As I'm sure, many Alacrity players base custom dogs off of a real life dog. My female shepherd, Fila, was recently put to sleep, and I decided that I wanted to make a custom of her. Since we already have German Shepherds on here it would be no problem... right? Wrong Take a look for yourself. She's a purebred German Shepherd. I've tried to make her coat color and markings (she has a white dot on her chest and some on her tail, most likely from injuries sustained as a pup). But I couldn't figure anything out. Even then, I'd still be able to make something close. Such a big part of her is her ears though... which cannot be changed. I'm sure some other people have met similar problems.

My suggestion is to make "Custom Edits" (for an additional price). I was thinking these could be static (not transfer to the next generation; so non-functional and only for show), or if plausible they could be functioning edits (with the standard chance of carrying to the next generation).

Options:
Static Edits - These would be images based off of the site generated images. The image would be edited be to show the edits, but there would be an "underlying" image that would be used for breeding. For example: Fila's image would show as having her crinkled ears and white marks, but there would be a hidden background image that were like the rest of the site dogs. So, the custom edit ears and markings would not carry over to the next generation.
Functional Edits - These would be fully functional. I guess you could compare them to the curly versus straight Husky tails and the ears on Papillons in the way they would breed. I don't know if these could be worked into the custom maker, or if they would have to be added into the system by hand. Either way, I suggest that they get run by a mod or artist or someone to make sure that it's still similar.

Then there could be marking custom edits versus anatomy custom edits. They could be priced differently seeing as a marking custom edit could be a marking overlayed onto a custom. To prevent this from being abused, I think the marking would have to be run by and have to be a single marking (and clearly seen as such). To keep the mods or artists from being too busy, there could be a new job put it place for someone who knows the rules of what is and isn't allowed for this. Heck, I'd be willing to run through any markings and approve or reject them based on whatever rules may be decided. For anatomy custom edits, the actual base for the breed would have to be edited as well as possibly each layer of markings (to prevent stray colors where they shouldn't be). I'm assuming that quite a few artists could do the edits without the actual breed base and just off of the first markingless colored base from the custom tool. It might be more complicated because the edited layers of color would have to be "linked" to the edit. So if the edit shows, the linked form of the marking would show, if the edit doesn't show, the normal marking would show. Unfortunately, some of the pups from an edited and non-edited dog would probably get markings off the edit in the event of an edit dog because the marking would come off the anatomy edit. Unless there is some way to "mask" anything from going off the base. Another option is to just let that happen and have some volunteers to go around the fix any pups that have that. (I'd be willing to do that, too.) Also, to keep the number of pups that would need to be edited low, the anatomy edit could be hard to carry to the next generation? (If they are functional and not static edits.)

I'm not sure if I explained this well. If anyone has any questions, I would be willing to answer. There are many options for how to do this, so I think it would be possible. The more "functional" it is, the more labor intensive it would be, but I'm sure there are people who would be willing to do the necessary jobs so that this feature is added. It could also be relatively expensive so that it's less common (and therefore less labor intensive).