Design Guide
Here you'll learn how to construct your own hooden from a MYO slot.
The Basics
To start off making your hooden, you first have to know how to decipher the MYO information!
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Font refers to where the soul of the hooden came from. This can be a person- in this case, some member of royalty- but it may be an animal, plant, or some other source of great magical power.
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Affinity is the elemental tie your hooden has with the world. In this case, it's land, which covers things like clay, soil, and sand. Since the object is already chosen for you, you don't have to worry about matching them up.
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Habit is simply a short description of personality. It should give you somewhere to start!
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The Object is what you'll be using for the head of the hooden. You can use the one pictured, or make your own up based on the description. The object can be any part of it and doesn't have to be the whole item.
Ex: If you have a piggy bank for the head, you could use the whole pig shape for a head, or you can just use the ceramic head of the pig.
Size is the general size of your hooden. There are three sizes: pony, standard, and draft. That is in order of smallest to largest.
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Markings are the actual patterns you can add to your hooden. You must add all markings and modifiers on the list
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Accessories and Familiars are little extra features that your hooden has either on its body or following it around. Accessories are things like clothing or tack, and familiars are magical animals that associate with your character.
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The Palette has the colors available for you to use on your hooden. You don't need to use all of them, but modifiers like gem require the bright color on the palette to be used.
Body Form
To start, draw out your hooden! It can vary in size and shape, but you should keep the basics in mind:
- All hooden have 5-toed hooves
- All hooden have manes and a tail tuft
- The base form of a hooden doesn't include things like wings, extra tails, or elemental body parts
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Keeping this in mind though, feel free to play around! Tail length, fur length, ear shape and mane style are all examples of things that don't have to be standardized. Feel free to draw it in any style you like as well!
Because our hooden is "pony" sized, it should have a small body with petite features. Pony hooden are anywhere between chihuahua sized to miniature donkey sized.
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For the head on our hooden, I chose to use the photo as a general reference, changing things as I saw fit. I also only used the head of the goose instead of the whole figurine. The colors of the head do not need to be drawn from the color palette.
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When drawing the head, just make sure it has at least one aspect that could be a facial feature. Glowing orbs for eyes, or an etched pattern for a mouth! It doesnt have to be literal
Base Colors
So, I chose a base color from the palette to start with. A nice mid-range blue. We will also color in the mane. I chose the darker blue for this job.
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You can have small nuances on a hooden if you so choose. They should be pretty low contrast and blend well into the base color. It just should add a small amount of depth.
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Here, I've added nuances to the belly, legs, and ear.
Markings
- First I start with the spots. These should be decently sized, and not like small flecks, so I simply followed the example of the goose vase.
- Then, I add the cape. I felt like it would make a good back base for the light spots.
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- Then I add half. You can see that it originates at the head of the hooden
- Finally, because the hooden has gem, I use it to partially modify the half marking.
Extras
You might notice that the ID also has a "fowl" familiar. This is vague on purpose, because this isn't earth! You could make the familiar a fowl you'd see on earth, like a chicken or a pheasant, or you could make a species up, like the rare pink quail.
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It should fit into the fowl descriptor though. So things like flamingos or songbirds wouldn't be fowl, but geese or prairie chickens would work.
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For this hooden, I chose to give them a blue fantasy duck.
