The Joy of Designing: Workshop Four
Contestant Deadline: 7/4 @ 2pm

Hello all ~

Alongside the Joy of Designing Contest, I will be holding some design workshops. These workshops are open to everyone, so please feel free to join in. All contestants who participate in the workshop will earn an additional vote on their designs for the week! There are two types of workshops: one focuses on developing design skills, while the other focuses on giving back to the community. (: If you choose to participate, I'd love to see what you come up with - please feel free to post!


Design Workshop Four

This week's workshop focuses on design skills - specifically palette transferring. I know we all make that design we love on one Sylesti and we are determined to make it work on another! My hope is after this workshop, you will more easily be able to just that.

Please, please, please - I ask you do not use this workshop to lift other people's palettes without their permission. Their palettes are part of their intellectual property and I ask you please do your best to respect that fact. I recognize some palettes do turn out similarly, just please - don't blatantly copy without permission from the original creator.

For this workshop, I am going to post some of my personal palettes for you to work with. I will select palettes of varying difficulty to adapt - you may choose to work with any of the Sylestis below!



Hard:
Lion Jelly Palette, Scarlet Macaw Palette, Widow Spider Palette



Medium:
Sea Slug Palette, Nebulous Palette, Forest Nymph Palette



Easy:
Lost Soul Palette, Dusty Rose Palette, Sun Kissed Palette





Contestants: Please ping me and create a post that mirrors the steps taken in my tutorial as well as features a before image (on original sylesti) and after image(on your sylesti). Include your personal analysis (:





Example Palette Transfers:

Step One - Understanding the Palette/Analyzing your Palette




When you are first trying to determine the best way to transfer a palette, the first thing you want to do is analyze it. Determine the identity of your design and the associated complexities. I have provided an analysis on each of the palettes listed above to help you understand their intricacies before trying to transfer them and to give you a basis for analysis of your own palettes.




Lion Jelly - The Lion Jelly Palette is composed of two fairly distinct/separate sections in terms of color: pink and blue. The pink is home to orange and yellow accents; the blue utilizes blue highlights. Trying to balance these subsections can be difficult - double so if they don't maintain as much separation as the kelpari allows for.



Scarlet Macaw - The most complex part of this palette is the wide array of color - it is difficult to balance and maintain the look of the bird the palette was modeled after.



Widow Spider - Despite the fact there are a number of similar colors, the real difficulty is finding the necessary balance to create the widow illusion. It is important to remember successful palette transfers rely heavily on choosing the right traits and color slots to make the palette come to life.



Sea Slug - Orange and Blues play beautifully off one another - making this an easier palette to work with. The difficulty comes more form balancing the oranges. It is very likely you have to manipulate their color codes to get them to sit well against the blue. Use the lighter blues as highlights and the darker blues for the base.



Nebulous - The blues and purples in this palette compliment each other well - but it is important to pick traits where the contrast is heavily evident. You want the darker colors as the base and to use the the lighter colors as accents.



Forest Nymph - This palette is separated into two distinct parts like the Lion Jelly, but it far easier to work with. The body and genes are comprised of the browns to whites. The blues and greens are for accents which means they can be consolidated to mutations. It is important to still create a nice gradient between the greens and blues if at all possible.



Lost Soul - This is a very simple palette, but because it primarily features a single color, it requires a lot of selective thinking and attention to detail. It is important to create an eye catching gradient and to incorporate highlights.



Dusty Rose - The pinks and soft yellows in this palette compliment each other well so it's a great opportunity to work on gradients and trait selection. Use the the yellow alongside a light pink to create highlights on the body.



Sun Kissed - Reds, oranges, and yellows fit together beautifully and therefore can be forgiving. Use the reds and oranges to create interest or a gradient on the body. Utilize the yellows to create highlights. I suggest using saturated yellows on mutations and near white yellows on runes.

Step 2 - Analyzing the Layout




You need to analyze the old Sylesti layout against Sylestis you are considering transferring the palette to. For example, the puffadore has 3 body gene slots; the kelpari has two body genes and a fin gene; the ferrikki has a body gene, a feather gene, and an orb gene. The kelpari is separated into two fairly distinct parts: fins and body. Therefore, it is likely you will be more successful with your transformation if you pick another Sylesti with a similar organizational make up like the nyvene: body and wings. Or like the ferrikki is to the lunemara.

The more dissimilar a Sylesti you transfer the palette to, the more thoughtful you must be in selecting your gene traits to accommodate it. For example, if you go from a zolnixi to a ferrikki, you are going to need to pick a busier body trait on the ferrikki to accommodate the lack of ability to layer you would normally have on the zolnixi.

You also need to deem which of the trait slots will house what colors. Identify which are accents and which are body traits. You might have two distinct body sections to identify. Start aligning the colors based on this analysis. You may lose or use some colors more than once depending on your transformation. You will be swapping color slots often - don't feel like you have to keep all the colors in their original slots.

Step 3 - Determining the Traits




Selecting the correct traits is incredibly important! Determine what is most important for your palette. Do you need to create a gradient? A balance between traits? Are you looking for busy or simple traits based on your transformation? Refer to the palette analysis for some guidance!

Please note you don't have to use a total of 6-vis to achieve the balance you want to! You may increase or decrease visibles as you see fit.



Step 4 - Color Adjustments





Now you have selected the traits you wish to use to create the ideal transformation - note you may have to alter some colors here and there to create the best aesthetic. It is not uncommon to still be debating between a couple of traits until you finalize the color adjustment phase. This step is really about fine tuning your end product to make it come to life!