[Updated] Black Pearl Clarification

The Black Pearl

You need at least 60 days of seniority and 5 karma points to use the Black Pearl.[/b:0]

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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I can't seem to upload this with the black pearl. it's in the right format. what do i do?
The Eldest Curse
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Can someone help me with putting my creation onto the template? Does the template need to have no white background? It has confused me a little bit.
PhiaTatts
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The Eldest Curse wrote:



I can't seem to upload this with the black pearl. it's in the right format. what do i do?



Save this and submit this default smiley (y)


Starynight
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PhiaTatts wrote:

Can someone help me with putting my creation onto the template? Does the template need to have no white background? It has confused me a little bit.


Yes just message me your coat or post it here default smiley (y)
Starynight
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By Retired breeder, 4th September 2021 13:31:36
Hello everyone! Just a quick question. Does the final submission need to include the template? Or do we just resize our coat to fit within the template but then only submit the cost itself?
By Retired breeder, 4th September 2021 13:35:56
1
Also, this is the cost I’ve been working on, still a work in progress but I’m getting there. I’m also thinking of submitting a couple other colors of this same coat. What do you guys think?

Retired breeder wrote:

Hello everyone! Just a quick question. Does the final submission need to include the template? Or do we just resize our coat to fit within the template but then only submit the cost itself?


It needs to include the template default smiley (y)
Starynight
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I just submitted a coat and afterwards there was a pop up bar at the top that mentioned something about "validation steps" but it disappeared before I could click it. Is there anything else I need to do or was that just referring to the rest of the creation space process?
smashlei
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I was just wondering how all you amazing artists manage to create such beautiful work inside the 400px template?

I first drew my design triple the size so I could get enough detail (using AutoDesk Sketchbook) but when I resized to fit inside the frame, it's all pixelated!

Is there a specific drawing software you use that resizes your work perfectly or do you literally just draw in the original 400px template? I tried drawing in a 400px size but maybe it's the app I'm using that doesn't work well for such a small canvas size default smiley :'(
KaulanaRose
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KaulanaRose wrote:

I was just wondering how all you amazing artists manage to create such beautiful work inside the 400px template?

I first drew my design triple the size so I could get enough detail (using AutoDesk Sketchbook) but when I resized to fit inside the frame, it's all pixelated!

Is there a specific drawing software you use that resizes your work perfectly or do you literally just draw in the original 400px template? I tried drawing in a 400px size but maybe it's the app I'm using that doesn't work well for such a small canvas size default smiley :'(


There really isn't any way to cheat it, resizing will change quality very drastically. Also its 300x300 px.
I would not recommend drawing on a 300 px canvas however, this makes it very hard to add details that may or may not show up in the resized version because you are working with pixels instead of large brushes and strokes. Instead I would work on a 900x900 or 800x800 canvas. default smiley (y) But that's just my personal opinion, it's not impossible to draw on 300x300 canvas.

As an experiment, i drew two horses, one on a small canvas and one on a large canvas, you can see the differences in quality:

300x300 canvas:

1400x1200 canvas (originally):
nash12
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Thanks for your comments nash12. Yeah it's rather frustrating and definitely not ideal to draw in 300 canvas.

So how would you go about submitting that grey uni peg then? Surely you must resize your work to fit the 300px space before submitting?

That's the dilemma I have, because the file size needs to be the same as the template right? So you'd either have to resize it or just draw on a 300 canvas from the start. Unless I'm missing something lol
KaulanaRose
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Also what software do you use? Maybe this impacts how the image turns out after resizing...
KaulanaRose
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KaulanaRose wrote:

Thanks for your comments nash12. Yeah it's rather frustrating and definitely not ideal to draw in 300 canvas.

So how would you go about submitting that grey uni peg then? Surely you must resize your work to fit the 300px space before submitting?

That's the dilemma I have, because the file size needs to be the same as the template right? So you'd either have to resize it or just draw on a 300 canvas from the start. Unless I'm missing something lol


Yes, you have to resize it down, I use GIMP since it seems to be pretty good for resizing. I also use the interpolation feature and set it to cubic or linear and it works pretty well. default smiley (y)default smiley :)
nash12
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[quote=1403705263][author]KaulanaRose[/author]Also what software do you use? Maybe this impacts how the image turns out after resizing...[/quote:0]

I use Krita and i always slightly sharpen when i've resized.
Starynight
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whats the best way to resize on gimp? I have a 800 x 800 but when I resize it turns into a pixel mess. Using the sharpening tool doesnt seem to help either...

Does anyone have a step by step process they use when resizing on gimp?
Łeo
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Łeo wrote:

whats the best way to resize on gimp? I have a 800 x 800 but when I resize it turns into a pixel mess. Using the sharpening tool doesnt seem to help either...

Does anyone have a step by step process they use when resizing on gimp?


I dont use GIMP, but i just resize to 300 and then sharpen a bit and it always looks fine :/ I know lots of people struggle w resizing though.
Starynight
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Łeo wrote:

whats the best way to resize on gimp? I have a 800 x 800 but when I resize it turns into a pixel mess. Using the sharpening tool doesnt seem to help either...

Does anyone have a step by step process they use when resizing on gimp?


1. Use some kind of interpolation. (cubic or linear works fine) the box of choices looks like this:

2. Brush on the details you want to 'highlight' with a 1-pixel brush.
3. If none of those work, try zooming out to 100% and seeing if it looks 'crisp' that's kind of what you want and that it might look like on the game depending on your display.
4. If none of those work than just submit it anyways, a lot of coats are blurry and not that sharp, especially if you zoom in to look at them.
nash12
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Thank you both for the help, think I might just submit it hopefully the coat doesnt look too blurry
Łeo
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By Retired breeder, 7th October 2021 20:56:47
What karma points do you currently need to enter?
By Retired breeder, 10th October 2021 16:57:24
I really need this info, please!
Retired breeder wrote:

I really need this info, please!


At the top of the page it says 5 karma points, you can also look on the karma page and that will tell you
jsniper
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I've been looking around the coats for like an hour and I've never seen a racing thoroughbred... Or any running\jumping horse in general... Is that not allowed? Or is it just something people don't like so it doesn't get picked?
PS And if the coat doesn't get selected can I at least use it for myself? default smiley :-))
CupOfRedTea
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CupOfRedTea wrote:

I've been looking around the coats for like an hour and I've never seen a racing thoroughbred... Or any running\jumping horse in general... Is that not allowed? Or is it just something people don't like so it doesn't get picked?
PS And if the coat doesn't get selected can I at least use it for myself? default smiley :-))


There are a lot of those types of coats, there are just so many out there they can be hard to find! It does not help you find all of them by a long shot, but you can go into coat directories and type in "Jump" or "Thoroughbred" into the coat name and a few show up that you may be looking for.

If a coat does not get selected, no one can use it (including you) but you can send it in again for the next month if you want to try again.
HarleyQuinn
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Is anyone able to clarify if tack (i.e. saddles and bridles) is allowed? I have come across a few coats with tack in the directories, but I distinctly remember tack being prohibited in my early Howrse days. Has that rule changed or maybe has it never existed in the first place?
parvuli
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parvuli wrote:

Is anyone able to clarify if tack (i.e. saddles and bridles) is allowed? I have come across a few coats with tack in the directories, but I distinctly remember tack being prohibited in my early Howrse days. Has that rule changed or maybe has it never existed in the first place?


It was against the rules,these days they seem to be more...accepted? But the rules do say no tack. Unless it was completely removed recently (but wasn't updated). Welcome to creation space where a lot of rules are learned by...doing art and submitting XD Reminds me of the old foal-rule (no foal art allowed). people kept sending them in so eventually the rule was taken away. The tack-rule kinda works the same way.
Shishi no Seirei
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