[sv]creative]how to do it

Or, A Quick Summary Of Hoaxing.

[1]the point

Hoaxes. Who'd guess you could build up an entire website on hoaxes? Not me, certainly. At least, I hope you people come here for more than to just check your hoaxes. But we're getting ahead of ourselves. What are these things meant to be?
The main point of a hoax is that it is a doctored screenshot. By "doctored", of course, I mean more than just slapping a bit of dialogue on. But, still, screenshots are where hoaxes come from. We edit them either to have fun playing with the lost possibilities of the Sonic games (certain character in certain game they weren't in, for example, or Time Travel hoaxes), to create some cool concepts of our own (new zones, etc.), or to just play around (joke hoaxes.)
But the point is, it should, at heart, look like a screenshot. This means the Score/Time/Rings/etc. should be on the hoax. You get my point.

[2]the idea

The first step in hoaxing is to come up with a nice idea for a hoax. Hopefully, this idea will be something that does not contravene the Rules of SV or of any other site to which you plan to submit. (The Moogle Cavern, Sonic Stadium etc. all have their own rules as well.) Also hopefully, your idea is not so tired that the mere mention of that concept sends hoaxpage owners worldwide into fits of apathy.
Come up with a good one? Right. Let's continue.

[3]the preparation

Your idea also should be one that you can easily get material for. A Sonic hoaxer's kit might include:
1) Emulators and Sonic ROMs: For making a hoax based on Genesis/MegaDrive, Game Gear, Arcade, or Game Boy Advance Sonic games. The thing to look for in an emulator is one that has "layers": meaning, for example, you could turn the sprites off and be left with an empty background. (Or vice versa). For Genesis/MegaDrive, Genecyst is ideal, except it works not on Windows XP. Us unlucky WinXP users should try DGen or Gens. For Sega's 8-bit consoles, try SMS. VBA is your best bet for Game Boy Advance. These, and the relevant ROMs, you can Google for.
2) Non-Sonic ROMs (for crossovers).
3) Sonic games on PC : if you plan to hoax Sonic R/CD etc. You can take screenshots from these by means of the PrintScrn key on your keyboard.
4) A decent image editing program (Paint Shop Pro or something of that equivalent.): Paint will not cut it. It might for image editing, but we want a program that can save to .GIF, .PNG, or .JPG formats. The other think you should have in your image editing program is a "Magic Wand": that is, the ability to select things in shapes other than squares, and the ability to select things by similar colour.
5) Sprites. These can be ripped from screenshots you take in your emulator, or can be found online. If you find sprites online, BE SURE and credit the maker of the sprite when you submit the hoax to me. (Not Sega, Sonic Team etc.: we're talking the person/website you got the sprites from.)

[4]the editing

So then, now you're ready to go, let's do a simple checklist of How To Make A Hoax: 1) Consider what screenshots you will need in order to make your hoax. Do you need to go take a sprite-less screenshot of Ice Paradise? Do you need to find a shot of Tails spin-dashing? Get all the screenshots you need together. Open them all in your image editing program.
2) Switch the screenshot you're going to start from. This should be the shot with the background you're going to start with.
3) Any extra sprites that are going to be pasted into the hoax? Switch to the screenshots / picture files that contain those sprites, one at a time. Select the sprite (so that the copy/paste dotted line surrounds the sprite you want and nothing else.) Copy it. Paste it into your hoax.
4) Repeat with all other sprites you need.
5) Add artistic touches to taste.
6) Add your dialogue, if any.
7) Make sure the HUD (Score/Time/Rings/Lives etc.) is still present, if you need to. (If it wasn't there to begin with, for example if you took a screenshot from Sonic 3's opening cutscene, you don't need to put it in.)
8) Save it: in .GIF, .JPG, or .PNG format.

Done! Now you can submit it.