Hello and welcome to my advanced creature creation tutorial. If you haven't already, I would recommend looking at my beginner tutorial first before looking at this one. This guide will focus on the hidden features of the creature creator and some techniques on how to use parts in ways other than intended.

So by now you should know how to place parts on your creature but have you ever put on a part that, if rotated right, will look cool but for some reason the part handles won't rotate your piece right?
I know I have.

Well what you probably didn't know was if you press TAB on your keyboard, you will lose that ball part handle and gain two more rotation handle; one for each axis.
So much easier.

This gives you much more control than the ball. The ball is imprecise but good for small adjustments and beginners, but for people who want to do more, they quickly find themselves frustrated by the lack of precision. So remember to press TAB when the ball fails to meet your needs. It's also useful for rotating feet; see the plant monster example in the "Creative Uses" section.
Perfect.

Now I will admit, I don't need this much for creature creation but for anyone that wants to be good at the civilian editor, this works wonders on those parts that would look good if you could just flip it around. Also. since we're here, this and other commands listed later can be used in other editors.

If you have the latest patch of Spore, whenever a part makes another of itself on the opposite side to be symmetrical and you don't want that. hold "a" before selecting that part and Spore will only make one part. This is useful for things like tails made out of arms, or a neck made out of arms, or something even more creative. This also works in the civilian editor and can be used to make some interesting characters. If you place a part asymmetrically that normally makes a copy to be symmetrical but that copy is a mirror image of the part, like hands and feet, pressing CTRL + F will flip that part for you. Also if you already have something symmetrical like arms on your creature and then you want to move them asymmetrically, hold "a" and them move the part normally.

This technical stuff is all well and good but you just know there are not enough parts for your awesome creature. This is where the fun starts and why it's good to play around with the part handles on the different parts. Some parts, especially clothing in the civilian editor, look wildly different then they do otherwise. Try to find parts that look similar to what you want and then place them where they need to go.
Remember me?

The necks of the plant monster are made of arms made asymmetrically with the bottom part of the middle neck being the body because arms cannot attach to other arms. The petals around the mouths are Crestaceans (also put in asymmetrically). Remember when you need to find a part to match something you want to do, like petals in this case. It might not be the part you think it might be, like the plant details.

Another thing, you can put your creature through the civilian editor, and that's like giving it a whole new set of parts. So even if you still can't find parts you want like hair, try the civilian editor. I find the beard makes excellent hair.

If you're going for that perfect creature, the cheat "adddna" is your friend. Because the amount of DNA given by the editor is low; especially if you use a lot of high price pieces. I had to use this for the plant monster because those parts were expensive. Another cheat you can use is "freedom" and that is useful if your complexity meter is full. However if you use this, your creature cannot be used anywhere but the editor.

Remember that no matter how bad your creature may turn out the first time, it will only get better with practice. Also remember that Spore is kinda cartoony so don't expect a real gritty looking creature it won't happen.