You don't need to be an artist to create extremely fun or super cool custom patterns in Animal Crossing: New Horizons. Getting over your own hangups about your creative abilities is freeing — and once you do it, you'll be creating great new paths, clothing, paintings, wall-decor and much more in no time.

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If you need a few tips and tricks to help you get started, here are just a few pointers to kick-start the artistic machine inside you. Open up that custom pattern editor app and let your colors fly.

10 Count the Squares

Planning out what design you want to make can get frustrating when you keep misjudging how big a shape or line will be. It's no coincidence, then, that the design editor has a series of tiles. This is to help guide your patterns. Use the grid to help you from the most basic shapes to even more complicated ones.

The overall square is 32 x 32, meaning each smaller corner square is 16 x 16. Use these numbers to your advantage.

9 Mirror Tool

There are a few different tools listed on the right-hand side of the editor, each of which is designed to help with a different type of drawing. One of the most invaluable tools on this list is the mirror tool, which can be activated by pressing ZR.

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This will make every bit of color show up in the exact opposite spot on the other side of a vertical line down the center. This is perfect for creating symmetrical designs or when you can't quite get both sides of something to look equal. Plus, if your design is perfectly symmetrical, you'll only have to do half of the work.

8 Preloaded Palettes

It's very tempting to use your own color combinations, and you absolutely should. But, this doesn't mean the preloaded palettes are bad. A lot of them are actually really nice, with combinations of colors that are visually and aesthetically pleasing.

These color palettes are tried and true staples of the art world, so you should definitely have a look through them and consider using them. Remember that you can always swap out individual colors if you so desire.

7 Color Editing

Speaking of swapping out individual colors, it's a great idea that shouldn't be underestimated. Not only can you remove a color you have no desire to use from your palette, but you can use it to tweak existing colors on the canvas.

If you change a color on the palette — for example, swapping out the primary red for pink — it'll make every tile of that color on your design change to the new color. In this case, anything you've colored red would change to pink automatically. This is perfect for slightly altering colors to get your design just right.

6 Color Theory

Sure, you shouldn't go to school to get an art degree just for Animal Crossing, but there are easy-to-learn themes and information from the art world that will serve you very well in making custom patterns.

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Color theory is the study of how different colors interact with one another visually. If you're wondering why that pale yellow and rich green look bad together, look to color theory, which shows that jewel tones and pastels often don't mix. Try to keep your colors in the same family so they don't look discordant, and take a look at existing fashion to see what types of combinations work.

5 Guide Lines

On the topic of fashion, you might have wondered about (and been annoyed by) those pink lines down the center lines of all the clothing canvases when they're blank. They're actually there for a reason — they're to help guide where your pattern will display on a garment.

You'll notice, in the dress editor for example, that the lines run down the center of the torso, across the chest, and down the arms. This is to help you lay your design out properly and is used by actual fashion designers in real life. Use these lines to look your best. 

4 View Pixel Art

The Animal Crossing custom editor is, at the end of the day, a pixel art maker. Every time you color in one of the squares, you're doing what pixels do in video games: adding in one square element of a larger picture.

This is why you might see many people with designs based on characters from games like classic Mario or Stardew Valley. It's because these games look like pixel art, and they're easy to emulate in the editor. Use things like this for inspiration.

3 Don't Be Intimidated

While looking at other people's designs, especially online, it's easy to get very discouraged. It seems like everyone else is a talented artist able to create impressive designs with a flick of a magic wand. But, don't be discouraged. Just because someone made an amazing apple pattern to label their apple trees, doesn't mean you have to as well.

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Art, at the end of the day, is subjective, and you'll be surprised at how impressed and accomplished you'll feel after finishing a design, even if you don't consider it as technically good as what you see online. Like any other type of art or creative endeavor, everyone starts somewhere. Do your best and practice!

2 Find Inspiration

Sometimes the hardest part is getting started, even if you're a talented artist. This is why it's important to find inspiration. For making new paths, take a look at your dream house and see if you can emulate its landscaping. For fashion, look at lookbooks and influencers who wear your favorite go-to style and see if you can translate that into Animal Crossing.

Many people even make their favorite outfit in the game to match their real-life persona. The possibilities are endless, all you have to do is look.

1 Just Go For It

Ultimately, making custom designs in Animal Crossing is a creative project, so you'll need to allow your creativity to flourish. For many, this is hard to do, but, luckily, nothing is on the line here. If you're unhappy with your design, just start over with no loss.

Draw a bunch of lines in different colors, close your eyes and go for it, or make a bunch of random shapes and fill them in. You don't need to have to most fashionable dress or impressive paths. It's about just letting yourself go and using your imagination. So, just go for it.

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