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Base Coat Basics
Base Coat Basics
Every dergon's first and basic gene is their base color, determining the main color of their design. You'll pick one specific color from the given sliders, using that as the basis for your design!
Your dergon's base coat is determined by two sets of genes; "Value" genes which determine the lightness of your base, and alone give the Unmodifed or Natural base coats, and "Modifier", "Hue", or "Vibrant" genes which determine a brighter color for your Dergon, and make their base Vibrant or Gemtone. Base genes can be homozygous, but not Super.
Value genes consist of White and Black genes, and a space for mutation genes which affect the entire design. Your base will look something like Ww/Bb/xx, with xx being a placeholder and meaning no color mutations are present.
Modifier genes come in three flavors; Blue (+c), Yellow (+y), and Red (+m). If your genes have +c, your base will be tinted blue; +y, and it'll look yellow. Combinations like +cy will give you green! When homozygous, your base color will be an even brighter color. These genes can stack up into a modifier that looks like +ccmmyy; at this point, you'll have access to every color.
More details are listed below, with each base type's respective section!
Wing Color
Wing Color
While markings may appear over, or even completely cover your dergon's wings, without anything else there are a few rules about what color your wings can take on!
Usually, Wingsail colors are considered a free marking, and can appear in a slightly ligther or darker color than your chosen base, with a slight difference in Hue. While your base should be pulled from the slider listed in your geno, your wingsails can go farther up the full base family slider if your chosen base is near the edge!
If you want all your markings to change color slightly where they overlap your wings, you can set the wing sails or wing sails gradient layers to Overlay or Multiply, and adjust the color or opacity until they look close to the allowed limit for Wing Sails variation.
Wing colors can also be affected by other genes and markings. For example, the marking Flight causes the wings to be a much more dramatic color difference than the usual free option!
Finding your Base Color
Finding your Base Color
The first step of designing your Dergon is finding your base coat slider, and picking a color from it. Your geno will give you the name of a base before any markings: For example, Onyx with Blanket and Hood; Onyx is your base, and Blanket and Hood are your markings. Some mutations will also cause a word in front of that base, like Dilute Rain. You'll still need to know your original base, as most of these genes change your colors, not replace them entirely!
Once you've located your main base color and its slider, your dergon's design can start. When choosing a color, you'll often have more advanced options than what's just on the slider, especially with Vibrant bases!
When Natural or Vibrant, your base color can be desaturated (moved towards grey) to ANY extent, including pure grey! When a Vibrant base is desaturated into the Natural range, at least one marking should show a color from the original base coat slider.
When Gemtone, your base color may be desaturated as well, but only to the Vibrant range. It cannot be fully desaturated!
For your base, you may choose to ignore one gene in your Vivid modifiers; for example, a Forest base (+cy) may show as Bronze (+y), leaving out the +c. More rules can be found under the free design option Hidden!
When Chroma, your base does not generally need to follow rules. Vibrant Chroma bases should remain in their overall lightness or darkness range, but their hue is not limited and their saturation can freely be any level at or below the Vibrant sliders. Markings can use the entire Vibrant slider as well. Opal, unlike most gemtone bases, can desaturate down to the Natural Colors Slider for markings; this being slightly less saturated than the Vibrant sliders.
If using any of these options, if your chosen base is very far outside of the named slider, please let admins know in your design submission where approximately it's from! Something such as 'Rain, using Natural range' or 'Forest, Hidden Blue gene, using desaturated Bronze' will just point us in the right direction to make sure things are about where they ought to be. Base colors are not supposed to be too strict, but if we see a Rain geno submitted with a bright red design we'll need to know what's going on!
Natural Base Coats
Natural Base Coats
Dergon bases start with two genes: Ww and Bb. These genes alone will result in a white and black base respectively; in Dergons, these are Chalk and Onyx. When both are present, the base is grey and known as Stone.
If neither are present, the base modifies in interesting ways to become Calico. (You can read about Calico further down this page!)
Your base color can be picked from the sliders below, or be any hue with approximately the same Value and Saturation as the range of the sliders. (e.g. You can pick the most saturated color and move the color wheel around, keeping the lightness and brightness the same!)
Chalk
Chalk
Ww/bb, WW/bb
Stone
Stone
Ww/Bb, WW/BB, WW/Bb, Ww/BB
Onyx
Onyx
ww/Bb, ww/BB
Vibrant Base Coats
Vibrant Base Coats
Dergons' three color genes, +c, +y, and +m, add brightly colored pigments, and are a pretty common gene to encounter.
Each color family has three distinct base colors based on the Natural base the vibrant genes are paired with; Chalk produces a lighter or pastel base, Stone produces a midtone, and Onyx produces a darker set of colors.
A dergon's markings can almost always pull from the entire vertical slider for their base Color Family, shown below! The names below link to their individual sliders.
Gemtone Bases
Gemtone Bases
When every Vibrant gene on a dergon is hom., the base coat is much more vivid than usual, resulting in a Gemtone base. These use the same slider regardless of the Natural base, but with a slightly wider variation in brightness than the Natural or Vibrant base colors.
EVERY color gene on a base must be hom. to produce a Gemtone base! Genes such as +cyy will not be the yellow Gemtone base, but a Green Vibrant base, as there's a het +c gene present as well.
Sapphire
Sapphire
+cc
Jade
Jade
+ccyy
Amber
Amber
+yy
Citrine
Citrine
+mmyy
Ruby
Ruby
+mm
Amethyst
Amethyst
+ccmm
Chroma Bases
Chroma Bases
So, what happens if a dergon gets all three Vibrant genes? Well, it simply gets every color! Pastel, Prismatic, and Titanium are bases which occur when at least one gene each of +c, +m, and +y are on the same geno. This is called the Chroma color family.
Chroma bases allow you to pick your base and markings from any Vibrant slider according to its Value; Pastel being the Chroma Chalk base, and Prismatic and Titanium being Stone and Onyx respectively. Free markings such as Wingsails and Nuance, however, should remain close to your chosen base.
Chroma has a gemtone base as well: Opal! Opal basically allows you free reign on colors chosen for your base and markings, although they should stay roughly within the domain of the sliders as a whole. Like other Gemtones, your base should stay somewhat saturated; Opal may desaturate down to the Natural Colors Slider instead of the Vibrant sliders, and your markings should still obey any lighter or darker rules (or other color restrictions) set out for them.
Opal is very difficult to find, as all three vibrant genes must be hom for it to show. If one is het, it's a vibrant base instead of a gemtone!
Pastel
Pastel
Ww/bb+cmy
Prismatic
Prismatic
Ww/Bb+cmy
Titanium
Titanium
ww/Bb+cmy
Opal
Opal
+ccmmyy
Calico
Calico
When neither White nor Black genes are present on a dergon, the base modulates into patches of three different colors, in patterns similar to koi fish or calico cats! One of two design options will be used, depending on the presence of Vibrant genes.
When a dergon's base is ww/bb/xx with no Vibrant genes, it will be listed as Natural Calico. You can pick three base swatches: At least two Natural bases, and up to one Vibrant base. Your dergon's base will contain colors from these three; however, you should only choose one single color from each swatch for your base! You may choose multiple bases of the same Value when using a Natural and Vibrant combination; showing Rain and Stone together is perfectly fine! For instance, you could pick Chalk, Onyx, and Ginger for a classic calico/koi color, or perhaps Stone, Onyx, and Rain for a cool blue trio. You can also pick all three Natural bases!
However, when the ww/bb/xx genes are followed by a Vibrant gene such as +c, that Vibrant gene still shows up, and your base would be listed as Blue Calico, or whichever color your base shows. In that case, your three sliders to pick from are the three bases in your Color family. Like the normal base colors, you may desaturate your colors into the Natural range, or even make a Vibrant gene Hidden, to use Natural colors for one or more of the three bases! If not hidden however, the Vibrant gene must still show up on at least one marking.
If you have a Gemtone gene on a Vibrant Calico, your Gemtone base may be one of the chosen color sliders! Your other Vibrant bases may appear slightly more saturated than their sliders, but should not reach full Gemtone intensity.
When designing your Calico, each base must appear on roughly 20% of the dergon; you may have a dergon showing mostly one color, with smaller patches of the other two, or a more even spread of the three. Patches should be somewhat random in nature, with Hard or Textured edges. Please list the bases you've picked from when submitting your Dergon, especially for Natural Calico!
Markings may either stay solid, or change their color where they pass over Calico patches, but should extend onto at least two colors; isolating a marking onto only one color is a bit too much like the Chimera or Harlequin mutations! The patches should be mostly too random to resemble markings, but some resemblance to markings such as Hood, Splash, or Piebald may be unavoidable, which is fine!
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