kuma
kuma
General User-Made Mock Information for All Projects
- Mocks should be 1 image containing only the poses that will be used. Please combine multiple images into 1, and if your image has extra poses please remove those from the image.
Please save your mocks as .png! This will give the artist a better image quality to work from. Jpg images often become fuzzy and make details hard to see.
Project Recolor User-Made Mock Information
- Mocks are a general guide for placement and coloring for the artist. The artist will try to be as close as possible to mocks, however they will not make changes to official gradients.
The artist will not guarantee exact matches to user-made mocks, especially on shading. Shading will vary based on the item being recolored.
Hex codes will only be necessary if including a new color that doesn't have an item yet. Please be sure to give the points of the new color in the clearest way possible. Please see below spoiler for an example of how to set up new colors.
- Gradient points are clearly shown.
Color is labelled so the artist knows which color is which.
If possible, include a visual of what the color looks like on an item.
Thank you fawn for use of your mocks!
- If you wish to create a new color but do not have gradient points, or have a non-mock image you would like the new color based on, artist can create the gradient based on an image.
Project Custom User-Made Mock Information
- User-made mocks are a guide to the design. The artist will not match user-made mocks exactly.
Changes will occur for many reasons, including but not limited to fitting the avatar canvas size, shifting to be 3/4 facing like the avatar base, technical limitations, etc.
Mocks are an excellent visual, but please make sure to also include some text explanation for things like texture, size, patterning, etc. The more information the artist has the better they can understand your vision!
kuma
Important Information for Mock Creators
Please save your mocks as .png.
All mock creators/people submitting orders/receiving mocks who use Photoshop please read this important information about color profiles:
If you get mocks back and the color is completely different than you expected, most likely, this is due to a color profile issue.
This information is written for and with Photoshop. Other programs may have similar features, but this guide focuses on Photoshop.
What is a color profile?
A color profile is how a program parses colors. This is different from CMYK/RGB, though are similarly tied to printing/photography/etc.
Your computer uses a color profile; if you have f.lux THAT also uses a color profile. When you open a file/copy-paste an image, it may be using your programs color profile vs what the original may have been done with. This is due to some files not being assigned a color profile, so they open up with the default color profile on your computer.
F.lux in particular overrides your computers profile, and copy-pasting anything into Photoshop will grey out tones subtly enough that you don't notice, but they are actually quite dulled out.
Look at this image:
An artist was having issues making ivory white. This was really strange, as ivory's lightest point is pure white. Uploading her file into another computer, the wig was appearing grayish. When the gradient was dropped onto the file it would go to white.
The first assumption may be that they had a weird gradient, but that wasn't it. Both of the whites were reading the exact same hex code.
After trial and error the realization came that the problem was the color profiles.
The files we had didn't have a set color profile. Copy-pasting ANYTHING goes off your program/computer profile instead of the profile that the item was made in-- but when they set it to the working profile, srgb, they could use the same gradient and make the ivory hair, well, ivory.
In order to fix this you will need to set the color profile.
At the bottom of the edit menu, there are three color profile specific things to click on:
Color Settings
Assign Profile
Convert to Profile
Click on Color Settings! Make sure your settings match the image below:
Now, when you open a file, a text box will open:
This will fix the color issues. Sometimes, just to make doubly sure, go Edit > Convert to Profile > SRGB etc, especially when copy-pasting.
A good way to check if your color profiles are correct is to grab an image (your mocks, a Gaia item, etc), copy-paste it into your program and eyedrop a specific color. Now, open a new file, and scribble that color in. Now eyedrop THAT color and scribble it on the original image-- if they are off, you've got a color profile issue.
This information is written for and with Photoshop. Other programs may have similar features, but this guide focuses on Photoshop.
What is a color profile?
A color profile is how a program parses colors. This is different from CMYK/RGB, though are similarly tied to printing/photography/etc.
Your computer uses a color profile; if you have f.lux THAT also uses a color profile. When you open a file/copy-paste an image, it may be using your programs color profile vs what the original may have been done with. This is due to some files not being assigned a color profile, so they open up with the default color profile on your computer.
F.lux in particular overrides your computers profile, and copy-pasting anything into Photoshop will grey out tones subtly enough that you don't notice, but they are actually quite dulled out.
Look at this image:
An artist was having issues making ivory white. This was really strange, as ivory's lightest point is pure white. Uploading her file into another computer, the wig was appearing grayish. When the gradient was dropped onto the file it would go to white.
The first assumption may be that they had a weird gradient, but that wasn't it. Both of the whites were reading the exact same hex code.
After trial and error the realization came that the problem was the color profiles.
The files we had didn't have a set color profile. Copy-pasting ANYTHING goes off your program/computer profile instead of the profile that the item was made in-- but when they set it to the working profile, srgb, they could use the same gradient and make the ivory hair, well, ivory.
In order to fix this you will need to set the color profile.
At the bottom of the edit menu, there are three color profile specific things to click on:
Color Settings
Assign Profile
Convert to Profile
Click on Color Settings! Make sure your settings match the image below:
Now, when you open a file, a text box will open:
This will fix the color issues. Sometimes, just to make doubly sure, go Edit > Convert to Profile > SRGB etc, especially when copy-pasting.
A good way to check if your color profiles are correct is to grab an image (your mocks, a Gaia item, etc), copy-paste it into your program and eyedrop a specific color. Now, open a new file, and scribble that color in. Now eyedrop THAT color and scribble it on the original image-- if they are off, you've got a color profile issue.
If you are using above Photoshop CC v22 (Photoshop CC 2021) please see below:
In Photoshop CC v23 (Photoshop CC 2022) they have done some work on how the Gradient Map feature works. There are now 3 modes for using maps: Perceptual (default), Linear, and Classic. Each of these modes look a little different when turned on, which can affect how user mocks would look versus Gaia mocks.
Artists using newer versions will be using the "Classic" mode as it will be compatible with older versions of the program, and also work best with our maps. We recommend using this mode for making your mocks as well so shading will work the same way. If you use this version of Photoshop you will need to use the drop down menu on all Gradient Maps to change to "Classic".
This information may change in a further update to the program, but at time of posting is accurate to how we will be working.
Artists using newer versions will be using the "Classic" mode as it will be compatible with older versions of the program, and also work best with our maps. We recommend using this mode for making your mocks as well so shading will work the same way. If you use this version of Photoshop you will need to use the drop down menu on all Gradient Maps to change to "Classic".
This information may change in a further update to the program, but at time of posting is accurate to how we will be working.