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🎙️ 📮 We have their answers!! Exclusive Q&A with our CCS Art Team

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Pounawea
Pounawea Posts: 4,514 Community Manager
edited August 2020 in Discussions

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Dear Candy Crushers,

First of all, and on behalf of our amazing Art Team, thank you so much for submitting all your question to our Candy Crush Saga Art Team [HERE].

We loved reading all your questions and also the feedback you've shared with us. 😍

Before we start, please note that some of the questions have already been answered in this comment HERE. Now, without further ado, find below our answers! We hope you find them interesting. 🙌

________

We've received many Questions and many great Answers!! With the objective to facilitate the reading as much as possible, I'll be publishing 5 questions per post & direct links to go to each post:

From Question 1 to Question 5 👉 HERE

From Question 6 to Question 10 👉 HERE

From Question 11 to Question 15 👉 HERE

From Question 16 to Question 20 👉HERE

From Question 21 to Question 25 👉 HERE

From Question 26 to Question 28 👉 HERE



«1345678

Comments

  • Pounawea
    Pounawea Posts: 4,514 Community Manager
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    Question 6

    "I am going to do a PC rebuild or have the pros do it. One of the perks, is they will do this: "For further customisation of your ORIGIN PC, you can have an image printed on a glass side panel or laptop with our HD UV Printing option."

    So... what would you put on a PC? Also, is it possible to get either a "Image" of it or a "Print", sent to me?"

    How cool that you are building it from scratch! If the Candy artists were to choose any of our favourite designs in Candy Crush, the answer would be different from every one of them! But recently we have been turning to old episode art and creating wallpapers out of them for the Community. Maybe one of those, like the Crunchy Comet one, would fit very nicely on a PC?

    Find the list of all the Exclusive Community wallpapers HERE and the Crunchy Comet Wallpaper HERE



    Question 7

    "Who decided to update the blockers and how did they come up with the changes? I really love the new icing and the revised deadly spawners.

    Thank you for your feedback! For us in the Candy team, it's a great effort to redesign old blockers.

    The ideas to make the changes come from the team that has refreshing and creating all new blockers as a main priority. We noticed that some of the very first blockers weren't matching in style with the newly designed ones.

    For example, the Deadly Spawner visual had quite the steam punk vibes, which we realised doesn't fit very well in our colorful vintage Candy Crush world. The Icing was also made partially of chocolate, but didn't spread as regular Chocolate - which is the mechanic our players are used to. So next to creating a more cohesive visual style, we are also always aiming to avoid this inconsistency in behaviour and are making the changes for a clear game. Happy that you like them!



    Question 8

    "How does the team decide on a new blocker - like the candy ropes or bubblegum? Is there a timetable or after so many new episodes? Does everyone brainstorm the new design? Is it all computer generated or are some of the initial sketches done by hand?"

    Normally, level designers or artists have a vague idea of a new blocker in mind. For example, they might be thinking of some sort of blocker that explodes like wrapped candy once it's destroyed. Then, those ideas get pitched to the team that works with new features and the best, most necessary ones get prioritized. If we run out of cool ideas, we've had it happen quite some times that the whole team gets together, goes to nearest candy store and buys all sorts of candy. With all those candies, we head back to the office for quite the tasy and inspirational brainstorm meeting! It’s a great way to generate a lot of new ideas.

    We do have map out how often and how many new features need to be released per year, so Candy players can be sure new features are going to be released regularly. Even so, the artwork gets done mostly in the same way. Sometimes, artists create first sketches by hand in a sketchbook, but most of the time we work directly on a computer and draw everything in software like Adobe Photoshop or Autodesk Maya. We use digital tablets and pens for drawing, which are almost like paper and pencil if you get used to it! You can call it a different medium. Digital art just as laborious and time consuming process as traditional art, but at the same time it opens up a whole new world of creativity.



    Question 9

    "For each episode - does a different team come up with the general theme/name of the episode and the story behind it and then turn it over to the art team? I’m trying to figure out when the art team gets involved in creating the art work that goes with each episode I love the different characters/outfits and mini scenes 😊🐨💕"

    We are so glad to hear you like the episodes so much! From the get-go, the visuals of the Saga map have been imagined and created by an ever-changing team of solely artists. That even includes the episode titles! Over the years, we’ve had many artists rotate into this team, because everybody loved making episodes. We all tried to match our own visual styles to the Candy style and keep things consistent – and with that hurdle covered, having such a diverse team brought a lot of fun and fresh ideas every time!

    There were many ways to get to this final episode idea. We would try to think of stories we hadn't shared before or simply things we would feel like drawing. This varied from the (quite straightforward) existing sweets and foods (‘Hey, do we have pretzels in the game? No? I’m on it’) - but it could also mean trying to challenge ourselves artistically. Drawing a spider web out of bubblegum for example, or trying to imagine what a tornado would look like if it was made from cotton candy. We would then find a matching character and setting to fit those graphics in.

    Sometimes we imagined the aforementioned story or scenario from the get go. For example: what if there’s a sword stuck in the stone (a tale as old as time) and the character needs Tiffi’s help to get it out? Tiffi’s all for that, but being the bubbly go-getter she is, she comes in and saws it in half instead. Solved, right?! We had a lot of fun having Tiffi 'help' characters this way. When you have a set up like that, you know you need to focus the episode art on a big rock with a sword in it. You know Tiffi’s going to be holding a saw – and the mysterious forest surrounding it practically draws itself! As time went on, it became a challenge on its own to try and think of new elements we could translate to the screen.

    Last but not least, as mentioned before, the episode titles were also thought up by the artists. We would get together with a coffee and brainstorm for half an hour, at least once every two weeks. We'd be thinking of words matching to our episodes, always trying to get the first letters of the two words to match as well. It was hard to find unique combinations as the amount of episodes grew! Sometimes, we also thought of good names that didn’t match any of the episodes we were working on. We saved those and used the title as an inspiring starting point for the art instead.

    For the new Saga map where we revisit locations, we tried to have each episode theme differ from the other for nice visual variation. We made sure to use our favorite assets and looks from all the years past. The artists worked with narrative designers for this too, as they have a great overview of the use of characters and stories in the game and franchise as a whole. It was very useful to collaborate and see which characters and elements we wanted to highlight most, as we wanted to make sure the map tells a story even when it loops!



    Question 10

    "What a programs you are using to design a characters, backgrounds, etc...?"

    All art for CCS has to be made digitally! As you may have seen in other answers, we use drawing tablets to create our artwork in software like Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator. We do everything on the computer this way; from sketching and painting, to creating 'vector' images that can scale to all sizes without losing quality. We animate our characters and elements with code or in software like Spine. We also create 3D elements in Autodesk Maya, like the level pins. Lastly, all of the art is put together in King's in-house editor called Fiction Factory, which is similar to tools like Unity.

    That being said, most artists in CCS still have a love for good old pen and paper. Whether it's on post its or in sketch books, many designs are sketched out by hand before we recreate them on the computer.



  • Pounawea
    Pounawea Posts: 4,514 Community Manager
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    Question 11

    "will you introduce new designs changes to our favourite Candy Crush characters like Tiffi, Yeti, etc...?"

    We are happy to have brought characters the player know and love, and while they might sometimes get a bit polished to stay consistent with our ever updating art, we want their core to remain the same! 🙂



    Question 12

    "How much time you spend to work or design something in the game?"

    This really depends on what exactly it is you’re designing! For example, creating a character might take about two full days if you look at production time only (a day of sketching, a day of working it out in Adobe Illustrator). But something as big as a character will take many rounds of feedback from a lot of different parties; from the other artists and art director to narrative designers and testing audiences. Creating Casey the Conductor, our latest character, therefore took weeks! It’s really fun and challenging to get all the finer details right in those iterations.

    Some art jobs go faster than others. When we were creating new episodes, we had a template and a routine going, enabling us to create new episodes in only two to three days. However, when we want to design a whole new feature (like for example the Candy Pet), we need to draw much more new elements and make sure our art fits in with the current features of the game as well. You have to work closely with game designers, programmers and all kinds of other crafts to get the structure and artwork of the feature right. Candy being a game that’s playable on so many devices and has been live for so many years also adds an extra challenge! It can therefore take a while to implement something new, but at least the work load each day stays challenging and varied.



    Question 13

    "What's the upcoming changes that will happen in game design?"

    We wouldn't like to spoil any of the surprises that the Candy Crush Saga has in store for you guys! We'll keep the secrets 🤐

    We really hope you all will like and enjoy all the features and improvements we are working on!



    Question 14

    "From where did they get the inspiration to draw those amazing backgrounds?"

    Thank you for the kind words! We draw our inspiration from everywhere and anywhere, as you may read in some of the other answers, too. We always put the Candy Kingdom and its residents first. For example, what situation would Tiffi find herself in if she'd meet Yeti? Where does he live, what are his hobbies?

    Sometimes, the drive and inspiration can come from yourself, too, like wanting to draw your own favorite foods, environments and objects. There's quite the artistic freedom with that. I myself for example always really enjoyed creating beach and underwater scenarios because I'm a big fan of the ocean and everything in it!

    And last but not least, Candy art also springs from challenging ourselves as artists. What would a palace look like if it's made out of licorice? What if this forest was made entirely out of cookies? With this universe, the fun never stops, haha.



    Question 15

    "What is the progress that CCS Art Team follows to draw the backgrounds and the characters?"

    We don't have a set single progress for art in Candy, as the game has such varied needs! Creating art for the Saga map is hard to compare to designing a pre-level pop-up. The effects when you crush candies are implemented very differently than the main menu screen. That being said, there is one thing all art has in common: it's designed according to our visual style guide, which focuses a lot on the rendering of an image (colors, shading, shapes). In general, all our assets are made as a vector graphic as well, so they can scale without limits for all our different device and marketing needs.

    With these set rules in mind, we can try to outline how in general, the process goes. We very often start with sketching the project (either on paper or digitally). We use those designs as placeholders in our features and to start accumulating feedback. We have a great feedback culture in the Candy game team; an asset doesn't make it into the game without several people looking at it. Iterating on your work like this keeps the style as consistent as possible.

    Next, we continue on building the feature (or finishing the background, character etc.) by polishing this art until it is approved by all. During this production period, the artists can work closely with game and level designers to translate the game mechanic needs as well as possible. Not to mention the narrative designers who help us shape our worlds and the programmers who support our implementation of the graphics. Working with others is always key!

    And finally, we test our new art after implementing it in the game. We look at it on as much devices as possible and check thoroughly if there's no bugs that need fixing. If it passes these final checks, it's ready to ship!



  • Pounawea
    Pounawea Posts: 4,514 Community Manager
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    Question 16

    "Where did the inspiration for the Art and characters come from? 🤔"

    When the very first version of Candy Crush was created, the game designers had the mechanics nailed down, but not the look. As you may know, it originated in Sweden - and Swedish people are notorious for having a sweet tooth! Every super market or kiosk has rows and rows of candy dispensers, referred to as 'lösgodis' (bulk confectionary). It seemed like a natural step for the artists at the time to create a sweet shop, with a game board full of their favorite candies! 🍬🍬

    They then decided to include a character to introduce players to this Candy world, and this is how our Tiffi entered the game. Due to both Tiffi's designers personal art style and the desire to create a nostalgic world for the players to immerse themselves in, the artists started looking at the western art deco type of style from the 30s and 50s. They decided to create a puppet theatre to match this vibe, which is why all characters have paper cut outlines, pins and sticks/strings to move with. Board games were also a big inspiration, which is why initially the characters on the Saga map were shaped like pawns.

    Over time, as the team grew bigger and more artists joined, we've never stopped trying to honor that look. Even with our characters, we try to make sure they are not be typically cute, but wonky and memorable personalities that match the crazy Candy Kingdom they live in. We are always looking to build a bright, happy environment that revokes a sweet and simpler time.



    Question 17

    "I don't have any questions except for praises for CCS Artwork Team for their hard work, dedication and commitment in making the game more lively and colorful."

    Thank you so much for the generous praise! We always aim to create that sweet, nostalgic place, where everything is bright, happy - and of course, tasty looking! We will keep doing our absolute best to expand and perfect the world you love. ❤️



    Question 18

    "Do you design the artwork by hand first or is it totally computer generated?"

    All art for Candy Crush is designed by hand, yes - but it's done on a computer! As you may have read in some of the other answers, we use drawing tablets to create our artwork in software like Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator. We have to create everything on the computer this way; from sketching and painting, to creating 'vector' images that can scale to all sizes without losing quality. We animate our characters and elements with code or software like Spine. We also create 3D elements in Autodesk Maya, like the candies and level pins. All of the art is put together in King's in-house editor called Fiction Factory, which is similar to tools like Unity.

    That being said, most artists in CCS still have a love for good old pen and paper! Whether it's on post-its or in sketch books, many designs are still sketched out traditionally before we recreate them on the computer.



    Question 19

    "Do you play the game yourselves? if you answer yes, then how do you feel?"

    Many of us indeed play the game! Even those who prefer other game genres in their free time (we have lots of console fans for example), still have to play it on the job, haha. With every feature we implement (whether it's art related or not), we need to see what it would look like if it appears in the game. So we tap through the game almost daily. We even have some shortcuts in our test version to get through the levels quick.. But we all know nothing will be as satisfying as finishing it on your own!

    After all, no matter how involved you are with drawing characters or coding new features - a level can still be tricky to beat! That feeling of satisfaction when you finally finish the puzzle is hard to beat.. Maybe only the level designers don't have that rush anymore, haha!


    Question 20

    "How do you do such good art work and how do you all support your entire team?"

    Thank you for the great compliment! From other answers in this thread you might find out more details on how exactly designs come to life (from sketching on post-its to using software for digital art and implementation).

    As for the good work: we try to keep the quality as high as we can by hiring artists based on their previous portfolio and artists, so we know they can bring their strengths to the table for Candy. When working at King, we continuously try to improve our skills as well, whether it's following courses, going to art conventions or sharing knowledge amongst each other in internal workshops.

    As for supporting each other: we also put a lot of importance on bringing people in who are a great match personality-wise and come from diverse backgrounds to boot. We feel it's key to share the same values and share as many different perspectives as possible to create a fun and inclusive game experience. By now, King has 75 nationalities amongst its employees!

    It all makes for a really exciting group of people to work with, and many of us consider each other friends, meeting outside of work too. When you're all getting along and share the same passion for your craft, you become a stronger unit to move forward with.


  • Pounawea
    Pounawea Posts: 4,514 Community Manager
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    Question 21

    "Do you work on 1 specific game? Is there a favorite game you like work on?"

    There is indeed a team solely dedicated to creating Candy Crush and the artists who are part of that team don't usually provide work for other games. It's a full-time job! If you'd want or be needed to work on a different game, like for example Candy Crush Soda, you'd switch out your entire position and direct your focus there.

    We have many people in our team that have worked on Candy Crush only in their entire time at King, so it's safe to say that is a favorite among employees! A lot of artists were also very excited to create on Candy Crush Friends, as it was our most recent chance to build another Candy Saga from the ground up - and in 3D this time. We heard it was a lot of fun to reimagine our characters and settings in this revamped world.



    Question 22

    "How many times have you woken up in the middle of sleep, knowing just how to finish or create that special look?"

    We haven't heard of team members waking up in the middle of sleep - but for sure, some of us have a hard time getting to sleep in the first place! If you're into a task or art piece, whether it's for work or personal, it's hard to not get absorbed. It helps to take a step back once in a while - grab a coffee, take a walk or indeed sleep on it - but it still never really leaves your head until it's done. Looking back after a quick break can often help realising what is missing or needs to be changed for that final look!



    Question 23

    "I only have one question give me 5 Do’s and Don’ts when considering to showcase a character ?"

    Ah, this is a tough challenge!

    1) Do design based on personality traits. We like a character to show what they are about. We try to give attention to the little things; creating the perfect sneaky grin of a cat about to tip over a vase, or perfectly rounding the fluffs of fur that can make a yeti look huggable.

    2) Do keep the characters unique. If you have mainly 12 characters on the Saga map, it would be much more fun to have them all shine on their own, rather than blend in with each other! Whether they're animal or human or something inbetween; we like the contrast of the mischevious pink Bubblegum Troll to the gentle purple whale. Or fabulous, chipper Misty right next to a serious and statuesque Mister Toffee!

    3) Do stay true to the visual style of Candy Crush. Quite literally add some candy where you can, or at least involve Candy's bright color palette, exaggerated anatomy and wonky shapes!

    4) Don't base designs on locations of our real planet. The Candy Kingdom is unique and we're trying to move on from decisions in the past, where we refered to real word environments you technically wouldn't find in our Candyverse (a Dutch milk maid comes to mind!).

    5) Don't be offensive. We want all our players to feel welcome have a good time; there's no need to be reminded of harmful stereotypes or showcase other unpleasant graphics!



    Question 24

    "Not a question but more a Thank you to the design team. Played candy crush saga form nearly day one and thought look was getting a little dated. The new version has brightened and livened everything back up and was much needed. So thank you and keep up the great work."

    Thank you for the kind words!

    We indeed realize Candy has been around for a while and always do our best to find a balance between staying up to date and staying true to our original look and feel. We know we've got great players like yourself who have been with us a long time and we don't want to radically change everything you have grown used to and love.

    Having had the game live and expanding for so many years, however, means indeed that sometimes polish is necessary. We want to keep the game working smoothly, create consistency between old art and new and also have the game not take too much space on your device. Plus, we still get new players joining our Candy family daily! We want them to also be encouraged to step into a world that looks fresh and maintained. Sometimes there's tough decisions to be made because of that, so it really lifts our spirits to see messages like yours!



    Question 25

    "What inspired you to redesign some things like the Color Bomb, Frosting, and the Magic Mixer? How did you make them look 3D?"

    In the art team, we noticed that some of the oldest blockers and boosters started to look a little bit out of style - not so delicious comparing to new features! That is why we decides to freshen up old candies. They look 3D because they are indeed created and rendered in 3D software called Autodesk Maya, which is one of the most commonly used software among different game and animation studios all around the world.


  • Pounawea
    Pounawea Posts: 4,514 Community Manager
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    Question 26

    "Casey came to the Candy Kingdom a few months ago, would that mean that you’ll still be designing new characters for the game?"

    As you might glean from other answers, we are always doing our best to keep Candy up to date. We want to aim for an experience that not only looks cohesive and with the times, but also bring fresh content to players who've been with us for a while! When we had to rework our Saga map, it was the ideal opportunity to focus on what we'd like our main characters to look like.Casey (and a revamped Licorise the cat for that matter) are indeed newer additions we are very proud of. So if a proper opportunity allows it, we won't shy away from additions to our crazy Candy cast!



    Question 27

    "What's your favorite design of all CCS and why?"

    Ooof, that is another tough one!

    Many of the artists think Tiffi’s design is really fun. She has quite the unique shape, so we often affectionally refer to her as our little ‘thumb’, haha. The Candy style was set over 8 years ago by artists who are no longer with the team, so it’s always been fun to adapt and expand into this unique way of shaping characters and worlds.

    My personal favorite design I got to do myself was Rami the Candy Pet. It was really fun to pick one of the original candy characters, Ramsay the Ram, and imagine a ‘baby’ version of this design – and then a grown up version to boot! Everybody really loves drawing characters, especially in our wonky Candy style.



    Question 28

    "My question is how do you come up with the inspiration for the custom avatars for the community? Is there a dedicated team that works on them? Any idea how many have been created? Does the team have any favorites?"

    The custom avatars have quite an interesting history! Years back, some of our players were visiting the King studio in Stockholm, Sweden, were Candy is made. The team wanted to make sure they would have a great time and were brainstorming what we could do for them to make the experience memorable. That’s when one of our artists offered to sketch portraits of the players in the Candy Crush style.

    It was a big hit and with more visits came more artists who offered to do the live sketching. The portrait activity became more well known in the studio and was then also coined as a gift for the Community members. This way, we were not limited to people visiting Stockholm only!

    They are made solely by various artists from the actual game team, which is why they are a bit rare - there’s always so much going on in Candy that it’s hard to fit them in the game development schedule. It's also very hard to estimate a number of portraits, as we have done so much live for our visitors as well! And since it's been several artists, I think everyone has their own favorite too.


    Note from Pounawea - @Leslie_B I didn't get your confirmation [for references please check here]. To make sure we could answer to you question, and just in case you were referring to our Forum avatars, I asked to the artist, a dear friend of us! Here's the answer from... @Crazy Cat Lad !!

    We have no whole team working on pics for the Community site, they are usually made by me only lately. I am no graphical designer or artist, but love being creative and play with different assets in Photoshop.

    Since I have access to loads of pics from the game's art studios here at King, I can easily use their work and put them together or edit them so they fit with the purposes on the website.

    The inspiration comes from my love for the different characters in our games, but also browsing through the massive bank or assets gives me loads of new ideas and inspiration. When I made the new Community avatars earlier this summer I simply picked the characters I thought look cute and that players would love have as their avatar. My favourite avatars are all the pets from Pet Rescue Puzzle!



  • Pounawea
    Pounawea Posts: 4,514 Community Manager
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    Dear community,

    I really hope you enjoy reading all these questions and answers! This has been an amazing opportunity to bring our incredible Art Team closer to you guys, and at the same time, to bring you all closer to them!! 🤩🙌

    Once again, thank you soooo much for sending us your questions and please, come around and let's thank & share some love to our Art Team!

    Have a delicious day and happy crushing. 🍬🍬🍬


    Taggind our dear SU and CCS Game Experts + Candy Crushers that commented in the Exclusive Q&A [HERE]

    @Elsa @bearwithme @kiara_wael @Sukanta_Biswas @firebombmarkus @Chicken_Slayer @PummyRaj @mysticalmysty @Sofia1992 @wafercookieflippers @KingChewy @Lynette @Glenn1972 @KimElston @debrichmond @Freddy_Falkner @JethrinaBodina @aijaziqbal @Diamond Lim @sameeksha @Origins7_Dale @MightyWolf @teresawallace44 @candycrushinit @rajdeeptb @wykoon @Nix66 @pearl_chetna @pgagne @Leslie_B @Loveth_NP @CamiloCS @Cjay1997 @SMedders1

  • [Deleted User]
    [Deleted User] Posts: 15,585 Level 2
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    Thank you very much for answering all our questions... 💗

    @Pounawea

  • Pounawea
    Pounawea Posts: 4,514 Community Manager
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    Glad you like it @MightyWolf !! All credit to our fantastic Art Team! 👏👏

    ___

    Candy Crushers, come around and let's thank & share some love to our Art Team! 🙌 ❤️

    Have a delicious day and happy crushing. 🍬🍬🍬

  • [Deleted User]
    [Deleted User] Posts: 15,585 Level 2
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    Tagging some players... 🤗

    @lcalloway82@Kcbtyler@KENTFIELDER@Rancid@Glenn1972@Mim_@Elsa , @kiara_wael@Werner_Cichy@Sukanta_Biswas@SeraphicStar@bearwithme@KingChewy@mysticalmysty@firebombmarkus@PummyRaj@BQN537 , @candycrushinit@Lynette@JustPlaying@Chicken_Slayer@mercerik@Crimson_Dawn@LizzyLemondrop@wafercookieflippers@MJMR@BeckyBubblegum@wozziewoo@LauraLMason@caambuj@Deryck@thessao@Hesham_Shaheen@Robipooh85@MiaChristine@jwcollins1@richcastle @samm_kml @Diamond Lim @AbhinavSargar@SabrinaM@Yosca@Nat09@flew66@Sofia1992@stan1981@SugarDonuts@Mahiveche@debrichmond@RobinCorte@DeepshikhaSharan@KitKathySuzyQ@Ashraf@abe_coffee@frenioz00@STOKEDER@Sharon_Loose@Lucas_Yan_Maia@FaRayha@satnam@donnakessler@GranBarb@gr33n3y3z@Spinnifix@MataiceAlison@christine88@piaandersson@paul5473@kaiser1618@sakura@Scooterpie@Acv@Simon888@Betts@Mattia_@slidey@johamilton@Nck@Peter_Tornaros @JethrinaBodina@sarma_palash123@Albert_Heinrich@Mystique, @johamilton@KimElston@RumellKhan123@siti_payung@Freddy_Falkner@Bumper2019@Dirty_Nurse@RegalRenz@starsweet@Eddie_Sparrow@akthamabuali@Mary_Kay@Breee@encantes@MountainMom@headoperations@Origins7_Dale@Trish24@kavidina@aijaziqbal@Carmel1919@sameeksha@Loveth_NP@wykoon@hechicerilla@jjac272903@Nck @Spieler_8675309 @Jasmina

Hey! Would you like to give us your opinion?