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Overlays 101 – The Standard 
We have had a long mod chat, and were we agreed to a somewhat standard to what we accept. And this is the result; a graphical standard which we hope will help you guys as much as it helps us.
While some of these might resemble any overlays weve seen, is not our intention to, and they are all made by us, and resemblances are unintentionally.
Also, please remember that this is more of a guideline, and we will judge all overlays case to case.
The basic :
- If you're making changes on, adding on, or removing any part of the Dinosaur, it should match Ex style as close as possible
- No premade image brushes, if we suspect brushes have been used, we will reject it. (Such as premade stamp brushes you can download on deviant art for photoshop etc)
- No Copyrighted material.
- Pixelart are generally no, unless very well done.
- No exaggerated gore, tasteful kid's halloween stuff.
- No anything that gets cut off by the edge.
This is what we generally look at:
1. Quality of lineart
2. Shading
3. Stray pixels
4. Bleeding colours and shadowing
5. Pixelation
6. How good it looks.
Now, to make sure we all follow the same line of thought, Ill give examples. Id love to give one of everything, but thats simply not just possible. If you wanna help out, feel free ;D
Example 1. Good idea, not so good executed.
As demonstrated here, this Linheraptor has been... fighting a rainbow.
As you can see, not all the lines are covered in blood, even if they should be. Some of the blood is blurred, while other parts arent, and the teeth arent very bloody, even though the muzzle is.
It also doesn't look very realistic, even if its supposed be just kids Halloween rated.
So, this one would be rejected.
Example 2: Wonky Job.
As you can see here, the lineart is poor, the lines are rather uneven and it has a very sketchy look to it. The shading is unevenly done, it has colour-bleeding out of the lineart, and erasing has left random white pixels where they dont belong
These would be rejected.
Here you see the same wings again, just looking more finished up, shading is looking good, the colours are within the lines. And there are no stray pixels.
Even if the style doesnt quite match Exhibited Style, we would accept these.
Example 3: Pixel art:
The dinosaurs here, along all of the art here on Ex, are smooth styled art. Because of this, pure pixel art tend to look wonky, as you can see on this safety vest. The lines are uneven, it looks like its done in pain, and it has a lot of stray pixels from the dinosaur it was made on top of (You cant see them, but I know cause I made it ;D)
This would be rejected.
However as you can see on this one, Pixel art can look nice, even if it has some issues, such as uneven lines, the shadowing is sketchy looking and it seems to lack some orange after the left reflection band. But, this one would probably still be accepted.
Example 4: Glow
As you can see, this has the glow cut off by the edges of the dinosaur. If this happens, it will be rejected.
This counts for any form of add on; glow, wings, reins, rider. If the edge is cut off, it will be rejected.
Example 5: Personal Overlays
This is a personal overlay, which is obvious by the initials and name on it.
Personal overlays you have only made for yourself/your raptors are no longer being accepted. If we allowed them, they would easily clutter up the server.
We have a feature for personal overlays, however they need to be completely your own art, or someone's art you're using with permission. They have to be accepted by Mods just like overlays.
Exampled 6: Covering Overlays
We no longer accept overlays that completely cover a dinosaur's base. For example, say you have an orange buitreraptor:
And you put this overlay on him:
You can't even tell he's orange anymore because the overlay completely covers up his color. This would not be allowed.
However, if some changes were made to this overlay, it would be fine. Like maybe the pink markings could stay, or the black could be made to show the base colors like this:
That's acceptable.
The only overlays we accept that cover the base are complete (re)drawings of a species (That you have drawn yourself) so you are no longer using Exhibited's base.
This is work in project, and we will edit and add in more examples.
Posted: 13/06/2011 @ 3:35 pm Edited on 22nd Jun 12 @ 9:52pm by Zani
