#shoryu

My neopets from when I was a kid. Thought it’d be cool to give them a modern look

Polka dot is a bit of a mess of a colour. I do like the circus-y vibes it gives off, but I also think it's a bit too similar to spotted. The uniform dots and multiple colors on a white base make it at least somewhat different, but there's a good amount of overlap between the two and they are kind of similar. Most importantly, however, I just think that polka dot tends to have a lot of issues. Specifically:

There's too many colors—I counted and I think there's at least 7. This makes everything less coherent, not helped by the fact that none of the colors go well together. 3–4 colors that all work together would've been much better; maybe even change the palette for each pet or something.

The dots don't actually warp with the body shape, which is lazy and flattens the pets significantly.

They might have done this to avoid the colour being too similar to spotted, but the lack of size variation in the dots makes a lot of pets look very busy.

TNT seems uncertain on how to handle accents. Looking at the above, sometimes the entire pet is polka-dotted (Zafara), sometimes it has some accent colors while the rest is polka-dotted (Bruce), and sometimes the pet uses both an accent color and plain white (Yurble). For the record, the Yurble option looks the best and tends to be the lest busy.

The color is also confusing because sometimes they use it to make real-life animals, which only further blurs the line between it and spotted, as that colour also did the exact same thing. Personally, I would rather TNT just finally make a "naturalistic" paint brush and leave the polka-dot pets more standardized (though with that said, the real-life polka dot pets can look good sometimes).

Polka dot was released after customization, so there's no old art or styles to discuss.

Favorite Species:

Ruki: While this could've easily been a spotted pet, the polka dot Ruki being a ladybug is delightful regardless. The simplified palette and variable dot sizes help it a lot, and I like the dark accents, which keep it from getting too busy. Plus, it's just a cute concept.

Elephante: Going to have disagree with the asker on this one. While I do get how people can think it looks sick, it's actually based on this guy from Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, which I think is a nice shoutout:

Even if one didn't get the reference, I think the simple one-color dots are very nice, and the sizing and placement are good. The palette is coherent and I like the slightly off-white base. I can get why people don't like it, but it works for me.

Hissi: The Hissi isn't too remarkable among polka dot pets, but I do think it looks pretty decent. I don't think it's perfect—the underbelly would've been better blank/white, and some of the spot colors vibrate—but the soft pastel markings and slightly off-white base color make this one work just a little better than your standard polka dot pet.

Least Favorite Species:

Shoyru: I had a few contenders for this spot, namely the polka dot Kacheek and Vandagyre. However, the Kacheek got an alternate body paint release that was basically TNT fixing the color, so I'll give it a pass, and I thought the Shoyru was just a bit uglier than the Vandagyre (though not by much).

Mind blowing gold thread couching for this antique obi depicting a Chinese-styled dragon (seriously this couching must have taken ages to sew on considering what a pain in the ass couching is!).

Shoryu [Split + Electric + Starry]

Skeith is my dad

Shoryu is my baby bro

Scorchio is my sister who just started HRT

Draik is my older cousin who let me come over and play video games as a kid

Grarrl is my other dad