Marking the Trends in Custom Designs

It's hard to believe it now, but there was once a time before dyes. A time when you settled for two or three markings, or ricked everything with mutation or marking pears. A time when designs were simpler, less spastic and eye-burning. (Not that eye-burning is bad, just that there's an awful lot of it around lately)

I like dyes. I do. And I have a plethora of dyeballs myself, utterly unbreedable beauties from matched pairs of customs. I even breed my own unbreedable gen 2s. My Zebraherpes customs are awesome, but I doubt anyone buys their pups and goes "Yeah, that'll go really well with so-and-so's markings." Let's face it, aside from Justice (who makes customs in the same marking combinations but with different colors), the trend is toward "uniqueness" rather than usefulness. Perhaps the reason there are so many muddy gen 3s and above is because we are too concerned with making our designs so complex their spawn will never be able to breed a decent pup. I'm not saying this is the wrong emphasis. There is no "wrong" emphasis. People will make what they want to make, it isn't right or wrong in and of itself.

I just find it interesting that you rarely see a custom nowadays that doesn't have 7 or more markings, usually in similar shades of the same color, or colors so different it looks like confetti. Or like someone disemboweled a clown. But if you go back and look at the wajas with ID's below 2000 or so, they've all got one mutation and a couple of markings, unless someone dyed the bejeezus out of them (a practice which makes me a little sad, at time. Let the oldies live in peace, won't you?).

I've liked designs from both ends of the spectrum, and I own designs that are dyeballs and designs that are minimalist. It all comes down to what people want in their customs, since they're the ones paying the money for it. However, we'll see what the next trend in designs will be. ;D