Intro to Designing Your Series

Now that you’ve been invited to submit a full series on NeonMob, let’s get to the most important part of the process: creating. Create your art cards using a tablet, computer, pen, pencil, brush and more. As long as the final work can be shown on a computer, you’re good!

Every NeonMob series has its own special kind of magic — from a spellbinding story to mesmerizing artwork. The special ingredient is YOU and the story you have to tell with your art. If you are still working to complete the artwork for your series, here are a few helpful reminders as you embark on your NeonMob adventure …

Ask for Feedback

One of the most important parts of the creative process is sharing your work. This one simple act makes the whole thing real. Make sure to ask people you admire for feedback on your work. Share your process with your friends, family, strangers, the world — all via social media. Don’t forget to include other NeonMob creators and collectors in your outreach. Here are a couple places where creators can get helpful feedback from the NeonMob community:

Make Creating A Habit

Create something small every day. Get in the habit of making art by making the process of creating a daily ritual, even if it’s just for 15 minutes at a time.

If you're at a dead end, take a deep breath, stamp your foot, and shout "Begin!" You never know where it will take you.
— Twyla Tharp

Find Your Inspiration

Inspired by other artists’ work? Take periodic breaks to refresh your mind by pouring through other people’s creations. Scroll through the popular submissions to see what your peers are working on. Dig through portfolios on ArtStation, Behance, CGSociety, DeviantArt, Dribbble, Instagram, PixelJoint, and Pixiv. Then, get inspired to get back to the grind by watching artists (like NeonMob co-founder & designer Rogie King) stream their process on Twitch Creative.

Make stuff you love and talk about stuff you love and you’ll attract people who love that kind of stuff. It’s that simple.
— Austin Kleon

Content Standards for Publication

Please keep in mind the following content standards while creating your art to ensure that your series can be published on NeonMob once submitted. 

General Information

  • NeonMob is an 13+ platform. All artwork submitted for publication must adhere to this standard and be appropriate for collectors aged 13 and older.

  • Images cannot be pornographic, overtly sexual, graphically violent, or similarly offensive. Series submissions that are not appropriate for publication on NeonMob will be removed.

  • All artwork uploaded to NeonMob must be wholly owned by you. Uploading another artist’s work as your own is copyright infringement and is against the law. Submitted series that infringe upon established copyrights will be removed. More on our copyright policy here.

  • Only original concepts and creations will be accepted for publication. Fan art of licensed characters or concepts cannot be published on NeonMob and will be removed. For additional guidance, please read our policy on adaptations, fan art, and fair use.

  • Unless otherwise specified, content published on NeonMob is non-exclusive and creators retain the right to distribute their art on other platforms.

Quality Standards

  • Artwork submitted for publication must be original, creative, polished, and high-quality. Here are some examples of series submissions that may not meet our quality standards:

    • Personal photography series that do not utilize advanced photography skills or showcase their photos/content in an engaging way. Photography series should focus on the art of photography and feature extremely high quality work, digital manipulations, custom filters, and/or show a unique perspective of the world.

    • Basic design skins or duplicate cards of the same simple design differentiated only by one factor (i.e. color, filter, etc.). In other words, all the cards in the series are the same outline with one minimal change.

    • Doodles, extremely rough sketches, traced outlines, notebook entries, digital works-in-progress, and other incomplete or lower quality images. (These are OK for variants.)

  • Please ensure that all images are submitted in the best possible quality as we cannot publish blurry or otherwise obscured images. Scanning sketch images or other smaller hand draw works is far superior to submitting a picture from your phone. If no scanner is available, please ensure you take a steady picture at the highest possible quality. When submitting photography series, please be mindful of lighting, contrast, and other aspects to ensure the best quality possible. Save digital files at the highest possible resolution while still ensuring that the file size is less than 30mb.  

  • When possible, please do not include digital signatures, social handles, or similar identifiers on cards or cover image artwork. Please utilize the series & card description sections to include this type of information so it doesn't distract from the art you are sharing. If you do want to use a signature on your cards, please ensure it does not detract from or obscure the artwork.

  • Pro series submissions that do not meet our internal quality standards may be reassigned as amateur. We realize that the community may want to collect a series with a high number of votes, but the content, quality, and creativity of the submission must still meet our expectations of a pro release in order to be published as pro. In reassigning a pro submission as amateur, our goal is to allow creators to share their art while ensuring that pro releases on our platform continue to showcase higher quality, more creative submissions.

Series Details

  • Complete titles and descriptions are required for series publication: your series title must be unique to NeonMob and less than 35 characters; each card title in your series must be unique; series and card descriptions should be at least 1 short sentence each. Please note that series submitted with incomplete fields will be returned for revision or edited by the NeonMob team.

  • The variant rarity can only be used to designate a true variation of an existing core card in the same series. In other words, the underlying art of a variant must be identical to another card in the same series but feature a different presentation such as black & white, different color pattern, rough sketch of a final piece, etc. Cards labeled variant that do not meet this definition will be reassigned as a core rarity. Similarly, variant cards that do not vary in a meaningful way from the core card may be removed. 

  • NeonMob will make the final determination on series presentation based on internal metrics and engagement projections. Card order, rarities, and final rarity distribution may be amended by the NeonMob team prior to publication to optimize the series for collection. If you have specifically designed your series with a particular distribution or order in mind, please contact support@neonmob.com upon series submission to give us a heads up.

NeonMob is the sole arbiter of all content published on our platform and reserves the right to remove submitted content for any reason. 

Image Requirements

When uploading images as a creator, please be mindful of the following parameters:

  • Images must be within the width to height aspect ratio constraints of 1:1 to 2:3 (square or portrait only; landscape is no longer accepted).

  • Images must have a minimum height & width of 500 pixels. Images of at least 1500 will perform best in social media previews.

  • Images must be one of these supported formats: PNG, JPG, TIFF, MP4, and GIF.

  • Images must be smaller than 30MB each.

Telling Your Story

A successful NeonMob series is more than just a collection of art: it tells a story. Think about the universe your cards will depict and create a narrative through your art and card descriptions. Without a story, a series is just another collection of standalone cards. But when you include a story, your series becomes a collection of sought-after trophies with each card having its own special value.

Here are some examples of popular series with great story elements:

  • Unicorn Empire: Crazy, funny, cute, weird and amazing unicorn breeds

  • Daydreams: Depictions of the artist’s most personal, whimsical, and creative daydreams

  • Monster Hierarchy: A kingdom of monsters, each with its own unique powers

  • The Orphanage: Creepy kids and characters residing in a haunted orphanage

  • Codex Fungi: Mushrooms found in the real world, along with the imaginary world

  • Confictura: Scenes and creatures from the imaginary fantasy world of Kala

  • OCD Hell: Ordinary scenes of life with something that’s just a bit off

As you plan your series, think about what will connect each card to the others. Your story doesn’t have to be complicated, but your series will be more engaging to collectors if your art depicts a world with depth and interconnectedness.

Size of Series

The size of a trading card series on NeonMob can range anywhere from 15 cards to over 300+ cards. There's no “right” number of cards to have, but the sweet spot is between 50 and 100 cards. However, small and very large series are often quite popular, too!

Series Name

A name may be a small aspect of your NeonMob series, but it is a critically important one. A good name is original and representative of the story and artwork in the series. You can be evocative, clever, colorful, inventive … just don’t be boring!

Keep in mind that your series name must be 35 characters or less.

Cover Image

Behind every successful NeonMob series is an amazing cover image. Just like books, collectors do judge a series by its cover … so create the most visually appealing cover you can! You want your cover to hint at the story of your series and portray the tone and style of the art found within. An unpolished or straight-up bad image will turn off potential fans of your work. Cover images should include:

  • The name of your series, legibly displayed

  • An original cover design or art from a card in the series

  • Your name or moniker (optional)

From Walter’s Experiments:

From Space Colony:

From Daydreams:

Titles & Descriptions

Each card in your series should have a clear, compelling, and unique title. Card descriptions can tell a story, explain your creative process, or provide other information relevant to your art. A short 1 - 2 sentence card description is recommended for every card in your series.

Remember: the art is what everyone sees, but the descriptions round out the picture.  

Card Rarities: Overview

You will assign every card in your NeonMob series a rarity type. Each rarity type is represented by a distinct colored gem which determines the number of cards available to collectors. There is no right way to think about which cards should be more rare than others, it entirely depends on the style, characters, and characteristics of the series. Here are a few examples where creators have used rarities to make their series even more interesting:

  • In Kingdom Animalia, a series of animal illustrations, the rarities correspond to the animal’s threat of extinction.

  • In Rulers of Eldera, the characters are organized into clans, and each clan has its own rarity based on its history of power.

  • In The Gumpies, a series of quirky cute creatures, the complexity of the character design increased as the rarity of the card increased.

Card Rarities: Core

Assigning rarities is one of the most interesting elements of creating a NeonMob series. The more rare the card, the fewer copies exist. If you're wondering how to assign rarities to the cards in your series, the system will guide you as you upload cards. All series must have a minimum of 15 cards: 14 core cards and 1 chase. The breakdown for core card rarities is below:

  • 4 common

  • 3 uncommon

  • 3 rare

  • 2 very rare

  • 2 extra rare

You may (and we encourage you to) create more than minimum number of cards for a series. Depending on how many cards you upload, the system will provide guidelines for how many cards of each rarity must be assigned.

Card Rarities: Chase

Chase cards are special in some way. For example, some creators have made their chase cards different stylistically or different in format (e.g. animated while the core cards are static images). Others have used chase cards to feature the best cards from their series or to preview a future series. The possibilities are endless! There is no rule on how chase cards should be different from core cards, it’s the creator’s job to design the cards to be special. Below are some examples of great chase cards.

Dominick Flask’s Places to Hide, a series of cards showing places to find peace and quiet in the modern world, includes three chases — all imaginary and/or hard-to-get places. This is Above the Clouds, a castle in the sky, of which there are only 25 cards in existence.

In 7 Deadly Sins, creator Marija Tiurina included Pawesomeness as the only chase, a card featuring a new 8th deadly sin: the sin of being cutely awesome!

In Alpacamon, Thomas created 3 different chase cards, two of which depict super rare species of Alpacamon. The third is Missing Paca, a glitch card, of which there are only 50 cards available.

All series must have a minimum of one (1) chase card. Adding additional chase cards is optional but encouraged!

Card Rarities: Variant

A variant is a special type of rarity and can be used to indicate a card is a variation of a core card in the same series. To qualify as a variant, the underlying artwork in the card must be the same but you have presented the image in a meaningfully different way from the original core series card (e.g. different coloring, alternate crop, animated, sketch, etc.) In the example below, you can see "Cooz" and its variant "Cooz [Sketch]" from Infinite Totem by Graham Erwin.

Variants are created at the discretion of the series creator and are not required for publication.

Checklist Before Submitting

Before submitting, review the preview page thoroughly to see how your series will look once published. On the preview page:

  • Select your series preview cards by rolling over the cards in the banner. These cards will display alongside your cover art throughout NeonMob.

  • Make sure you have uploaded all the cards you want to share in the series. You cannot add cards to your series once it has been released!

  • Double-check all the rarity assignments to be sure you are happy with your selections. You cannot change rarities after your series has been released!

  • Edit your titles and descriptions to fix any typos and add links, where applicable.

Submitting Your Series For Release

After completing a final review of your series and are ready to submit your series for publishing, click the “Submit” button. Please note that you cannot edit your series after you submit. Please ensure that all images and descriptions are finalized before you submit your series for NeonMob review.

After submitting your series it immediately enters final review by NeonMob’s content and community teams. NeonMob will optimize your series and may update rarity distribution, series order, titles, descriptions, et al where applicable. If your series requires a specific order or rarity distribution, please include this information by including it in the card description (ex: 01 - name) or by letting us know at support@neonmob.com prior to publication. We’ll do our best to accommodate this, though some series require reworking for optimization. 

If your series includes all required elements and gets sign off from the reviewing team, it will be approved for release and added to the publication queue. Series are typically published within 15 - 30 days after being submitted by the creator.

If your series is not approved for publishing, it will be sent back to you for revisions or, in some cases, rejected and marked ineligible for release. Reasons for series rejection include, but are not limited to, offensive images or language, submission of a totally different series than the one proposed in your original concept submission, copyright issues, and/or artwork quality concerns. If a series can be published with only minor adjustments - such as renaming, reordering, or removing a few cards - the NeonMob team may proceed with these revisions without returning the series to you.