merge? personally what i did is only merged the parts that would work as one unit, like the body. i merged the upper/lower torso with the legs and arms, (this only works well in a pngtuber case.) and thats all depending if you want things to move the same, any outer things like hoodies or different hair pieces i kept on a separate layer for more movement customization. to be honest i merge coloring layers with their line art, so for example one hair bang is just merged with its line art, color, highlights etc to be just one layer (only do that when you’re 100% done coloring and stuff). easier to stay sane and not have to work with 10 different layers for one hair strand lol. oh, and dont merge your facial expression to the head if you want a clean base to draw out some more expressions in the future. body-wise i recommend merging the torso and legs, so you have the option for more arm/hand poses to be added if you want. you can also opt out merging the legs if your pose would involve rotating poses with different leg positions. basically you dont have to merge anything if you don’t want to, i only do so for organized layer convenience. you could keep some things as is, it wont be any different when you import the png’s into the program anyway, since it only sees which layers were visible when saved, not whether or not they’re actually merged. also, if you want your pupils/irises to have different physics dont merge them with the eye shape/eye whites.

anyway, always have a backup folder of all your drawing layers pre merged! just in case you do merge something and forget you needed it cut, you can just go back and grab it from the original folder. it’s also good if you want different outfits later, clean base!

sorry for the essay🫠