then address it with encouragement, not gatekeeping like this 
like i said before, guide your energy into something else more productive.
as guides are subjective according to you, at least it’ll help people no matter what
i read the whole post and i can sum it up as a discouragement for splicing
custom is NOT the ultimate way to learn GBAFE sprites, since you know, people start from various backgrounds
It’s all good dude. We are all here for different reasons and have varied skills and interests. The best we can do is leverage our disparate skillsets to make cool hackroms together.
Done. This is not gatekeeping at all. Discouragement? Sure, I see nothing wrong with discouraging a shortcut that stagnates artistic progress. Criticizing people for using splices is gatekeeping, saying splices aren’t acceptable is gatekeeping. This is instead trying to encourage more appropriate practices. We view splices as acceptable because we’re a modding community first and foremost, surely.
I think the binary of “thing bad” and “thing good” is almost always not nuanced enough. As someone who makes custom portraits, there have been many moments where I haven’t felt comfortable customing an element of a sprite (hands and flowing hair, mainly) and I’ve spliced in pieces from vanilla or f2e mugs. I think, in general, the ease of splicing allows people to make stuff for hacks and/or get a feel for how gba sprites work (you say that splicing doesn’t teach anatomy or AA but I’d disagree, I learned those things through splicing and adding custom elements (although my experience is limited to, well, my experience.))
In conclusion, customs epic, splices epic. Let’s just make stuff we like to make, okay?
imo squabbling over the methods is silly so long as we get the intended outcome of pretty art.
Alright I think the thread has run its course. I still stand by the general sentiment of my original post, but I genuinely apologize for the trouble I’ve caused and the oversights and mistakes in my composition. Gatekeeping and downplaying splicers was very far from my intention, and I promise I had only good intentions and wanted to see people do their best. Thank you to everyone who took the time to read and respond. I’ll continue to reread over these posts and try to come up with something for a guide.
If a mod would close the thread, that would be greatly appreciated.~
Sure people could use existing F2U mugs but at the same time presentation is one of the most major factors in getting people to pay attention to your hack in the first place and if someone’s going to have xyz portraits that have already been used in xyz hacks then it’s not going to be that different from just using recolours of vanilla mugs and it won’t make people feel like they’re gonna be in for anything new. Sadly that’s just how it is with the hacking meta in current year where whether your hack is visually appealing and distinct from other hacks will draw in more players than whether it’s complete. Lots of complete hacks just fly under the radar these days because they’re not eye-catching.
This can be seen as gatekeeping because it discourages some people to express themselves in a way that’s considered not “good enough”. Like I said, I appreciate Busk’s intentions, but things aren’t as simple as “just take the time to improve your craft, man”. Even he got discouraged at the idea of making tutorials because it’s too “time-consuming”.
People took the time to write detailled answers reacting to multiple parts of Busk’s original post and all you had to say to contribute was “lol don’t stop at the title guys” in a condescending way. Busk shared his thoughts, we shared ours. That’s how a conversation work. Most of us may not agree with his stance but that doesn’t mean we’re ignoring what he has to say.
i made the cactuar
graphics is not my passion which is why i would splice if my project required fe mugs
We all start somewhere
Maybe a better phrasing would be something like :
If you want to do pixel art not hacking, but pixel art as a medium, I could advice doing customs because of these points :
1- You will learn how to shape things, may it be body, head, cloth
2- You will also learn to shade quicker
3- You will develop your style
4- Often a splice looks like an other character and tends to have boring designs (my opinion don’t hit me please)
5- The results of splicing tends to be pretty bad when you begin (it’s normal and it’s not me insulting people) so might as well do customs if it’s bad anyway (ok this one is reeeaaaallllllyyy debatable but remember the first sentence i talk to pixel art as a medium, also my opinion).
6- Overall you can learn faster how to portrait, or so i believe so
It’s only how i would phrase it with a lot of care not to hurt anybody, but yeah nobody actually do that lol, it’s normal not to phrase everything perfectly when you express an opinion, i think you phrased it pretty well though, Busk.
I was having trouble coming up with a response until I realized there’s nothing to your reply. The first reply to Busk was you stating how attacked you felt, and the next replies were an assortment of funny clown on 'em replies. Then the actual content replies came. If you want to be constructive, it’s vital to recognize the actual intent of the post before criticizing how poor the choice of words appear to you.
Many people are perfectly fine with just splicing, including myself. I only need characters for projects, I’m not in it for the art. But, I see the ultimate point is to try to cultivate a healthier and wiser artistic subcommunity here. “Funny guide” isn’t going to do anything for people who stagnate themselves by sticking with splices when they would otherwise be doing customs. The problem with the original post is that it was written as a rant, despite good intentions, ergo the audience was lost.
It’s fine if you’re still “wtf are you talking about”, but do try to be civil and understanding. There’s not a moral dichotomy here unless you create one.
If a mod would close the thread, that would be greatly appreciated.~
I gotchu fam