[Updated] Black Pearl Clarification

The Black Pearl

You need at least 60 days of seniority and 5 karma points to use the Black Pearl.

We'd like to clarify a few things concerning the proposals for the Creative Space. We've had the time to see how things went and made some changes along with some additional advice.

For the Horses, Pegasus, Unicorns, Donkeys, and Ponies.


Using shadows in your creations:


We are probably going to add them ourselves in the future to have something that has the right perspective on the backgrounds, and that has a uniform texture across the coats.

You can use shadowing, but we ask that you keep them very light so that the images will fit with most Helios Ray backgrounds.

Cut out your edges more.


When we place the coats on a dark background in a lot of cases, there are stray light colored pixels all around the drawing. This makes it impossible to use on a dark background.
Tip Please take the time to take a look at your coat on a white and on a black background, in order to get rid of any leftover smudges or pixels. Also, look a little further away on just the outline. Often the coats have a smudge around the corners or along the border of the image.

Use the smudge or blur tool sparingly.


It's a pity to see a coat that has been worked on then filtered with a blur filter, and it comes out all smudgy. It's also a pity to see a coat with smudge marks on one side and not the other.

Be careful when playing around with reformatting an image.


Sometimes we get perfectly nice drawings of Sausage horses because the file has been altered, and the horse has been squashed or pulled in another direction.
This might be a great way of transforming an Irish setter into a Teckel, but it isn't very pretty on horses. Also, avoid making your resolution too low and giving the picture a pixel art look

Backgrounds


Using brushes is allowed.


They can be used as well, but we'd like to also remind you of the Black Pearl page information as seen in the quote below.

“Excess airbrushing is not allowed”. It is allowed but not too much!"

We have received tons of entries like this and have been very cool about it up until now. However, seeing the same tree used 4 times in different backgrounds is starting to get a little old.

From here on out, we'll start to be a bit more strict about this type of thing. This is due to the fact that it's unfair and the aim of the Creative Space is to work things with your own hands, not make photo manipulations. The same thing goes for photos or bits of photos.

Painting, blurring or smudging landscape pictures.


Moving forward, we'll simply remove the right to propose any creations to the Creation space forever for those who do try to do this.

Check the perspectives.


When you make a background, please consider that there has to be something for the horse to put his feet on. It's quite strange the have a picture with a nice pond in the background and the horse is floating in the middle of it in thin air.

The same goes for outer space and clouds etc. Just try and make the backgrounds usable for everyone, not just the Pegasus. Also, make sure that the horses won't look like giants in the middle of a forest when you decide to draw trees or other items.

Rules


Plagiarism is forbidden!
Respect the author's rights: we do not steal images off of the Internet; we do not trace photos; we do not use the basis of someone else if they have not given their authorization, preferably publicly.

What is plagiarism? Plagiarism is taking someone else's work and passing them off as your own.

We can take inspiration from a style, a movement, a mane or a coat without copy-pasting it. It’s the same idea for literature, graphic arts, video games or cinema - there is often inspiration taken from another creation. Inspiration is imbued with another creation in order to interpret it and create something new! Copying is recreating identically. Copying is not having a style or a vision of your own. Try to have the imagination and bring your unique personality to your creations.

Please also note that any cheating can get you excluded from proposing any artwork to the Creative Space forever and/or be followed by sanctions.
Players who submit an artwork not created by themselves, AI-generated or plagiarized will be permanently banned from using the Black Pearl.

Otherwise, all the usual rules still apply.

Before posting:


It is forbidden to mock or ridicule creations/creators
Don't post too many steps regarding your work to avoid flooding of the topic.
IT IS FORBIDDEN TO ASK FOR VOTES!

You are welcome to promote your creations or creations you voted for using #HowrseBP on social media or promote your creations on your profile page.

This topic can be used to help each other understand the Black Pearl rules with respect to your creative content.

Players who do not follow the rules are exposed to sanctions.

Regards
The Howrse team

 
Ow
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By Retired breeder, 15th October 2020 19:26:56
3
Starynight

Thanks for the answer, it's a pity, it makes me sad. I thought it would be enough to try harder to get more of your drawings into the creative space. Really, even if the drawings are objectively good, they will not be able to get into the creative space in a size larger than 1?
No, because like they said, they'd rather have more people get work accepted as oppose to a single player getting multiple accepted default smiley :)
Starynight
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Clancy: all submissions follow the same rules when it comes to formatting (GA has it`s own and Helios Ray has it`s own as well). To be able to support all coats that go trough each month, the artwork submitted has to have a limit so it dosen`t overload servers capacity to handle images (it was it could be crashing each month, or even run out of space each month. Art can be very heavy, especially when done one huge canvas).

And it would be very difficult to adjust the position of each coat so they fit the screen (well not difficult, but it would be extra manual labor). By making all Helios and GA have the same size, the risk of a GA or Helios not fitting the screen/ or make the screen look is very small.
YOu can draw on a bigger canvas than GA-Helios template (usually it is a good idea), that way when you shrink it later it will still be detailed and look nice.

All you have to worry about is what you want to draw, with technique you want to use, and what you want to submit default smiley :d
Shishi no Seirei
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By Retired breeder, 17th October 2020 17:33:58
How do you register for an event ?
I'm not sure I understand what do you mean by register?
superocelot02
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How is everyone doing?!default smiley :)default smiley :ddefault smiley (l)
Tessadgraf
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So how does everyone size their images so that they don't turn out blurry? I do all my drawings on Procreate on my iPad, and when I go to resize them either on the app or on GIMP, nothing I do ensures the quality and crispness of the image stays put. Resizing it to 400x400 always makes it super blurry and I haven't found a good way to get it to turn out. If anyone has any advice I'd really appreciate it!
panthera
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panthera wrote:

So how does everyone size their images so that they don't turn out blurry? I do all my drawings on Procreate on my iPad, and when I go to resize them either on the app or on GIMP, nothing I do ensures the quality and crispness of the image stays put. Resizing it to 400x400 always makes it super blurry and I haven't found a good way to get it to turn out. If anyone has any advice I'd really appreciate it!


How big is your original drawing? When you resize it, it just turns out naturally blurry because it is such a small size to size it down to, and it's all pixels.

When you zoom out it should look a little crisper because you are looking at it from "farther away" this is the size that your coat will look like naturally on the game. If you zoom in close on any GA coat, it generally does look blurry anyways.
nash12
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By Retired breeder, 21st October 2020 15:22:59
gotcha, kinda sad tho
By Retired breeder, 25th October 2020 18:20:40
Is fan art for books allowed, since there are not concrete graphics that can be plagiarized, but it all depends upon the imagination of the reader?
By Retired breeder, 25th October 2020 18:22:41
I'm asking because it says not to do fan art, then clarifies mentioning movies, graphic novels, and manga, but not books.
By Retired breeder, 26th October 2020 01:02:48
*Cartoons, not graphic novels.
Fanart is not allowed (meaning you can´t take a character from a book and make them into a horse-version). Fanart is literally artwork/creation of something that exists in either books, movies, games, and so on. For example, drawing Spirit or Rain, or an MLP character = fanart.


However, taking inspiration from movies, music, and more are allowed.
You just need to make sure you don`t use any copyrighted or trademarked things that already exist/are seen in movies/video games/cartoons.(example: you can`t draw a horse using an identical pin/tattoo from Hunger Games, or draw a horse with a cutie-mark).
Shishi no Seirei
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By Retired breeder, 26th October 2020 17:33:20
1
Are the place names in books copyrighted? I was thinking about doing a HR background based on my interpretation of Lord of the Rings, and I was just wondering if that was allowed, since I've never seen the movies. I've seen a GA coat called Eru Illuvatar, and there is a background called Lothlorien, and they're there, so they've obviously passed the restrictions, so I was just wondering that as long as you don't copy how the movie looks, but just make a creation based on characters/places that exist in books if it was ok. I guess if you say it's not, then, it's not ok. Should I tell the people in charge that there are characters/places from Lord of the Rings?
Retired breeder wrote:

Are the place names in books copyrighted? I was thinking about doing a HR background based on my interpretation of Lord of the Rings, and I was just wondering if that was allowed, since I've never seen the movies. I've seen a GA coat called Eru Illuvatar, and there is a background called Lothlorien, and they're there, so they've obviously passed the restrictions, so I was just wondering that as long as you don't copy how the movie looks, but just make a creation based on characters/places that exist in books if it was ok. I guess if you say it's not, then, it's not ok. Should I tell the people in charge that there are characters/places from Lord of the Rings?



Technically LoTR backgrounds can't be copyrighted entirely since they were filmed in those places, so even if you were to use references from the movies/locations, it would be fine. The problem comes in with adding in characters/set pieces that are specific to the books/movies.
I would say if you used a description from a book to paint a background, you'd be fine. Everyone's interpretation of a description will look different, so it'd be your depiction rather than referencing a screenshot/photo/movie still.
Wolf of the North
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By Retired breeder, 26th October 2020 22:15:35
Ok. Thanks. I was really only going to backgrounds, since I imagine most of the characters just as they in movie pictures, since the character appearance adheres pretty closely to book definitions.default smiley :)
By Retired breeder, 26th October 2020 22:16:06
*just as they are in movie pictures.
By Retired breeder, 27th October 2020 13:30:26
2
Is there a way to find people who've used your Helios Ray/GA coat? I'm just really excited that my HR went through and I want to see what it looks like on other horses.
Hi, everyone!

I'm trying to submit a Helios' Ray background, but it keeps telling me that I am not following the compulsory format.

Here are the things I've done:
- save the background as .jpg
- keep the size of the template (2106x940)
- keep the border of the template but delete the horse and the box containing the horse
- make sure the file is way under 2000 KB

I am broke, so I used a free app (ibisPaint) to draw my creation. I don't know if that's useful information, but maybe, there's something wrong with how it works/saves creations?

What else could I be doing wrong?
ᴍɪʟᴋ ᴛᴇᴀ
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ᴍɪʟᴋ ᴛᴇᴀ wrote:

I'm trying to submit a Helios' Ray background, but it keeps telling me that I am not following the compulsory format.
Given everything else you said, which sounds good, I think the most likely thing is that there are some stray pixels of the background overlapping the template, or something else similar along those lines.
FoxyDancer
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By Retired breeder, 2nd November 2020 08:44:21
yes this would be amazing
Sorry if it's was already asked, but I found nothing about it.
When your creation gets accepted, do you get a copy of it? Or is there a way to ensure I can get one if I make it limited?
Holone
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Holone wrote:

Sorry if it's was already asked, but I found nothing about it.
When your creation gets accepted, do you get a copy of it? Or is there a way to ensure I can get one if I make it limited?


You don't get a copy, you have to buy one just like everyone else, unfortunately. If you make it limited, you can increase your own chances of getting one by having VIP and using the 'access creations early' perk, which will allow you a chance to buy one copy before the normal release day.

You don't have to do this, you can still try to grab one on the usual release but if you make it 100 or 200 limit, they usually retire VERY quickly. 100's especially, 200's do too if the design is liked by a lot of people. So having the access early, kinda gives you a safety net or 'double' chance of trying to grab one.

It's always been helpful to me in this scenario.
WhiteTiger
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Thank you WhiteTiger! I was hoping there was a way without VIP. I guess I have to save up to get my VIP back and save my limited design for that round default smiley :)
Holone
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Holone wrote:

Thank you WhiteTiger! I was hoping there was a way without VIP. I guess I have to save up to get my VIP back and save my limited design for that round default smiley :)


Oh sorry if I didn't explain myself properly, you can most definitely grab a copy without the use of the VIP early access perk, its just a LOT harder to grab one if its a low copy (100-200) use limit.

Best advice would be to make sure you are there on the time of the release, and constantly refresh the page until the coat you are after appears. I usually look at the Retired Coat Gallery a day before the normal release, as there usually a kind player which posts 'spoilers' from servers with differing time zones, that get the coats before our server does.

This lets me pick the ones I like the most, have the horses lined up on separate tabs, and then clicking the golden apple on each of them and refreshing the 'limited use' option again and again until the coat appears, then I have to be super speedy in clicking to apply it before the amount of copies are all taken. It can sometimes be gone in seconds default smiley (lol)

Hopefully I've explained it a little better this time, and you're very welcome default smiley (y)default smiley (ow)
WhiteTiger
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