Image Designer Archive
Thread: A deep voice says to you . . . Master Image Designer
Hey guy. I am Daschal of the Gorath server. I am currently an Imperial Bounty Hunter, but have recently been informed that in order to continue on my path to absolute power, I would have to master image designing. And so I come to you, the image designers, for some aid. I am here to ask of a few things. (1) Of course, what tips do you have to make this "journey" more expedient? (2) What advertisments/what places have worked to bring you business? (3) Is there anything that you do in specfic that makes image designing especially fun? (4) Is this profession especially difficult to master?
Thanks
Daschal -- Bounty Hunter (0(1) 2 3 2) -- Gorath
Daschal -- Tailor (0 3 0 1) / Merchant (3 3 0 3) -- Naritus
Daschal -- Doctor (0 3 0 1) -- Scylla
It's nice to see a Holocron-inspired Image Designer to be ask what they can do that makes ID fun for us
DaschalCreed wrote:
Hey guy. I am Daschal of the Gorath server. I am currently an Imperial Bounty Hunter, but have recently been informed that in order to continue on my path to absolute power, I would have to master image designing. And so I come to you, the image designers, for some aid. I am here to ask of a few things. (1) Of course, what tips do you have to make this "journey" more expedient? (2) What advertisments/what places have worked to bring you business? (3) Is there anything that you do in specfic that makes image designing especially fun? (4) Is this profession especially difficult to master?
Thanks
I hope you grow to enjoy it as you go along your path. Our profession can be powerground out in less than a week depending on your playtime, or take as long as two to three months if you pace it out. Please clicky on the "Kwee's Image Designer Guide" in my signature. It's a 16 page guide covering everything from advertising to when skills are granted. Good luck to you I mastered ID on the Starsider server so your mileage may vary. 
1. It's not especially difficult to master. Find stuff that boosts your mind stats -- you don't need resources -- and just click away. I had a Zabrak with 500 focus and 900 willpower and I never used spice or the services of a master dancer/musician (becausemind buffsdidn't really work at the time). I imagine you can get great results using a focus/willpower buff so each design is cheap and you regen from it quickly. Early on, lip color (which works only on females) is a good return of XP/mind cost and it's low down the Entertainer tree. If you get a mind buff for this, you could probably move up to something that grants more XP.
2. Work with a friend and just have them accept every box that you do. If you want to keep this friend, just click Commit without adjusting any boxes or making any changes. Even if you don't make a specific change and click Commit you still get the XP. The other IDs on Gorath will ask you kindly not to grief or harass your friend and sneak changes upon him while he's helping you -- it's hard enough to find people willing to trust an ID enough to help us XP! Harassing them will just give you (and us) a bad name and make it hard for other IDs who come later. If you sneak horrible changes on your unsuspecting friends, you may find that nobody's willing to help you any more.
3. The best advertisement for an ID to get business is to wear a title. I recommend you try to master the Hairstyles tree first, because it's the only tree (so far) that has new content not in the character creator. It's also the most-requested change (and if we ever get our freaky hair color palette, it'll be request #1 for a long time to come too). As soon as you get it, wear the Expert Hairstylist hat (yeah, yeah, I know, you were a bounty hunter before, just deal with it. ) When I was wearing an ID title I never had to /shout or advertise. People simply found me using the /search button, or watched me go by as I left a starport (or arrived)or, after a while, heard about me from friends. Though you have to be grouped to do ID on someone (and you could use groupchat if you wanted) you can milk a little advertising by conducting your business out loud. "Would you like to see a different skin color?" tells everyone around you that you are showing off your ID services. Just saying, "How's that?" doesn't.
4. The interface still doesn't let the client see what you're up to, so know the websites where all the screenshots are if you're serious about actually helping people pick something. It's sort of a pain to show someone every style so I just ask them to Alt-Tab out and look at the screenshots on a website and tell me what they wanted. Try swg.warcry.com, click Resources, click Image Design. I'm sure there are others.
5. The best places to get business on Starsider, Tatooine were in Anchorhead and Bestine. Tatooine was my home planet so I couldn't tell you much about other worlds, but at a guess I'd say Coronet and Theed (because everyone goes there). Bestine is particularly nice because the shuttleport is so far from the cantina; everyone can see you wearing your title as you run through town. Basically, I got a lot of business by wearing my IDhat and traveling a lot so people could see the title. I even had people ask for IDing at Nym's Strongholdon Lok(when I accidentally left my ID hat on there). I'm not sure if you'll have the same luck; on the adventure planets people are usually busy away from civilization, not at it.
6. Remember to be patient with clients. They won't know the options nearly as well as you will. I often get a client and click on some of his features early on just to see what they were set at: hmm, no nose, largest size eyes, tallest height, hmm, ah, well, I'll ask him if he wants to have max chin. Sometimes people just don't realize how their character looks or what they did wrong in the character creator.
7. Beware of bugs. There are a few bugs that cause a stat to reset to zero just because you looked at it and without you even changing anything. Height, mouth, weight, jaw... sometimes you just click as if you're going to begin and the slider jumps to zero. Worse, this changes it for the client and they don't even get to say no! So make sure you have a good idea what you're looking at before you click on something and make sure you could more or less put it back if you had to. As you do them you'll get better at guesstimating where the slider is on certain features. You'll certainly begin to recognize max height and min weight because you'll see it a LOT.
8. Dress nicely and don't wear armor (like being an ID is your second job, which it is, but you needn't let your clients know this -- I was always truly headed for master doctor). Besides, armor has a high mind encumbrance most of the time.
9. I always had fun scaring my friends by remaking my own image into something radically different (I turned Japanese a few times, or gave myself very dark skin, or what have you). I guess I just find IDing fun, mostly by jesting with clients (but never actually making them look bad without their consent). I can't think of a magical way to make it fun if you're a bounty hunter by nature.
Hope this helps. Some IDers don't necessarily appreciate the influx of holocron-IDers into the profession because some feel it devalues the ones already in the business. I rather like it because it gets more people to /bug the things which are broken and maybe, just maybe, we'll get some more attention on stuff.
Escia
I got a sith holo that said that too. Since this is one of the stupidest professions in the game and no-one in their right mind would ever CHOOSE to be one...my advice is to grind, grind grind...search around for some macros here's mine:
/image;
/imagedesignsetvalue self hair 80;
/pause 1;
I will master this in a week using this macro without ever doing anyone's hair or ever putting that gay title above my head.
Im sure we all as a profession that CHOSE to be ID'ers take great offense to your reply
rdpmackie wrote:
I got a sith holo that said that too. Since this is one of the stupidest professions in the game and no-one in their right mind would ever CHOOSE to be one...my advice is to grind, grind grind...
This is your opinion, but it is very unkind to us here. You may not like to do Image design, and thats fine. But there are several of us who like it and have chosen it as our profession.
Blue Holo, i'm now officially a holocron slave like so many others, took about 10 days to find one too 
Honestly i'm glad i got this proffession, it's the best one because you have control of the xp and there's alot of interesting things you can do with the proffession.
There are alot of bugs that i've seen, and some can't be bypassed. But how did i ever know i was gonna have to master this proffession, it's almost as if it was staring at me at whole time and i didn't even need to get a holocron.
does this mean you are all going to surrender it as soon as you master it ? if not how long are you going to keep it? i could use a vacation 
Ca-i Bodi --Sunrunner--Master Image Designer---retired Master Dancer--new career undecieded