What do you aim for in markings?

I am getting a lot of potato pups these days, so I just wonder what y’all look for when choosing a stud? What goes good together? What doesn’t? Any color combos you enjoy? I’d love to see some pups you are proud of with some awesome birth markings!

any preference for special/combo markings? I like the look of more natural wolves, but I have trouble getting a good balance of contrast in my puppies. And while I look for my future stud, what markings pass down well? 

Personally when I'm choosing studs I care more about lineage and pricing than specific markings, but if I was trying to choose between two studs who were otherwise equal... I might go for one with combo marks, or the potential to create combo marks with my female. Something you can't just add with a Marking Applicator.

Case in point, here's a puppy I kept and spent a ton of GC on even though she was a reject from my TIII project. She inherited one Silver mark directly from her dad, got another one from both parents' black/white combo, and received Auburn Smudge from dad as well. I've chased almost 60 potatoes for this project so far but this pup's markings were so good I was willing to buy her a base changer (she was originally Gold Darker, I think).

When I'm studding outside of my pack it's usually because I'm looking for specific combo markings.

This is my favorite natural looking lady. Her dad had a bunch of combo marks, and her mom was a blank NBW. She only ended up getting four markings, but because of the shading on her base (auburn) and the nature of some of the combos it ended up being a pretty cool effect.

I think the most important thing, especially if you're after a more natural effect, is to look at the stud and see how many of the markings you'd be into if they were the only ones that showed up on the pup.

A lot of markings can look GREAT when layered, but terrible when they show up alone.

It's also a good idea to double check the Grouse House Genetics Guide to make sure that the markings you're looking for will work well with the potential bases. Here's the same wolf as above with a different base:

I usually go for less popular and cheaper studs with short or no lineages. I also like to keep an eye out for rare markings as well or try to match the parent's colors to get combo colors on the offspring.

As for markings I personally really like monochrome colors or a mix of yellowish and white colors on blue like this girl!

She's the child of a NBW I found and a lesser known stud and was born with 9 markings, two of which at 100% opacity!
I got really lucky with this one and she turned out to be the perfect candidate for my selene base (her original was diorite).

I'm also quite proud of this little lady as she's got the first combo marking I was able to breed (silver cross). Though I had to add some dark markings to make it visible as it used to blend in perfectly with her ashen base color.

I pretty much just look for merles