all four), they should be level with the bottom of the canvas. A straight line across, both (or all) feet on the same level.

Right Image - When a pet is in a pose where the feet are not touching the ground, the pet should not have a flat surface touching the sides of the canvas. The Party Zabeu is on its back, but the back remains round and true to the anatomy, as opposed to having its back touching the bottom of the canvas and being completely flat.



Sometimes the pet pose will call for two different planes of view for the feet. Here we have the Woodland Makoat with the background feet slightly elevated. This depends on what looks more aesthetically pleasing.


Shading:



Notice on the 60s Wulfer that he has three different shades of the colour green. There is a light green as the base colour, then a slightly darker shade of green, and then an even darker shade. Outlining all of this colour is a little highlight layer that runs the entire inner border of the ink layer. Sometimes it is the same shade as the base colour (the lightest green), and sometimes it will be even lighter, bringing the total number of shades used for one colour to four.

You can see in the Love Ridix that the highlight layer running along the inner border of the ink layer is an even lighter shade of the base colour pink. Sometimes this helps make the pet POP more, so the use of three to four colours is at the discretion of the artist.



Shading and colouring are done a circular style. Notice the Party Jakrits legs in particular show a good example of "circular" shading.


Step-by-Step:
You can find a full step-by-step guide showing how to colour pets by clicking [here].