diff --git a/deepforest/dataset.py b/deepforest/dataset.py
index cdf648df..72bcd70a 100644
--- a/deepforest/dataset.py
+++ b/deepforest/dataset.py
@@ -139,7 +139,6 @@ def __getitem__(self, idx):
 
 
 class TileDataset(Dataset):
-
     def __init__(self,
                  tile: typing.Optional[np.ndarray],
                  preload_images: bool = False,
diff --git a/deepforest/main.py b/deepforest/main.py
index bca9386e..64b4b341 100644
--- a/deepforest/main.py
+++ b/deepforest/main.py
@@ -126,7 +126,7 @@ def use_bird_release(self, check_release=True):
         print("Setting default score threshold to 0.3")
         self.config["score_thresh"] = 0.3
 
-    def create_model(self, backbone=None):
+    def create_model(self):
         """Define a deepforest architecture. This can be done in two ways. 
         Passed as the model argument to deepforest __init__(),
         or as a named architecture in config["architecture"], 
@@ -138,12 +138,10 @@ def create_model(self, backbone=None):
         RCNN:
             nms_thresh: 0.1
         etc.
-        Args:
-            backbone: 
         """
         if self.model is None:
             model_name = importlib.import_module("deepforest.models.{}".format(self.config["architecture"]))
-            self.model = model_name.Model(config=self.config, backbone=backbone).create_model()
+            self.model = model_name.Model(config=self.config).create_model()
         else:
             pass
 
diff --git a/deepforest/model.py b/deepforest/model.py
index 212d2075..40f03503 100644
--- a/deepforest/model.py
+++ b/deepforest/model.py
@@ -21,7 +21,7 @@ def __init__(self, config):
         # Check input output format:
         self.check_model()
     
-    def create_model(backbone=None):
+    def create_model():
         """This function converts a deepforest config file into a model. An architecture should have a list of nested arguments in config that match this function"""
         raise ValueError("The create_model class method needs to be implemented. Take in args and return a pytorch nn module.")
     
diff --git a/deepforest/models/retinanet.py b/deepforest/models/retinanet.py
index 25060b71..aa14a34d 100644
--- a/deepforest/models/retinanet.py
+++ b/deepforest/models/retinanet.py
@@ -37,7 +37,7 @@ def create_anchor_generator(self, sizes=((8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 400),),
 
         return anchor_generator
 
-    def create_model(self, backbone=None):
+    def create_model(self):
         """Create a retinanet model
         Args:
             num_classes (int): number of classes in the model
@@ -46,9 +46,8 @@ def create_model(self, backbone=None):
         Returns:
             model: a pytorch nn module
         """
-        if backbone is None:
-            resnet = self.load_backbone()
-            backbone = resnet.backbone
+        resnet = self.load_backbone()
+        backbone = resnet.backbone
 
         model = RetinaNet(backbone=backbone, num_classes=self.config["num_classes"])
         model.nms_thresh = self.config["nms_thresh"]
diff --git a/docs/Model_Architecture.md b/docs/Model_Architecture.md
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..ac4dd425
--- /dev/null
+++ b/docs/Model_Architecture.md
@@ -0,0 +1,79 @@
+# Model Architecture
+
+DeepForest allows users to specify custom model architectures if they follow certain guidelines. 
+To create a compliant format, follow the recipe below.
+
+## Subclass the model.Model() structure
+
+A subclass is a class instance that inherits the methods and function of super classes. In this cases, model.Model() is defined as:
+
+```
+# Model - common class
+from deepforest.models import *
+import torch
+
+class Model():
+    """A architecture agnostic class that controls the basic train, eval and predict functions.
+    A model should optionally allow a backbone for pretraining. To add new architectures, simply create a new module in models/ and write a create_model. 
+    Then add the result to the if else statement below.
+    Args:
+        num_classes (int): number of classes in the model
+        nms_thresh (float): non-max suppression threshold for intersection-over-union [0,1]
+        score_thresh (float): minimum prediction score to keep during prediction  [0,1]
+    Returns:
+        model: a pytorch nn module
+    """
+    def __init__(self, config):
+
+        # Check for required properties and formats
+        self.config = config
+
+        # Check input output format:
+        self.check_model()
+    
+    def create_model():
+        """This function converts a deepforest config file into a model. An architecture should have a list of nested arguments in config that match this function"""
+        raise ValueError("The create_model class method needs to be implemented. Take in args and return a pytorch nn module.")
+    
+    def check_model(self):
+        """
+        Ensure that model follows deepforest guidelines
+        If fails, raise ValueError
+        """
+        # This assumes model creation is not expensive
+        test_model = self.create_model()
+        test_model.eval()
+
+        # Create a dummy batch of 3 band data. 
+        x = [torch.rand(3, 300, 400), torch.rand(3, 500, 400)]
+
+        predictions = test_model(x)
+        # Model takes in a batch of images
+        assert len(predictions) == 2
+
+        # Returns a list equal to number of images with proper keys per image
+        model_keys = list(predictions[1].keys())
+        model_keys.sort()
+        assert model_keys == ['boxes','labels','scores']
+```
+
+## Match torchvision formats
+
+From this definition we can see three format requirements. The model must be able to take in a batch of images in the order [channels, height, width]. The current model weights are trained on 3 band images, but you can update the check_model function if you have other image dimensions.
+The second requirement is that the model ouputs a dictionary with keys ["boxes","labels","scores"], the boxes are formatted following torchvision object detection format. From the [docs](https://pytorch.org/vision/main/models/generated/torchvision.models.detection.retinanet_resnet50_fpn.html#torchvision.models.detection.retinanet_resnet50_fpn)
+
+```
+During training, the model expects both the input tensors and targets (list of dictionary), containing:
+
+boxes (FloatTensor[N, 4]): the ground-truth boxes in [x1, y1, x2, y2] format, with 0 <= x1 < x2 <= W and 0 <= y1 < y2 <= H.
+
+labels (Int64Tensor[N]): the class label for each ground-truth box
+
+During inference, the model requires only the input tensors, and returns the post-processed predictions as a List[Dict[Tensor]], one for each input image. The fields of the Dict are as follows, where N is the number of detections:
+
+boxes (FloatTensor[N, 4]): the predicted boxes in [x1, y1, x2, y2] format, with 0 <= x1 < x2 <= W and 0 <= y1 < y2 <= H.
+
+labels (Int64Tensor[N]): the predicted labels for each detection
+
+scores (Tensor[N]): the scores of each detection
+```
diff --git a/tests/test_retinanet.py b/tests/test_retinanet.py
index f389b2bc..7b10df68 100644
--- a/tests/test_retinanet.py
+++ b/tests/test_retinanet.py
@@ -6,6 +6,9 @@
 import torch
 import torchvision
 import os
+from torchvision.models import resnet50, ResNet50_Weights
+from torchvision.models.detection.retinanet import RetinaNet_ResNet50_FPN_Weights
+
 
 os.environ['KMP_DUPLICATE_LIB_OK']='True'