Natural colors is no guarantee

I was mindlessly surfing for adoptables and reference sheets and stuff, and the 'natural' designs just became too much to bear.
It was so bad, it required an extra-large stamp template.

I understand fully that sometimes people want a design that is almost completely natural, but not 100%
I understand that sometimes people swap species markings and colors, and that's tons of fun.
I understand that sort of thing.
That's not what this is about.

This is about those who think that just because they used browns, greys, whites and blacks instead of saturated greens, purples, pinks and blues, their design is suddenly natural and possible.

Yeah. That type of 'natural' design. It causes much

Never mind that most of the markings are genetically impossible for those animals.


Many of the 'natural' markings people use are hard to find on real animals; and even when you do find them, they're typically due to rare and/or unusual circumstances. They're more of a 'strangely bizarre' thing, instead of a 'uniquely beautiful' thing.
[link] [link]


FCs suffering from this tend to look really weird and forced. They never look right next to a canon character, and there's usually a reason for that.
Regarding them, I have this to say: if it's supposed to be Earth, or a world heavily based on Earth, then the animals are going to look just like Earth animals, no? So where did the goat-colored dog/wolf/lion/hyena/cat/not-goat come from?


Designs that look like that, don't call them natural. Because they're about as natural as the sparkle designs.
Maybe the internet just needs a new term for these things. Something like 'semi-real' or 'quasi-natural'.


This isn't against anyone in particular. This is just me complaining.


All designs featured were made up on the spot by me, and I don't particularly care if there's a design up there that is similar to someone's OCs.

Here are some words of wisdom



Linearts used
[link]
[link]
[link]
[link]
[link]
[link]

Template used [link]