Surprised a thread like this hasn't already been made. This is for all people who have a trade but maybe not a cartel and are looking for help with designing items, hints on how to do a better job...basically to share tips and wisdom regarding how to hone your designing abilities.

I'll start off this topic with a throne I'm designing. I'd like this one to be good, but it has been quite some time since I last designed a throne and I'm not sure if it's up to snuff. Anyways, tips on improving, changes, and what not.

Commodities: merian 3 gorgog 3 snake 3 dracnari 3 orc 3 spectre 3 moose 3 coeurl 3 wyvern 3 marble 900 redtint 63
Appearance : a skeletal throne with a raised skull dais
Dropped : A macabre throne dominates the area, the skulls of its dais grinning vapidly.
Examined : Countless skulls have been acquired to fashion the steps of the dais leading up to this throne, bits of scalp and cakes of blood still evident on their cracked craniums. Their numerous origins hint at the artisan's careless disregard for any form of life unifying the jumbled skulls into a morbid council of death. The legs and frame have been assembled from various femurs, fibulas, and tibias, their massive patellas still bearing lumps of gristly cartilage. Enormous, black claws tip the throne's leg, their edge still sharp as razors. Massive vertebrae set as the backing of the chair, its height easily towering over the tallest Igasho, while enormous rib bones spawn haphazardly from the makeshift spine to encasing its user. A wyvern's skull has been mounted atop the the spine, its jaws pointing down and gaping wide open to reveal rows upon rows of jagged teeth. Almost whimsically, spurts of vibrant, scarlet blood have been liberally splashed accross the throne and dais in seemingly abrupt and powerful gushes.

I think the description is beautiful but the commodities seem excessive (for some people) in that so many of them need to be collected. For one thing collecting all that and having none of it decay is hard. I personally like using collected items in my jewelry but some people think its just a hassle and will then use that design less maybe.

But again your description of it is lovely!

I wanted to justify the throne...It's pretty much made of nothing but bone, blood and gore, so not having a lot of different creatures to make it seems to violate the design. But I agree, maybe 27 creatures is too much. Any suggestions on how I could lessen it?

Maybe just lessen how much you need of each one, maybe only one of each skull. You also don't actually HAVE to have all the skulls mentioned in the description as commodities though I admit it makes more sense. The Charites are quite understanding, as long as you don't take it too far putting a couple small things in the description that you don't have in comms is usually okay. For instance even though you have a large wyvern skull at top (very cool by the way) you don't necessarily have to make that a comm. Its really about justifying what is actually used in the description with what is viable for people to collect.

Also availability, people are always complaining they can't find gorgogs.

Please remember that I'm not an Artisan and don't completely understand what the average comm requirement over there is, but I would go for this:

Commodities: snake 3 dracnari 3 orc 3 moose 3 coeurl 3 wyvern 3 marble 900 redtint 50

I simply took out what was either slightly hard to get or might get one in trouble, though some might not care about that. Also with the tints, I like even numbers.

In the end though I think of it this way, its really MY design and as long as I use the thing its fine, if others use it cool, if not oh well.

I like the design. It reminds me of the wall of skulls in the Nihilist guildhall, only bloodier.

The commodities do seem excessive. One of each might be less extreme.

This is a pretty cool and graphic design. Aside from the comms, the second sentence seems a little iffy since it's making an assumption about the artisan, though in most cases it would probably make sense and does add more of that dark atmosphere to the throne. In the next sentence you name a lot of bones that I've never heard of so it's a bit difficult to envision what they look like, but perhaps I'm just dump =D

I like the design. But you should have 25 gorgogs required instead of three.

3 Wyvern bodies? I think I've only ever seen 1 mother wyvern appear at once, and I don't think you want to pay some 300k to buy 3 wyvern mounts. May wanna reconsider that.

There are also wyverns in the beastmaster camp (don't think they are loyal, but there is a possibility).

Oh, forgot about those.

I like the design, but I find it a bit strange that you haven't included taurian or krokani skulls in the design which would make very bizarre specimens (Krokani skulls for the armrests) suitable for the throne.

Also, I'm not too keen on the "artist's" sentence.

Perhaps consider changing it to

“Skulls grotesquely pile against each other twisting viciously, protruding everywhere a mockery of all life forming a macabre testament (monument) of lunacy and the inevitability of death”.


I dunno, I'm just not fond of the idea of referring to the artisan in the design, cause in this case for example after examining the viewer will already have this feeling of repulsion over the crafter and it's glaring disrespect of life (defiling corpses).

No biggy, though. The design is actually great just felt like offering a suggestion.


Looking forward to sit on it someday in the future!

--------------


Another idea that perhaps you could work into the detail so people become fascinated by the repulsion and jusn't can't peel their eyes of it:

Every skull with an expression frozen on them. Some skulls as if they were laughing hysterically as if they knew their horrible fate and laughing at the viewer knowing that there is always space for another addition in the chair. Skulls with what could appear like agonizing screams, others staring upward as if in supplication begging for some obscure force to free them as if there were a second release like death just to have twisting boney hands apparently coming from the chair itself to ensnare them, grasping many skulls.
And the taurian skulls, remember that I suggested them? It would be cool if perhaps you could work into the description that they are lined up in a way that one of their massive horns thrust outward lining up the the back-support of the seat placed in such a way like so \\\\o// The circle the wyvern head, and the // being the horns of the taurians it would perfectly envelope the wyvern head giving it more attention.

Yeah, I guess I should change the bone names to just 'leg bones'. The femur is the thigh bone, the tibula and fibula the bones below the knee, the knee bone is the patella. One of each corpse sounds like a good deal, I'll change that.

For the purpose of this design, I actually took a look at all the commodities and classified them. If there were more racial comms that didn't cause you to be enemied to an org, I likely would have added them. No taurians, igasho.. >.>

I was feeling iffy about the artisan line. I thought it sounded cool though, so kept it in. I'll figure something out that'll sound as neat.

Thanks for the help!

Now other people post designs

Do gorgogs or spectres even have bones?

Was thinking more of interesting gore when adding gorgogs/spectres...But there isn't a gorgog comm, meh. I like the idea of goopey goo spread over the bones as added gore. Snakes have skulls. The only specific corpse thing in the throne is the wyvern's skull. The rest is left ambiguous.

There's probably a more suitable thread for this, but what happened to unicornhorn in the commodities list? I swear I saw it there before!

I've been working on a shoes design to submit to Moonlace, but I'm not sure if I'm getting the effect I'm trying for.

The soles of these unusual shoes are made of thickly padded leather, comfortable, while still allowing for a wide range of movement. The vamps are backed with soft leather, and are covered with iridescent grey silk streaked lightly with blue. The silk is tightly gathered and pleated along the sides, the folds meeting in a "v" shape in the center front. Nestled between the folds of silk are minute seed pearls and sapphire beads. Two straps of grey leather cross over the wearer's foot, helping to secure the shoe.


I'm aiming for an effect like these bracelets. Don't follow the link until you've read the desc and have a clear mental image of the shoes, though, since I'd like to know if it's clear enough.

The soles of these unusual shoes are made of thickly padded leather, providing for comfort while still allowing for a wide range of movement. The vamps are backed with soft leather, and are covered with iridescent, grey silk streaked lightly with blue. (feels like the sentence is hanging, blue what?) The silk is tightly gathered and pleated along the sides, the folds meeting in a "v" shape in the center front. (this doesn't sound right either, maybe center of the toes?) Nestled between the folds of silk are minute pearl seeds and sapphire beads. Two straps of grey leather cross over the wearer's foot, helping to secure the shoe.

Also, this shoe looks more like a sandal to me. That's just my personal opinion though. It's a very nice design.

EDIT: To make the shoes look more like those bracelets, I also suggest using dyed leather, preferably in a pastel colour like sky blue, or a pale violet.

Hmm, I see what you mean about the sandal thing. I was going for something like this with the straps.

The soles of these unusual shoes are made of thickly padded leather, comfortable, while still allowing for a wide range of movement. The vamps cover most of the wearer's heels, then dip low so that they just cover the toes. The soft grey leather of the surface of the shoes has been pleated and gathered to form myriad folds, in which nestle tiny seed pearls and sapphire beads. Two grey leather straps cross over the top of the foot, helping to secure the shoe.

I've replaced the silk with more leather, gotten rid of the blue streaks altogether, and changed it so that it describes the shape of the shoe. That bit was tricky to do without constantly mentioning the wearer, and I'm not sure I pulled it off...

Just flowing wise, I'd change that to this:

The soles of these unusual shoes are made of thickly padded leather, providing for comfort while still allowing for a wide range of movement. The vamps cover most of the wearer's heels then dip low, so that they cover just the toes. The soft grey leather of the surface of the shoes has been pleated and gathered to form myriad folds, in which nestle tiny seed pearls and sapphire beads. Two grey leather straps cross over the top of the foot, helping to secure the shoe.

Otherwise, looks great! IMO, I think the silk was a great touch before. Silk makes fold since it's such a flexible fabric, but the same effect can be difficult to reproduce with leather.

What did you mean here then? The straps, or the soles?