Can you use a pegasus body as a unicorn and still be exepted

Alan81, no, it's unaccepteable since the pegasus and the unicorn are infact two separate species. Besides, I find your message a bit difficult to read because of its gray backgroud and green text color. You might want to edit your post. :)

How do I even make a skin after all

@Alan - Dobby is correct. You can however make a dragon that has more horse-like features (as long as it looks dragony) and have feathered wings. :) 

@Spottedtail- Could you be more specific? That question is a very large one that to be honest isn't something that someone can answer via text. If you mean the actual art behind the skin I would suggest checkingout Deviantart.com for drawing tutorials that help you design you own unique creations. 

If you mean the programs please check these out: http://beastkeeper.com/thread/5917

Beastkeeper also has it's own tutorial here: http://beastkeeper.com/color-tutorial

This is a thread for questions on why a skin wasn't accepted... but what about questions about why a skin was accepted? I don't want to report them, they've gone through whatever grading process finds them to be of a qood enough quality to be accepted, but I would like to know what allowed them to qualify. Is there a rigid examination where only certain aspects of the art is taken into consideration or is it a more flexible system that can take into account outliers and exceptions? Below are a couple examples of problems, or what I perceive to be problems, that I have noticed in the public skins.

I mean no offense to the user's whose skins I am questioning. If you're seeing this then please take it as constructive criticism and not just me insulting your work for no reason. Also note that your skin may simply be used as an example of a problem that I've seen recurring in more than one skin and so the entirety of the comments on it are not all directed at your skin alone.

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Example 1:

If the spotted pattern were not included in this skin I would see no problem with it but, well, the spots are there. Blotches may be a better way of describing them, or maybe smears... in any case I find them to be very off-putting visually. They can be done properly, Sakreeno's "Longhorn Crow" would be a good example of that, but here the spots do not work. It doesn't look like a natural part of the skin and so the entire quality of the piece takes a hit because of it and is unable to redeem itself, at least in my opinion.

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Example 2:

There is a right and a wrong way to use the color white in skins and, unfortunately, while I like the rest of the coloring done here, I would say that this would be the wrong way to do it. The reason for that is that that is the base white. It is a lack of color. Even the Pearl skin, which is the Lykos' official white skin, has more color than the areas here that have been left blank. White should be used as a color, not a lack of color, and a good example of this done correctly would be Amnaa's Throdamas "White Plume Moth", "Pearl", and "Albino lake". I personally can only tolerate the base white when the surrounding colors blend into it gradually - the sudden change here just doesn't look right.

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Example 3:

Glare. There isn't much more I have to say about this and similar skins except that they seem to violate the overexposure to light rule that would make skins not qualify except they managed to be accepted anyways. My best guess is that the entire image not being super bright is the reason it/they passed inspection but it can still be aggressive to the eye, like text that is too brightly colored to read.

I would like to add to the above with something that has bothered me, which is covering the official base with a single, unvaried pattern with little regard to following the natural shape of the animal, including shading. I feel that these would fall under the rule of too simplistic design. No offense meant to the respective authors of the examples, of course. 

While it's not a simple gradient that could easily be created with one click, it's still just a gradient of sorts placed over the base without shading. The only feature which changes its appearance is that the claws, underbelly, scales, and wing limbs are colored a little differently than the adjacent regions. 

The texture of this skin is interesting, however, it doesn't vary with the shape and texture of the animal itself. It appears that the pattern was made by itself, then laid over the official base. Even the eyes aren't colored differently. 

This skin is a little better, in that the pattern changes slightly on the tail, legs, and head, but the overall color and texture remains the same on all areas. There is no shading except that of the official base, and it seems that most of the official shading was actually removed. 

Sumatra_Echo, I can at least offer some insight on that last skin since, well, it's mine. "Chromatic Brown" is a part of my stained glass collection. The other skins in the collection are "Iridescent Glass," "Mosaic Green," "Volcanic Opalescence," "Opalescent Magma," "Vitreous Blue," and "Prismatic Pink."

The pattern was created from the use of an overlay, the same one on each but recolored to match the color scheme I was going for, that was added to the base an ungodly number of times.

Being Stained Glass I was going for a slightly "unnatural" look to them in that the animal's shading was not taken into account since it's glass. The Unicorn's hairs are not individually discernable and feathers have a "glossy" or "glazed" appearance, if you see what I mean. In response to a question asked by Monues Angel answered: "Monues, yes, golem type creatures work fine for custom skins." Based on that answer one can assume any material, in this case glass, is suitable for a custom skin so skins do not have to be entirely organic in nature so long as the species is still recognizable.

That does make sense. I have to admit I dislike skins created with overlays because of this two-dimensional quality, but seeing as you're actually trying to acheive a two-dimensional effect--well, I suppose there's nothing more to be said. 

If I might ask, how do you resize the images? The only method I've found is to manually change the dimensions to smaller numbers, which doesn't work if they don't share a common factor. 

I just put in a few skins I hope they get used and exepted

Alright, I have a question regarding custom skins. I have seen many skins which are not the generic base that beastkeeper uses/provides for people making custom skins. So I understand that you are allowed to do this (drawing your own base). I am planning on making a few to submit, and I have a question regarding characteristics of the animal you are drawing.

So, in the first post here, it says that when creating your own base, it should have recognizable features for the species you are creating a skin for, but you can take SOME liberties (some of the dragon skins with custom bases for instance). 

Drawing on that, I plan to make a cokcatrice skin with a custom base. So, my question-may I make a custom cockatrice skin with bat wings, instead of feathery wings? Some artist depictions include bat-like wings, so would I be able to do so and the custom skin be considered to still have recognizable features and get accepted?

I was wondering if this thread was the good one to ask why my skin wasn't approved? Is it anything I could fix easily like the colors and such or the problem is in the design? 

Here it is, it's a lykos skin

Wolla, it was rejected because of the additional tails. Please keep the number of major body parts the same with original artworks, so the species remains recognizable. We don't have a kitsune-like species at this moment.

For the number 8 common mistakes, how can i fix that?

Why was my skin rejected?

Sakreeno, please check your skin on dark background. Outline has transparency issues.