Different customization styles - discuss?

[Druid]

Making this thread because I�m interested in hearing difference perspectives! I personally run pretty minimalist with my pets. A lot are just on backgrounds, my holy grail is finding a unique and interesting background/foreground/background item combo that fits well and makes a little environment that suits the pet. In fairness most of my pets are either UCs or babys/maraquans/mutants etc, but even the standard converteds will have either no clothes or maybe a few small accessories (a scarf or ribbon, a marking, some contacts, maybe a PB set or a species-appropriate set like the uni parade stuff). I�m also finicky about animation being consistent and subtle - consistent like if I have a BG with animated water I won�t pair it with a FG with non-animated water and vice versa, subtle like I don�t love those items that go through full cycles or whatever (but I do like things like snowflakes falling, water moving, a waving flag)

I promise what I�m about to say is not shade, and obviously this is a very popular style so I am in fact the weird one, but I fundamentally do not understand putting quads in things like dresses and shoes. Dresses in particular feel very built-to-be-worn-upright to me. This applies to real life too - I have a little dog with a full wardrobe of sweaters, so absolutely down with animal clothing, but I really don�t get the little doggie dresses either. Wigs as well - I don�t want my cat or cow or whatever to have human hair. There are a few I�ve seen that I�ve liked in context, like a peo with a wig that looks like a different mane, or a short wig that matches the colour of the pet and just makes it look shaggy around the eyes, but I just.. don�t understand the thriving neopet wig market. So I�m interested! If you�re someone that appeals to, what is it about it? Is it making the quad version of a humanoid character?

In general, tell me about your customization style - what appeals to you, what do you avoid, all that. Most important thing is this is something we can very much all peacefully agree to disagree on - feel free to say styles you�re not into, but don�t be rude about the people who are.

[Ice]

Generally, my pets fall into 2 camps:

UC -> minimalist; most likely a fitting background and foreground. I mean for obvious reasons, but the older art also just NEEDS to be less cluttered for the most part, in my opinion. :thinking:

Converted -> a clusterfuck. They're all very matchy-matchy, either to a color or the pet's character/theme, but my god I think if I showed you guys some of my customizations yall would need eye bleach lol. Looking through my saved DTI stuff, they're on the dense-r side, item wise, and some just have a lot going on. I do think *some* of them are pretty well put together that I am proud of, but a few (esp the ones from like 5 yrs ago) are a big WTF were you thinking. xD

I also see what you mean about clothing on quads and I agree - primarily because most of the time it looks chunky and doesn't fit the body at all. And that is a big no no. The most clothes I think I put on my quads are capes, and some PB clothing bc those actually FIT the pet most of the time. My draiks probably wear the most "human" clothes out of all my pets, and I mean most things DO look best on them anyways. #draikmasterrace

also I really do plan on hosting a community customization contest in dec, nov I am just dead sorry

[Oneiros]

All my customization opinions are pretty much the opposite lol. I love gaudy, crazy, piled-on customizations. I usually fill almost every category when I'm dressing up my pets. I still make it looks nice (in my opinion), like I'm not slapping on pops for the sake of it.

Personally, I don't view Neopets as animals, nor humanized versions of animals. They're kind of in their own realm, and I just...like putting wigs on them, I guess? I think if they're already wearing clothes, it's kind of past the point of being "too weird" to slap wigs on them. If I didn't put wigs on them, I think a lot of my customs would feel empty.

I really don't know why I like dressing them up at all, now that I think about it. I don't like dressing myself up, or anything else in real life, so I'm not sure why I have fun with it on Neopets. I like seeing all types of customs though, I see both super minimal looks and over-the-top looks that I love.

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[kittyray]

I'm also team minimal. I'm all about the pretty backgrounds and maybe some foreground/garland/effects stuff. Overall don't dig my pets wearing clothes or wigs, but markings and similar can be nice. Paint brush clothing also tends to be a step up for me, but tend to like accessories more than actual clothes, anyway.

[Flordibel]

My Neopets are almost always in "slice of life" customisations. Since TNT provides items like mugs and handbags and scarves and books and jewelry, I tend not to think of them as being PETS, but almost like... the more fabulous version of me. My pet will have BANGIN' hair and a faux fur coat because I can't! And yes, she will go to the Valentine's Day Cafe and drink her Pumpkin Spiced Latte.

That being said. There are some pieces in particular that look terrible on certain species. I usually put my bipedal pets in dresses (because the trousers market is lacking) and my quadruped pets in shirts and trousers. My Peophin, bless her heart, has a difficult time of it - most shoes only cover half of the Peophin fin, and dresses look terrible on them 85% of the time.

I'm trying to branch out into doing less particular customs. But if I don't have a situation in mind that I want to portray (and "cute galaxy princess" won't cut it, I've tried), I tend to flounder.

But that's the fun of it, I suppose!!

[Aero]

I really like this thread! I'm not very good at customizing (I think at least one of my pets is decked out in full Money Tree freebies NO SHAME), but one of my fave customization styles if you can call it that is people who have matching customizations for all their pets. Recently I saw a user on the PC who had all their pets in winter backgrounds/lilac/white/snowy. It looked SO good on their lookup, and I wish I had that dedication/skill. Edit: I wish I had them tagged so I could find them again... if anyone knows they have an invisible eyrie they often have active, and I think they had the snowbunny avatar on?

Most of my pets are UC so I tend to stick to backgrounds and foregrounds like a few of you already mentioned. I gravitate towards little trinkets like light showers and stuff (I would hoard these if I could). Even with my converted pets I don't really dress them up except my Draik, who wears all NP everything because I'm kind of lackadaisical with customization. Even with him I'm too cheap to buy $$ NP clothing and don't really browse through NC clothing unlike with backgrounds/foregrounds/trinkets.

[Batgirl]

I'm an absolute basic bitch with my customs. I very much am into monochromatic or theme customs.

I do not own any quad pets. I have Draiks and Kacheeks and some UC and that's all I'm really interested in customizing. I used to do some other ones for fun on DTI, but none that I've owned.

My fave items tend to be wigs and BG's - I'll base a custom solely off those items and find things that have similar colors. I'm like most and really love the pops because I like pretty things, lol.

[Autobot]

I fundamentally do not understand putting quads in things like dresses and shoes. Dresses in particular feel very built-to-be-worn-upright to me.

^ You're not alone in that, trust me. Taking it a bit further, I don't like wigs on pets at all. IMO most of them don't sit right on most pets' heads, and it doesn't help that most of my species aren't the usual ones like Aishas/Blums/Kacheeks/Kougras/Draiks, who generally look... better (if you can call it that) in the way the wig is placed on them. Sometimes I wonder if TNT says "fuck it" when trying to figure out how some things look with all-species wearables when they get to the less popular species that they know no one cares about lmao.

"hey, this looks really shitty on the grarrl. but i can't quite get it right, should i keep trying or..."
"caring about grarrls??? in this economy??? i think not. submit that shit let's get this bread"

I'm generally limited to in-character items since my pets are OCs, so sometimes it's hard finding good items. It doesn't help that some item titles don't exactly reflect what they are, so sometimes I'm scrolling endlessly thru D2I looking for the perfect shirt to put on my stupid animals. There's a disappointingly low number of all-species cowboy items, and I'll leave it at that lol. (a single distant, but very melancholy, yeehaw...)

[Marius]

I do NP customisations only

Good NP items are so rare I find it more challenging somehow.

[bank_man]

I like character customizations. Not necessarily ones that are quirky or very specific to a personality, but ones that suit a more specific aesthetic than a color palette or general vibe. E.g. "desert warrior" or "space explorer" or "faerie queen", etc.