Thank you, Skor, that's what was up with them, I knew there was something!

I've only fixed up my fae, and here's how that looks now:

I made the eye yellow instead of green or purple, since it fit better in my eyes, and a few other colors are different as well but all in all I far prefer this!

Alongside that, I debated over the Drae for ages until I decided to go for a dark C1 and yellow G2

I feel that it is far better as far as an actual bumblebee goes, as they're more black than yellow naturally

I know I've been taking a while to get to this, but I finally have some spare time to do so. Thank you for your patience!

You've done pretty well for your first time entering a design contest! Here are some general changes I'd make in your designs:

- Avoid pure blacks, whites, and greys. Themed pets don't come out the exact hexes of the design because they are given an amount of color swing. Although swing likely won't affect your chances at getting a design selected, it does affect the appearance of that theme if it was chosen. Due to how the swing works, pure monochrome colors have a larger chance at swinging to a larger variety of colors - for example, putting a FFFFFF white can swing to green or orange or yellow, which could look bad if the rest of your design is, say, dark purple. Instead of this, try using a low saturation of a color you wouldn't mind it swinging into.

C1 of Kestrel Vuls, as an example. Desaturated blues work very well as replacements for greys, and they often look more interesting than pure grey.


- Try not to use dark colors for EC as much. I know they're accurate to the animals you modeled them after, but there's no rule that a Sylestia design has to perfectly match what it's based on. If it looks better a different way, most players would care about a design looking better than accuracy. There are some species where dark ECs work, such as Luffox and Draeyl, but a lot of others don't. This also applies to trait slots with white overlays (usually G3 - rune genes for most species).

Here's an Aurleon with a dark green EC, red G3, blue M1. (Feel free to load this into the generator if you'd like a closer look.)

If it's a design choice you're okay with, you could submit those, but these dark colors would look unappealing and sort of dirty-looking as a theme.

- Try to change the traits between genders. Make sure you have checked through all traits on all trait slots, and pick the ones you think look best to display. It's okay to have some same traits in both designs (for example, I usually put Iridescent Gems on Bulb designs because the others don't always match well), but there should be at least some variation. It shows that your design has some versatility, not made with just one trait set in mind. Checking through all traits can also help you find flaws as well.
For example, if I only looked at Spotted Fox with these pink and blue colors:

I may not notice that G1 and C1 are so similar that traits like Dalmatian are practically invisible.


For early designs, these are a decent start! I like your Aeri, though it does need tweaking along with the rest of your designs. If I'm going to be perfectly honest, I don't think any of them as it stands will be selected as themes for the festival. You'll need to make changes to have a shot - significant ones, yes, but it's doable! Don't get discouraged, keep trying to improve. You've done quite well so far. Best of luck c:

I know the deadline for the design thread has passed, but it's still unlocked for now - and I've finally got the time to actually do this. Thanks for being patient about it!

Starting with your project/winter nixi design, this is what I personally would have gone for. More brown overall, lighter eyes. G3 affects the tail rune/ear tips, so a red-orange would probably be better instead of leaving it white. I thought a mostly-brown base with off-white in the G2 Gazelle would look best (on the left), the one on the right has the same traits as your original, swapped C1 and G1 compared to the left design.Try to avoid using pure black in designs. In addition to blacks/greys/whites' higher possibility of strange color swing, black messes a little with the lineart's appearance as well.
For your other winter designs, I noticed a lot of them seem repetitive - a lot of them have hexes used in 4+ slots. In some cases having the same hex is alright; for example most Ligh designs have the same G1/G2. Changing up the colors would probably make them more visually interesting.
Most of your submissions tend to be either super high contrast/saturation, like the Aur, or very pastel like the Neph/Vul. Try varying the tones within the designs. A duller base with bright runes and eyes would likely have better chances than a completely pastel or neon design.
Usually designs look better with less hue variants as well. They stick out a lot, especially with cool colors - looking at your Qit, the pale green, dark green, and teal don't go too well with one another.