Currently closed! Will reopen around Spring.

Hello! I'm offering a free service to critique your designs. (Made mostly with the festivals in mind, but if you'd like comments on something else like a personal project, feel free to ask.) This is open to anyone and everyone interested :D

Early on, my designs were... not the greatest. One of the things that I found most helpful was outside opinions. There's less bias, and others may notice something you initially didn't. Since I have now had some experience and relative success in getting my designs chosen, I'd like to help others out!

My critiques may vary. I might do "my take on your idea" or just general pointers, whichever I think would be more helpful.



Instructions:
LINK your design post, do not paste the designs here. It's going to make the pages here slow to load. If you want me to comment on a specific few, please specify.

Rules:
Be patient and don't ping me multiple times. I may be busy, but I'll get to you at some point.

Do not argue with me. I'm here to give my opinion on what you can do to improve your designs, not hold a debate about which design is better. I'm not going to pressure you into making changes, so you can leave it unchanged if you like your original best. This is one strike and you're out - I'll say nothing further and just ignore any future requests for critiques from someone who tries to argue.

I'm hosting images on imgur. This is to prevent direct copy-pasting of hexes into the contest. I will never claim an edited design as my own, but changes from someone else kinda doesn't make it completely yours, either. If you like the changes I make and can figure out how to remake them closely, that's fine!

Take my comments with a grain of salt. In the end, it is the admin who makes the decisions, not me. There may be designs I dislike that get chosen; there may be some I like that won't get chosen.

Hello! You mentioned you'd be interested if I made this.

Focusing on your "Frozen Moonlight" - I think it's a pretty good start, but there are pretty significant changes I'd suggest. Overall, they mainly aim toward adding contrast.


(Version with same traits as original)

Here are the changes I've made -
EC: Higher saturation, more orange tone. Yellow can swing close to green, which isn't very fitting for this theme.
C1: Darker + more saturated blue.
Pretty much all of the pinks were shifted towards the red range, since they look a little watery near the purple range. C2 was kept largely the same other than the hue change, while C3 was made more saturated.

(To explain what I did with the pinks - original vs changes)


I changed G3 from pale yellow to a brighter pink. Many of vorpas' G3 genes draw from this slot and EC, so the pink will give it more contrast.
M1 was made a dark blue, but it could use some experimentation. It doesn't look too great with traits that pull from EC.
M2 is darker + more saturated, like C1.
A2 isn't visible, but I think it would be better as a brighter pink (like the G3 change) when looking at Spring Blossoms.

Hello! I'm interested in some critique on my Spring themes, primarily the faelora, draeyl, and nytekrie designs i have for spring!
https://www.sylestia.com/forums/?thread=92364&page=1#3
Any other critiques would be welcomed as well, thank you...!

https://www.sylestia.com/forums/?thread=94165&page=5#46
I am very interested on getting advice /critiscism on my design my designs. also could you rank my designs from best to worst, in your opinion.

Thanks for the advice! I tried out your suggestions, using some to my own preference and this is what I ended up liking

I wanted to stay true to the theme so I kept some of my original ideas and made some changes to others. I was wondering if you have any other opinions from this point?

That looks much better! I still think you could darken the G1 (and maybe bring the hue closer to the M2 color to tie them together). The combination of Dragon Fins/Seaweed Wind looks a little busy as well. While both are pretty traits, they overlap quite a bit - consider changing one when submitting!

Some general advice for your designs:
- Try to keep colors in a closer range. Hue variants often stick out like a sore thumb on a design. This especially seems to apply to cool colors. A greenish blue looks very different from indigo, even if they both fall under the general blue area. Your Lupe has many different green tones - the dull forest green of G1, pale lime A2, bright-spearmint C2. It could be improved by bringing the main colors into a closer range. Colors similar to G1 would work well as the general base, accented by lighter greens. You did pretty well with the Luff's green tones, but the mint-M3 is a little off. As another example, the M2 and C3 of your Morkko don't match very well. The C3 you chose is in the pinkish range, while the rest of the purples have more of a indigo/blue hue. This is what I'd do with that design; I only changed two hexes and the design feels far more cohesive.
- More variety in the brightness. Your designs have pastel-themed undertones, which don't always suit the theme. Experiment with darker colors, especially in the Ferrikki, Kelpari, Puffadore.
- There's nothing wrong with full saturation/brightness! Don't feel the need to avoid them. High S/B values moves you away from the dishwatery grey tones.


My take on the Pond Lily Faelora - yours is kinda pretty and I love the concept, but the colors don't quite go well with one another.

(Same-trait version)

I've made major changes, notably the introduction of yellows into the design. Yellow makes an excellent accenting color in a wide variety of palettes. I've replaced G3, M2, and M3 with full brightness, low saturation yellows.

The palette has much less pink in the actual hexes, only leaving pink in C3. I've opted for a more reddish pink, similar to what I did with Pearlwish's design above.

Original vs changes - same images as above, but the general idea's the same.


EC is now a bright mint green, similar to your original's G1 but with slightly higher saturation. The indigo EC that you chose doesn't sit well with most of the design. This new green tone really complements genes that pull from EC, such as Leaf Veins and the edges of Frosted Flower.

C1 is the same hue, but darker and more saturated. Contrast is important and this contributes to it.
The new C2 is actually lower saturation/brightness, because the belly color doesn't need to stand out very much.
I used a mid-brightness teal in G1. G1 is layered behind G2, so a brightness closer to that of C1 makes it blend together more. As you can see in my example, it serves as more of a backdrop so that G2 (Lucky Runes) can really shine through.
G2 was changed for a lime hue, low sat/full bright.
I chose a mid-bright teal like G1 for M1, but this could use some experimentation. You can try darker teal/blue, or maybe pinks.


For your Drae, I'm feeling more iffy about this design so I'm not going anywhere near as in-depth that I did for the Fae.

Lower S/B for the dark blues, and more grey-blue tones (for G3, M1).

I didn't make a sample for the Nyte, since I personally find them hard to work with. Just some purely-text advice then: I think the closer-hue suggestion applies here with the blues. You could experiment with adding the pale browns in the trait colors (especially M2) as well. The last thing I'd say for this is that I don't know how I feel about the dark EC. I understand it makes the eyes match with the actual birds, but Sylestia designs don't always have to be identical to real life animals. Besides, many mutations pull from EC, and they don't look too great when it's a dark color.