These are the guidelines which are used for all KiSS doll submissions to the Big KiSS Page.

Some of these guidelines are about the KiSS format. Some are about how to get your KiSS doll to me. Some are about rules of KiSS ettiquette. And, of course, some are about what you can get in return for sending us your dolls.

If you are planning to submit a doll to the Big KiSS Page, please be sure to read these guidelines first.

If you are under the age of thirteen please have your parents write to me in e-mail before you write me.

Only Submit Your Own Dolls

While I do enjoy seeing KiSS dolls from all over, please don't send me a KiSS doll that you did not make yourself. It has always been our policy to only post dolls on the Big KiSS Page when the KiSS artist wants their doll here. If you see an artist whose doll you would like to see on the Big KiSS Page, you can encourage them to send it to us but please do not send it to us yourself without their permission.

Do NOT send me someone else's doll and try to claim it as your own work. I am very familiar with the work of almost every KiSS artist so it's not hard for me to identify a stolen doll. Also, everyone else will have a chance to spot a stolen doll and report it. Anyone caught trying to submit a stolen doll will be reported to the original artist and any KiSS forums I can find and their ISP will be be notified of the attempt to commit fraud through their service. I will also personally call you names and taunt you. Stealing is bad. Don't do it. KiSS artists work very hard on their dolls and put their hearts into them. I will not look the other way when someone abuses the artists.

No Adult Material

Although we have nothing against adult-oriented KiSS dolls, in order to comply with PayPal's Terms of Service, we are not carrying any adult material at this time.

It is okay for a doll to contain nudity in a non-sexual context. After all, it's kind of hard to make a clothes-changing doll without allowing the user to remove the clothes. But we cannot post any adult material on Otaku World at this time so please don't include anything clearly sexual in dolls submitted to Otaku World.

It is difficult to write a perfectly clear definition of exactly what would count as "adult". As a general rule of thumb, if you think it might be "adult", there's a good chance that I would agree with you. If you want to be sure, you can ask me. I can't give you a checklist for what would be "adult" but I can look at your doll or listen to your description and give you my opinion.

Source Material

Many beginning KiSS artists use template images provided by more experienced KiSS artists for their base doll. It can be a useful way to get some experience with the KiSS format while you're still developing your doll-drawing skills..

However, if you use a template or base doll provided by another KiSS artist, you must give them credit in your doll for their artwork. This credit can take the form of some text in the backdrop of the doll or just a note in your accompanying documentation. It doesn't have to be big. It doesn't have to be gushing thanks. It just has to be there somewhere.

If you simply don't remember where you got the template and don't know who to credit as the template artist, I'm sorry but I won't be able to post the doll. Try going back to the places where you originally looked for templates and see if you can find out who that template artist was.

If you want to use artwork from someone else's KiSS doll which has not been provided as a public template, make sure that you get permission from that artist BEFORE you start your KiSS doll. Just because their doll is publicly viewable does not mean that it is public domain. For all uses of other KiSS artists' work, you must obtain their permission before using it.

If you want to make a doll by converting someone else's paper doll from another format to KiSS (for example, changing a classic paper doll from a book into KiSS or converting someone's JavaScript or PhotoShop layer doll into KiSS) please be sure to get the original artist's permission and give them proper credit in the KiSS doll.

Filename Length

The standard KiSS format only allows 8 characters in the filename. Long filenames work on some systems but not all. For example, 12345678.CEL is a valid name but 123456789.CEL is too long. It is also not permitted for any filenames to contain spaces.

This applies to all files, not just CEL files. If any of your filenames are too long, you'll need to go through your files and rename any files with long filenames to standard filenames. When you do, be sure to update your CNF to match any filename changes.

Please don't use spaces in your filenames either.

No Errors

Hopefully, this goes without saying but the doll must have no errors.

Artists using PlayFKiSS can check their doll for errors by loading the doll and looking at the Cel List (Ctrl+L) dialogue box to see if it lists any errors.

LZH Format

It's easiest for me when you send your doll in LZH format. However, I also know that many people have difficulty with LZH so, if you just can't do it, it's okay to send the doll in a ZIP or SIT file.

Don't send self-extracting EXE files.

Submit Dolls With Time To Spare

If your doll has a Valentine's Day, Christmas, Halloween, or some other seasonal theme or if it's a birthday or anniversary doll and you want to be sure that your doll will be posted by a certain date, make sure you send your doll to me at least two weeks (14 days) in advance.

Changes I Will Make to Your Doll

I will only make very specific types of changes to your doll before posting it on the Big KiSS Page. These changes are limited to those things which make the doll unpostable for purely technical reasons. If any other change is necessary, I'll ask you to make the change yourself.

These are the types of changes I will make to your doll:

• If the filename of the doll itself is too long (more than 8 characters plus extension), I will rename it to a shorter name.
• If the filename matches that of a doll already on the Big KiSS Page, I will rename it to a unique name, usually by adding your initials to the filename.
• If your doll contains extraneous files such as BAK, BMP, KNF, KTN, WSC, MP3, EXE, and other file types which are not actually used by the doll in any way, I will remove them from the doll.

How To Submit Your Doll

The easiest way is for you to simply e-mail it to me. When sending me your new KiSS doll by e-mail, I seem to have the best results when receiving it as a MIME-encoded binary attachment. (If you don't know what MIME-encoded means, don't worry about it unless you're a Mac user. It's the default encoding type for sending file attachments through e-mail for most people but Mac users need to double-check their e-mail software and make sure it's not using the base64-encoding format.)

Once I've received the new KiSS doll, I'll make the little preview image and get it installed on the Big KiSS Page, typically on a weekly basis. I generally use a picture of the first page of the doll (or the second page if the first page is just a title) but if you have a preference, let me know or else send me your own preview image (GIF format only, please).

If you are under the age of thirteen please have your parents write to me in e-mail before you write me.

To help make certain that I enter the correct listing for your doll, be sure to tell me the name of your doll and, if it is from an anime, manga, or some other source, what the name of that source is. If you don't I might not recognize it. I like a lot of anime and manga but I haven't seen everything.

Also, be sure to tell me what name you would like to be listed as on the Big KiSS Page and, if you have a web page of your own, tell me that too and I'll add a link for it.

If, for whatever reason, you do not want people to be able to vote on your doll at all, let me know and I will keep it out of the voting system. In those cases, no free subscription time can be awarded.

One last thing: I've recently had trouble with people sending in other people's dolls and trying to claim them as their own work. Most such attempts at artist fraud are clumsy enough to be spotted right away but, to help me to protect your art from this kind of fraud, it would be good if you were to identify yourself as the artist in the doll itself by having your name and maybe even your e-mail address appear as part of the doll's backdrop. I will always try to detect anyone trying to plagiarize your work but anything you can do to help me would be greatly appreciated.

You can send your doll to me at this address.