Staff Litter Discussion 2018

[Metallic Dragon]

Aw, I'd have loved to see how much you'd connected! But that's okay!
And thank you! Sasha is great too, and you're right, my dog certainly does carry similar traits!

[Alyssa99]

I knew y'all would get there eventually! Yes indeed, this is my lady!

Few fun facts about her:
I actually made the adult edits several years ago for a different staff dog, didn't end up using them, and then adjusted them a little bit this year for this litter. That's why the general style is less like Koda and more like my older dogs.

She also originally had very long flowing hair that I ended up removing because tbh I don't care much for adding human hair to animals. Even her bangs are pushing it still, but i wanted to keep her shorter curls in the back and re-editing the face to remove the bangs was a hassle.

I didn't like her very much, even up to a week or two ago. When her pup phase got almost no discussion, I started to view her as a bit of an outcast. Growing up I felt like kind of the odd duck at school and even among my friends so I really started to relate to her near-invisible status amongst the rest of the litter.
She gained a personality and some headcanoning(along with the above art) followed and now, her overall vibe has made her one of my favorite staff dogs I've created. She doesn't have an official name though, at least nothing planned. I'll probably end up just calling her Lady because she reminded so many of you of Lady and the Tramp.

~~~

I'm so glad so many of you like her, your positive comments meant/mean a great deal to me. I'd love to thank you all for your kind words and love for my pup.

Gah! I had a feeling she was yours but I was too nervous to post because I didn't have all the hints straight! She's adorable! Personally she reminds me more of Sasha from All Dogs Go To Heaven 2 more than Lady, but I still really like her!

So I wasn’t the only one reminded of Sasha! I. Love. That. Movie.

[Knickknacks]

I really like your dog, Metallic ^u^ she's so cute and serene-looking! I love all her little extra curls and fluffs too

[LKP12321]

Has Nadine claimed her pup yet?
If this isn’t hers I will scream

Her only hint was that she “may or may not have used all the colors in the pallette” and this pup has very similar markings to her other staff pups. The only main differences are that all the rest have wings and this one doesn’t have line edits.

Also a guess for Coalchaser:

This pup has at least 3 colors and is not primarily blue. Coalchaser’s pups usually have these lines and start with a simple design with clean lines (and little to no blending) and the design gets more intricate as an adult. This pup also bears striking resemblance to Coalchaser’s CS Birthday pup:


A guess for Simon:

He already narrowed it down to 2 pups (3 but one was claimed) and this one fits his style. It has his signature speckles along the back and shoulders.

[sketchi]

snip

very creative, but your train of thought before this was closer. not denying any pups or whatever, just a hint regarding your interpretation of my hints. >_>

that's it, nothing else from me, last hint ever. you guys should have all the necessary materials to solve it!

[catmother456]

There isn’t many posts from Vampiric, but I think there is enough for me to take a guess, so here goes nothing.

1. Vampiric’s artwork post on Page 25

Every September for me is like..



Tbh this palette, for me, was highly detestable. It's just outside my range of preferred tones, BUT! I made do and I hope the results will be satisfactory. I can't always get a spoopy palette afterall

One day, maybe, my name will be up there in lights..


Bat on Tail
Spike Necklace
Bat Ears
Green Eyes
White Paws
Solid Color
Tbh this palette, for me, was highly detestable. It's just outside my range of preferred tones, BUT! I made do and I hope the results will be satisfactory. I can't always get a spoopy palette afterall
Small Print quote: One day, maybe, my name will be up there in lights...

2. On page 27 Vampiric said this

Trust me, certain spoopy sugary ideas were on the cards but once I started sketching, it just kept changing and altering to what it is now.. sometimes art is funny that way.

3. On Page 27 stars said something and got a response

That's not an answer vamp XD For all we know that means it could've started spoopy, turned nice, and turned back to spoopy! XD

I didn't even consider that. You are right, it could have. But who knows. I am a tricksy one.

4. Previous Staff pups in the archive

Vampiric’s outcomes may be in stages, like the last 2 years. Previous years there were only 1 stages, and since we are on day 26, I think it is safe to assume tht there are no stages.
Maybe Vampiric couldn’t work with this palette for more than 1 stage.

So the archives had clues, too: (no picture posting to keep this post manageable)
2009 - Cute pup to Cute adult pup
2010 - Cute pup to Cute adult pup
2011 - Scary pup to Scary adult pup
2012 - Human featured pup to Awsome winged adult pup with human features
2013 - Human featured pup to Jet Pup with human features
2014 - Human featured pup to Awsome tail adult pup, no human features except a face on the tail
2015 - Human featured pup to Awsome winged adult pup with human features
2016 - Human featured pup to Awsome caped adult pup with human features
2017 - Sweet Plush to Scary plush with human features

Have you noticed if you are typing feature fast and aren’t paying attention you might get feathers?

Human features meaning human looking clothing or hair or accessories

With the expection of the first 3 years, Vampiric’s pups have had human features and started out looking like the others and may or may not be scary, but always awesome. The pup gives hints to how the adult will look as well.


Looking at the clues and the fact that Vampiric can be tricky, I think one of these pups may be Vampiric:


This pup has obvious human features (hair) and is singing. Its eyes are closed so we can’t see if the eyes are green or not. It may be thinking of becoming a rock star and seeing its name in lights. It’s paws have a hint of white, and its a solid color.


This pup is sweet looking. Maybe when Vampiric started with it, it was spoopy, changed to sweet and may change again to spoopy. We do know that certain spoopy sugary ideas were on the cards. It doesn’t have solid body color but maybe that will change as an adult, and it has white paws and appears to bewearing eyeshadow, a human feature.

I am leaning more towards the first pup at this point, but I figured I’d post both and maybe we will get denials, narrowing our choices down a little bit.

Another novel by catmother456

snip

very creative, but your train of thought before this was closer. not denying any pups or whatever, just a hint regarding your interpretation of my hints. >_>

that's it, nothing else from me, last hint ever. you guys should have all the necessary materials to solve it!

So I was completely off! Oh well. But no denial yet so we still have all the pups to look at.
I definitely don’t got this!

[Lacuna]

Pet's name: Kalliope

Kalliope put the finishing touches on the day's offerings, dropping rainbow sprinkles onto her perfect desserts and setting up her hand-painted list of prices. Other vendors prepared around her as well, everyone excited for the day's festivities. Arts, crafts, flags, facepaint, and food--anything one could want on a beautiful fall day of celebration. Kalliope herself wore a pastel pink, blue, and white flowered apron over her clothes to protect them from wayward frosting, while others wore a myriad of color combinations to show their joy. She saw someone walking by in a purple, blue, and pink cape that she especially liked.

It hadn't always been like this, Kalliope reflected as she smiled at her customers and the day really got going. The way that some of them looked nervous, or very young, brought back her own memories. She saw them hold hands in corners, even though no one would have questioned their actions in this place. If a few cupcakes left the table without her opening the cash box, well, that was just the way it had to be sometimes, right? This was a time of happiness, and Kalliope would do anything to spread more to those who weren't quite sure if they were feeling it.

Once upon a time, Kalliope had been one of those teenagers, though she hadn't attended an event like this until just a few years ago. She had hidden fashion magazines under her bed, taking time to look at the pictures and admire the women in them. When her brother had found them he didn't understand; he told her that there were plenty of girls around their high school, asked her why didn't she just date one of them? She didn't know how to tell him that, more than anything, she just wanted to be one of those women. Instead, she just shrugged and tried to fit in. She was clearly a boy, so she dated one girl and then another, played soccer, but still joined the art club. Plenty of boys went to culinary school, so no one questioned it when she went chose that career.

Her girlfriend Alice helped her pack when she was leaving for school, but she didn't have the same reaction that Kalliope's brother had when finding the magazines. Alice had gotten very serious, looking her in the eye and holding up the much dog-eared collection. Kalliope expected the worst. Even though she had just been dating to be "normal," Alice was a wonderful girl and she liked her a lot. In fact, it was her realization that she truly could love Alice that made her question her interests even more. Maybe she had just needed a girlfriend, like her brother had said.

When Alice asked her what was going on, Kalliope told the truth for the first time. And Alice laughed. Kalliope wanted to run, to rip up the magazines and never look at them again. But then she felt Alice's soft hand take hers, and they sat down together. Kalliope realized that the laughter had been joy, as Alice told her that no one wanted to be a girl the way Kalliope did without actually being one. She had been a girl all along, Alice told her. And Kalliope felt the truth of her words.

"I finally found a parking spot," a voice startled Kalliope from her reflections. She smiled as she turned around, taking one of the boxes of extra cupcakes from Alice's arms. Her wife was wearing a bright pink top, cyan shorts, and ridiculous yellow rain boots to combat the dewy morning grass. "How's everything going?" Alice asked.

The whole story ran through Kalliope's head again in a split second, making her smile even wider as she set the box down next to her booth and leaned over to kiss Alice on the cheek. "Perfect," she said. "Everything is perfect."

Hint Answers: (for the more confusing ones)
Ingredients:

• Egg whites: This has always referred to how her tail looks like meringue, but her tail was a little tuft of hair the whole time!
  
• 666H43: color code FFF8DC "cornsilk" to make a food reference to her long hair as an adult.
• "don't forget me": the blue forget me not flower (which is edible and also a pun on "flour").
• cocoa pods image: the sprinklings of "cocoa" (brown markings) on her body.
Find the ones I spurned: letters hidden on my previous staff pups names' in my pound hoard group "Lacuna's Rejects Ltd." spelled out growing, referring to her hair growing (but were meant to make you think about flowers on mine and other pups as well).

• Go back to a place you've already been: After I gave the hint above, I added some staff pets I adopted from the pound that might match my hints to the rejects group. These were meant to be options for you to choose from, but no one picked up on it to my knowledge.
The hidden hint: When I "repackaged" my hints, I used invisible text to tell you that there was a new, not so obvious hint in the mix. The choice to show you a screenshot of Microsoft Word was deliberate, as was the choice of a font named "Kalinga." The font merely gave you a starting point for her name, while the fact that I was showing you a word processor was supposed to finish up with the meaning. Kalliope is the chief of all muses, and the muse of epic poetry. I chose this name for my own love of poetry and writing, though I like to think that the character loves it for its beauty and strength.

Other helpful asides (for next year): I do try to make my outcomes very different each year and I don't really have a consistent art style, but I feel there are definitely some clues that you can come up with just because I'm me. I always use the default white 100% opacity CS tag, I always edit the smiles of adult dogs, my pups aren't plain and often show a lot of the final design, and I love gradients. I made an effort to have a more subtle gradient this year, but I couldn't do away with it entirely.

One more note: I chose to suggest this palette both because I love pink and we've never used it before, and because of its use of colors very close to the trans pride colors. I was overjoyed that a majority of the rest of the staff liked it, and that we ended up using it this year. Though the story above is not that of my own family, and many things about them are different, the characters do have some basis in real life as myself (Alice) and my wife (Kalliope). I'm incredibly proud of my wife's journey and wanted to celebrate it!

[flurryheart]

Pet's name: Kalliope

Kalliope put the finishing touches on the day's offerings, dropping rainbow sprinkles onto her perfect desserts and setting up her hand-painted list of prices. Other vendors prepared around her as well, everyone excited for the day's festivities. Arts, crafts, flags, facepaint, and food--anything one could want on a beautiful fall day of celebration. Kalliope herself wore a pastel pink, blue, and white flowered apron over her clothes to protect them from wayward frosting, while others wore a myriad of color combinations to show their joy. She saw someone walking by in a purple, blue, and pink cape that she especially liked.

It hadn't always been like this, Kalliope reflected as she smiled at her customers and the day really got going. The way that some of them looked nervous, or very young, brought back her own memories. She saw them hold hands in corners, even though no one would have questioned their actions in this place. If a few cupcakes left the table without her opening the cash box, well, that was just the way it had to be sometimes, right? This was a time of happiness, and Kalliope would do anything to spread more to those who weren't quite sure if they were feeling it.

Once upon a time, Kalliope had been one of those teenagers, though she hadn't attended an event like this until just a few years ago. She had hidden fashion magazines under her bed, taking time to look at the pictures and admire the women in them. When her brother had found them he didn't understand; he told her that there were plenty of girls around their high school, asked her why didn't she just date one of them? She didn't know how to tell him that, more than anything, she just wanted to be one of those women. Instead, she just shrugged and tried to fit in. She was clearly a boy, so she dated one girl and then another, played soccer, but still joined the art club. Plenty of boys went to culinary school, so no one questioned it when she went chose that career.

Her girlfriend Alice helped her pack when she was leaving for school, but she didn't have the same reaction that Kalliope's brother had when finding the magazines. Alice had gotten very serious, looking her in the eye and holding up the much dog-eared collection. Kalliope expected the worst. Even though she had just been dating to be "normal," Alice was a wonderful girl and she liked her a lot. In fact, it was her realization that she truly could love Alice that made her question her interests even more. Maybe she had just needed a girlfriend, like her brother had said.

When Alice asked her what was going on, Kalliope told the truth for the first time. And Alice laughed. Kalliope wanted to run, to rip up the magazines and never look at them again. But then she felt Alice's soft hand take hers, and they sat down together. Kalliope realized that the laughter had been joy, as Alice told her that no one wanted to be a girl the way Kalliope did without actually being one. She had been a girl all along, Alice told her. And Kalliope felt the truth of her words.

"I finally found a parking spot," a voice startled Kalliope from her reflections. She smiled as she turned around, taking one of the boxes of extra cupcakes from Alice's arms. Her wife was wearing a bright pink top, cyan shorts, and ridiculous yellow rain boots to combat the dewy morning grass. "How's everything going?" Alice asked.

The whole story ran through Kalliope's head again in a split second, making her smile even wider as she set the box down next to her booth and leaned over to kiss Alice on the cheek. "Perfect," she said. "Everything is perfect."

Hint Answers: (for the more confusing ones)
Ingredients:

• Egg whites: This has always referred to how her tail looks like meringue, but her tail was a little tuft of hair the whole time!
  
• 666H43: color code FFF8DC "cornsilk" to make a food reference to her long hair as an adult.
• "don't forget me": the blue forget me not flower (which is edible and also a pun on "flour").
• cocoa pods image: the sprinklings of "cocoa" (brown markings) on her body.
Find the ones I spurned: letters hidden on my previous staff pups names' in my pound hoard group "Lacuna's Rejects Ltd." spelled out growing, referring to her hair growing (but were meant to make you think about flowers on mine and other pups as well).

• Go back to a place you've already been: After I gave the hint above, I added some staff pets I adopted from the pound that might match my hints to the rejects group. These were meant to be options for you to choose from, but no one picked up on it to my knowledge.
The hidden hint: When I "repackaged" my hints, I used invisible text to tell you that there was a new, not so obvious hint in the mix. The choice to show you a screenshot of Microsoft Word was deliberate, as was the choice of a font named "Kalinga." The font merely gave you a starting point for her name, while the fact that I was showing you a word processor was supposed to finish up with the meaning. Kalliope is the chief of all muses, and the muse of epic poetry. I chose this name for my own love of poetry and writing, though I like to think that the character loves it for its beauty and strength.

Other helpful asides (for next year): I do try to make my outcomes very different each year and I don't really have a consistent art style, but I feel there are definitely some clues that you can come up with just because I'm me. I always use the default white 100% opacity CS tag, I always edit the smiles of adult dogs, my pups aren't plain and often show a lot of the final design, and I love gradients. I made an effort to have a more subtle gradient this year, but I couldn't do away with it entirely.

One more note: I chose to suggest this palette both because I love pink and we've never used it before, and because of its use of colors very close to the trans pride colors. I was overjoyed that a majority of the rest of the staff liked it, and that we ended up using it this year. Though the story above is not that of my own family, and many things about them are different, the characters do have some basis in real life as myself (Alice) and my wife (Kalliope). I'm incredibly proud of my wife's journey and wanted to celebrate it!

That is so sweet this pupper has to be one of my favorites <333

[solyn]

@lacuna kalliope is so gorgeous... thank you for sharing her story with us. definitely one of the most special outcomes yet <3

[Wet Bread]

Lacuna, I absolutely LOVE Kalliope. I'm smacking myself over how close we were to connecting some of those hints. What a beauty and an inspiration tho 💕