This is a suggestion regarding this specific rule in the custom apparel section.

1.3. Artwork may not cover more than 80% of the base art and must not extend outside of the canvas space. Additionally, the artwork may not cover more than 80% of the background.

I was given to understand that the artwork may not cover more than 80% of the canvas because there must be a cutout for the wolf in the middle of the landscape. This made sense to me. However, it turns out that images like the below are not allowed as backgrounds, as the wolf cutout does not count as part of the image that is removed.

for reference, this is what the actual allowable background size would look like:

when I asked why the 80% rule was there and why backgrounds are restricted by this percentage coverage without including the wolf, I got this as a response:

And the 80% rule is to address potential issues with apparel artwork extending all the way to the 3000x24000 pixels bounding box. This was a choice made in the interest of site cohesiveness, but these are valid points. I would encourage you to post this in the suggestions forum so we can gather more feedback on this matter!

So this is my suggestion that backgrounds be allowed to cover more of the base image behind the wolf, or include the wolf cutout as the 20% transparency needed.

1. There is not actually an easy or good way to figure out how much 80% ‘background’ space is behind a wolf. Especially because each wolf is a different coverage of the canvas already, this is going to lead to a lot of trouble resizing canvas to fit the smaller space a vailable to a kit as opposed to a volmyr.
2. Smaller backgrounds don't actually make apparel artwork more cohesive if they already extend to the edge of the canvas. It would just make the wolf feel like it's not in a scene but standing in front of a tiny cardboard backdrop.
3. Visually, allowing larger backgrounds gives a better effect than arbitrarily restricting it to a smaller size. There is no mechanical or performance reason it needs to be smaller than 80% of the background (not including the wolf) as long as it's properly cut out.
4. Custom apparel is already restricted to being on the 3000 x 2400px template to fit within the display box. There is no reason custom backgrounds need to be smaller than 3000 x 2400 if it's already on a template meant to fit within the display. It's not going to go outside the bounds that apparel is meant to display on.
5. It just doesn't make much sense that backgrounds can't cover the entire, well, background. Besides, you could theoretically make a foreground and a background to cover a full 100% of the wolf background anyway, so… why not let us have this?

I'm open to hearing feedback on this. Thanks for reading!

Agreed. If it's a background specifically why not.

Up

Agreed! If going outside of the box is a concern, there could just be a rule it needs to be a certain size or else it is not eligible to be a background apparel.

I think this should be allowed, or a special full background category could be added, a slot which- in explore, gauntlet, arena etc, is hidden on the wolf so it doesn't look off.

Oo!! Yes please, this would be the perfect size for atmospheric backgrounds. Maybe some sort of category like Lai mentioned so this way the background also doesn’t appear in the Campaign or during tasks. Maybe something for down the line.

Support all of the above

Support! I like the idea of adding a special full background category as well, as stated above by Lai. It would give artists more creative freedom with their designs

Support!

Support!!!

Honestly I see why they give the rule, because imo it does look better when the wolf is more “in front” and extends outside the bounds of the background image. When the background fills the bounding box completely it looks a bit crammed and janky to me, but all that said, it's really personal preference, and I could just choose to not buy CA backgrounds that fill the entire space.

This would all be improved by full-size previews before buying, but generally, I see why more artist freedom here would be best, so support.