I plan to start getting into some projects based on what I've made in the generator. I assume the best method would be to find a pet with the traits I want and then dye each part. And I assume it would take about 10 dyes to do a whole pet.

My main question is about the pet dyes. I have a couple greater dyes but it's much more affordable to get lesser dyes. How bad is the colour accuracy for lesser dyes compared?

As someone who has done a lot of recolors/makeovers on pets I'd say the color swing can be pretty gross, to the point that I don't use lesser dyes at all BUT I'm particularly picky about my colors~ I don't like them being off by anymore then -10/+10. If I find myself short on dyes, I save the lesser dyes for traits/parts of the pet that might not matter as much but I REALLY loathe using them. (Not visible traits that won't be carried over, parts on a pet that might be really tiny, etc.) I think lesser pet dyes can swing pretty far out, say maybe a -50/+50 margin but I haven't really tracked those results.

Thank you! So it would probably be best to wait until I'm making more gold and buy all greater dyes. Thanks again for the help!

For using lesser dye in some project here are my advice :

- dont use them for black or white, you'll get somthing universaly awfull.

- dont use them on pastels, it's most likely going to come out as a dishwasher pet or you'll have to use
10 + to get an alright outcome

- neon are possible but again you will nead a few tries.

- for everything else, expect 3 to 5 dyes by color slot unless you are going for a dull color witch usualy take 1 or 2 tries to get right.

Got it! So using lesser dyes means I'll need multiple for several tries anyway so maybe better just to go for the greater dyes then. Thank you!

While much slower, using essence is another option.
3 regular essence is enough to complete projects without restricted traits, which makes it substantially cheaper than buying dyes, although regular essence does again have issues with colours that need precision like black and white (I find this swing is less than lesser dye, especially once breeding has averaged out the three originally generated pet's colours).

"Slow" probably can't be stressed enough with breeding up to an end result though if you have the option to dye pets immediately XD

Thank you! If I went the essence route I'd need to add more traits if I want more than 2 to 4 points worth right?

I'm not totally sure about the question, but the number of traits you ultimately want doesn't change the essence use. A project with traits in all 6 slots is totally doable with 3 starting essence.
No matter how many traits, projects start much faster if the generated pets all have carried traits rather than visible ones (since regular essence gives 2 trait points, that's two carried traits per pet). And if you're using three essence it's fastest to generate two males and one female (I know it's counter-intuitive, but it means the speed picks up way faster on the second and third generation).

So when I start a project where my goal is 6 visible traits my generated pets might looks like this:
Male 1: Gene 1 and Gene 2 carried
Male 2: Gene 3 and Mutation 1 carried
Female 1: Mutation 2 and Mutation 3 carried

Ok that makes a lot of sense! Maybe I'll try that route for my first project while I don't have enough gold for a full dye project. Thank you again!