South Park Avatar Guidelines

• for Paintshop Pro
• for Photoshop

The two most common body types for avatars in South Park were the "Tod Body" and the "Ellen Body". The templates for both these body types are shown below:

Tod Body	Ellen Body

• Heads are almost always 44 pixels high and must fit in a single prop (not counting long hair, which requires another prop).
• In order to reach the shoulders, heads must come down to at least 37 pixels from the top... more is better.
• Female heads tend to be smaller, roughly 40 pixels high, and centered vertically (i.e., from about 2 to 42).

Shoulders begin 37 pixels from the top. Therefore it takes 2 props to make a shirt. Females may have a little bit of neck showing.

Pants begin 73 pixels from the top. May start higher but not lower.

To meet the top of the pants, shirts must come down to at least 72. More is fine.

The body templates show you the narrowest you can go for the width of clothing, but you can definitely go wider.

Some Basic Female Clothing

Some Basic Male Clothing

You want to avoid doing anything significant in the area that will be covered by the user's Palace nametag. The default "Nametag Zone" runs from the 76 pixel mark to the 92, as shown below:  

The Nametag Zone

• Caucasian Skin: Typical caucasian skin is color number 9, and the edges (under the chin, for instance) are color 42. A dustier or "shadowy" tone (like the Iraqi soldier in the sample heads above) is achieved by using color 42 for the skin, in which case the edges should either be color 58 or color 98. A golden tan like Big Gay Al's is color 98, with edges done in number 124 or 163.
• Black Skin: There are more options in the Palace palette for black characters. Creamy-coffee skin (like the Rick James avatar) is color 151 with edges usually done in color 225. A somewhat darker tone (like the Chef Knieval avatar) can be achieved by substituting color 184 instead for the base skin tone. A very dark black person might have skin color 99, but the only choice for edges would be the reddish-looking color 202.
• Asian Skin: The best option for asian skin is usually color 42 with the edges done in color 220, or a darker tone can be achieved with color 151 with the edges in color 199. 

The goal is to look as much as possible like the "paper world" of South Park.

Solid colors should be used practically everywhere. Dithering should be very rare and gradations are totally out of the question. There may be occassional use of dithered photorealistic images (Trey Parker's face on a T-shirt, for instance), as long as the spirit and humor of the prop fits in with the South Park style.

There should be no traplines (i.e., black borderlines). South Park is not supposed to look like an illustration; the idea is to simulate the look of a cut piece of construction paper. Therefore, the only kind of trapline you can get away with is the shadow at the edge of the paper. This line should be of the same hue but a darker shade of the furthest-back color it borders on. For instance: a blue tie on a green shirt may be made to "pop out" by putting a slightly darker green trapline around it or along one side. Experiment with slightly differing shades until you get the right look. 

In general, brighter colors seem to "pop out" more than flatter and darker colors. You can use this effect to create a sense of depth between differently-colored areas. 

Some people prefer to start by drawing the characters in black and white with traplines, and then fill in the white areas with color. If this is your approach, use the color replacer tool when you're finished, and change the black lines to be just a hair darker than the color they border (or remove them completely by making them exactly the same as the color they border).