To tell a person "you're beginner, use only fakies until you're pro like me" is a very defeating prospect to follow, and you could call that... my peeve? Or rather, something I just try and avoid entirely.
Personally, when I decide to start customizing, I would prefer to start off with fakies and party wig hair. It's very difficult to find older gen ponies where I live, which makes the decision to customize in the first place one that I can't make lightly. If I had a bait G3 to customize, or a G1 that I wanted to restore, I'd want to practice on something inexpensive and readily available first, just to know what I'm doing with the materials before I fudge it up completely. The same goes for any doll. I'm not going to even consider customizing my Bratzillaz before I've experimented with a fakie, as the actual thing is far too expensive to mess around with, and I'd want a high quality, professional end result – which I know I can't get on my first try.
It's fine for someone who knows exactly what they're doing artistically to use whatever they like as a canvas, but for a beginner like me... I've found lots of very good tutorials online, but following the instructions isn't enough where art is concerned. Let's just say, I've never been friends with paint. I don't know anything about the effects of using different types of brushes, or what brands of paint are good to use on a surface. I don't know how to use acrylic or sealant, and I haven't learned or developed any techniques to get the paint looking factory quality and not like a mess of uneven brushstrokes. I also have shaky hands, so any fine detailing would be difficult to get looking neat. If I had to just play around with my art supplies on a bait G1 or G3, and end up with a horrific mess of splotches and flaking, I would probably die inside. I would have ruined a perfectly good bait and wasted both my time and a lot of very expensive paint and sealant, when I could have bought a dirt cheap fakie and practiced a bit first.
The point I'm trying to make is, you as the artist want to be happy with your work. You want to have something lasting and beautiful that you can be proud of. You don't want something that you look at five minutes later and just want to throw out the window, crying hysterically in frustration. And there is nothing worse than having someone tell you, "oh no, you ruined it, it was so much prettier before", especially when it echoes the doubts that have been going through your own mind. That is the fastest way to kill any desire to continue being a customizer. It's far better to get a feel for the materials you're working with, before you set out to create the next Michaelangelo and end up with a Jackson Pollock instead.
Again, this is just my own thought process and my personal opinion. I have never actually made a custom. But when I eventually do, then I'll want to do it right.
