Roots-of-Life - Design Guide

Design Guide

A visual guide to cat colors and patterns. Please also keep in mind that Roots-of-Life is incredibly lenient, so don't feel like you have to follow the guide perfectly. Stylistic choices are welcome in the group.

For now, we only have photo references, but you can ask in #design-review for some good examples of designs that are already in the group! We plan on adding some stylized drawn references in the future.

Once you have determined your cat's phenotype, head over to the Genotypes page to create their genotype.

Genotypes

Base Colors

There are two categories of base (aka "self") colors: eumelanin (black-based) and pheomelanin (red-based).

Black-based colors include black, chocolate, and cinnamon, while red-based only includes red.

These base colors can be modified with dilution and the dilute modifier.
Dilution turns black into blue, chocolate into lilac, cinnamon into fawn, and red into cream.
The dilute modifier turns blue into caramel, lilac into taupe, fawn into mauve, and cream into apricot.

While black-based cats can be solid (no tabby patterns), red-based cats will always express underlying tabby markings. "Solid" red-based cats' markings are low contrast compared to those with agouti.

Black-Based Colors

Black - a jet black color.
Blue - a lighter version of black, sort of a gray color. Also known as "gray".
Caramel - a modified version of blue, making the pelt warmer in hue. Also known as "blue caramel".
Chocolate - a rich brown color, like real chocolate.
Lilac - a lighter version of chocolate, sort of a grayish brown.
Taupe - a warmer version of lilac. Also known as "lilac caramel".
Cinnamon - a lighter brown than chocolate, like real cinnamon sticks.
Fawn - a lighter version of cinnamon, more saturated than lilac.
Mauve - a caramelized version of fawn. Unlike the other caramels, this one is also a bit duller in hue. Also known as "fawn caramel".

Red-Based Colors

Red - a ginger or orange color.
Cream - a lighter version of red, sort of a sandy color.
Apricot - a warmer, more saturated version of cream.

Remember, red cats are always tabbies!

We allow a lot of variations of these base colors. Our only rule is that colors have to look distinct from each other (so a red cat that looks brownish, like cinnamon, wouldn't pass as red.) You can look at examples of different colors on our roster.

Tortoiseshells and Calicos

Tortoiseshell cats show both a black-based and a red-based color at the same time! Due to how the red gene works, only female cats can be tortoiseshells. (Male tortoiseshells require either a rare trait, or an intersex research note.)

Tortoiseshells become very "patchy" with high white spotting, at which point they're known as calicos. However, in Roots-of-Life your tortoiseshell can be as brindled or as patchy as you want it to be, no matter the amount of white it has.

To design a basic tortoiseshell, make some parts of them a black-based color of your choice, and some parts red. Remember that the dilution and dilution modifier genes will affect BOTH colors -- so pick colors from the same "set"! (ex. black and red, blue and cream, caramel and apricot)

Given how rare the caramel series colors are, we've provided an additional gallery below for reference.

(Most of these are from felinefractious on Tumblr -- thank you!)

Tabbies

Tabbies are cats with the agouti gene (A). This gives them a striped pattern.

You can tell a tabby cat's base color by looking at the color of their stripes. The color underneath the stripes is called the "ground color". Tabby cats IRL are darker near their backs and lighter near their bellies, which is called "countershading". Tabbies in Roots-of-Life don't need countershading, though!

Basic Patterns

The four basic tabby patterns are mackerel tabby, classic tabby, spotted tabby, and ticked tabby. All tabbies have stripes on their face, no matter the specific pattern.

Mackerel is like your default tabby, showing up if no other tabby pattern is present. It looks somewhat like tiger stripes.

Classic tabbies, also known as blotched/bullseye tabbies, have a swirl pattern. They tend to have thicker striping on their legs than mackerels.

Spotted can only modify mackerel, so it won't affect the classic pattern. Instead of stripes, the cat will have spots on their side. If heterozygous for this gene, they will be a broken tabby, which looks like an intermediary point between mackerel and spotted.

Ticked tabbies will have the patterns stripped from their sides, replaced with a speckled cape. If heterozygous, they will always retain striping on the tail and legs. If homozygous, they can have an unpatterned tail and legs. The most minimal range for ticked tabby in Roots-of-Life is a thin back stripe, face stripes, and a dark tail-tip.

(In order: a mackerel tabby, a classic tabby, a broken tabby, a spotted tabby, a patterned ticked tabby, and an unpatterned ticked tabby.)

Exotic Patterns

The Bengal modifier transforms the basic tabby patterns into exotic ones.

Mackerel becomes braided, which gives the stripes a braided appearance.

Classic becomes marbled, an irregular, blotchy pattern with lighter insides.

Broken becomes broken braided (not pictured), where the braids are more broken-up.

Spotted becomes rosetted, where the spots are now larger and have a lighter inside color.

Ticked becomes servaline, which just makes the ticking more distinguished.

(In order: a braided tabby, a marbled tabby, a rosetted tabby, and a servaline tabby.)

Charcoal

The charcoal gene is a variant of the agouti gene. Charcoal gives cats a dark mask pattern (called a "zorro mask"), and significantly reduces the contrast between their ground color and stripes. It generally reduces the amount of brown/reddish/cream tones in their ground color, replacing it with more self color instead. The presence of silver can fully desaturate them and give them further contrast. Charcoal only affects black-based colors, not red.

(In order: a black charcoal mackerel tabby, a black charcoal silver rosetted tabby, a black charcoal rosetted tabby, a blue charcoal rosetted tabby, a black ticked charcoal, and a seal charcoal servaline sepia.)

White

White spotting, or simply white, covers every other color and pattern. White spotting can be off-white in RoL.

Low white (0-50% white spotting) is a limited amount of white. A good example of this grade is the tuxedo pattern (a white chest, belly, feet, and tail-tip).

High white (50-100% white spotting) ranges from mostly white to fully white. A good example of this grade is the van pattern (all white except for the top of the head and the tail).

Cats with 40%-60% white spotting are known as bicolors. Genetically, they can be either low or high white.

White gloving covers all four paws. Cats with the white gloving gene will ONLY have these white gloves.

Salmiak is a recent mutation, which causes a white blaze, neck, chest, and leg markings that are often quite "choppy", and roaning or white dappling on the cat's back. Cats with the salmiak gene will ONLY have white in these areas.

Dominant white covers the entirety of the pelt in white. No other markings are shown.

In Roots-of-Life, white is one of three traits that can cause blue eyes; the cat must have some white on their face for this. The others are color restriction (colorpoint, mink, sepia, mocha, and albinism) and dominant blue eye genes (celestial.)

Color Restriction

Next up is the colorpoint family! Color restriction (the "point family") comprises colorpoint, mink, sepia, mocha, and albinism.
Like with tabbies, the darkest parts of a cat with color restriction will always tell you the cat's self (base) color.

Color restriction is temperature-sensitive, which causes the pointed look. The extremities of the cat (face, legs, and tail) are cooler, so they will show the cat's color fully. Warmer areas will show less color.

The color black is known as "seal" on cats with color restriction. Seal cats have a warmer tone to them than normal black cats. The modifier "lynx" means any tabby cat with color restriction.

Cats with both color restriction and one of the exotic tabby types can have a unique look called a "snow" colorpoint/mink/sepia. We recommend looking these up!

Color restriction also works best on eumelanin. IRL, it tends to "break" on pheomelanin, producing a different look than you might expect! In RoL, you can design red pointed cats as either "broken" (how they look IRL), or "un-broken" (expected look based on how the gene works on eumelanin).

In Roots-of-Life, color restriction is the other trait that can cause blue eyes, besides white spotting.

Colorpoint

First, you have the basic colorpoint gene. Their face, ears, legs and tail will be their base color. Their body will be an ivory or white color. This is the color restriction gene with the highest contrast between point color and body color.

Colorpoints can get darker over time, since their body temperature drops as they grow up. So older colorpoints can be darker than younger ones.

As a note, colorpoints will always have blue eyes.

(In order: a seal colorpoint, a red colorpoint, a fawn colorpoint, and a seal tortoiseshell lynx colorpoint.)

Sepia

Sepia (aka sepia point) has the lowest contrast out of the three main pointing genes. This means their body color will be fairly close to the color of their points (which, like always, will be their base color). Some sepias also show breakthrough tabby markings.

(In order: a seal sepia, a chocolate sepia, a lilac sepia, a red sepia, and a seal tortoiseshell sepia.)

Mink

Mink (aka mink point) is a combination of the colorpoint and sepia alleles. These cats are an intermediary between the two traits, as a result! They have a medium contrast; less than colorpoints, but more than sepia.

(In order: a seal mink, a chocolate mink, a cinnamon tortoiseshell mink, and a red mink.)

Mocha

Mocha, also known as mocha point, is the most recently discovered member of the point family! Mocha is most apparent on black cats. The mocha gene will change black into a warm mocha color, and chocolate into a lighter brown.

Mocha affects its combination types very subtly. Siamocha is a combination of colorpoint and mocha, and burmocha is a combination of sepia and mocha. Siamochas and burmochas will look very similar to colorpoints and sepias of the same base color, respectively. Sometimes they are a bit warmer and lighter.

Given their recency, we recommend looking at the main cattery breeding them for reference photos. They have a wonderful catalogue of colors! Alternatively, you can read Messybeast's page on them.

Bangkok-Mocha Cats

Mochas on Messybeast

(In order: a seal mocha, a lilac mocha, a seal siamocha, and a lilac burmocha.)

Albinism

Finally, albinism is also part of this family! Albino cats are solid white, because they have a complete lack of pigment. Depending on the albinism alleles they have, they will have either blue, lavender, or pink/red eyes. Their eyes will reflect barely any color in low light, though.

(The left two photos are of @fortuneandfolly's cat Folly, and the right two are of @pangurandgrim's cat Pangur, both on Instagram!)

Inhibitor (Silver)

Silver strips all the color from a cat's undercoat, giving them a desaturated, silvery appearance and (on tabbies) a higher contrast pattern. Silver creates different phenotypes based on the genes involved. Silver affects black significantly more than it affects red.

Solid cats will become smokes. The silver shows through where the fur parts, especially on the chest and belly. Smokes can have ghost tabby markings as well.

(In order: a black smoke, a blue smoke, and a lilac smoke.)

Agouti (tabby) cats will become silver tabbies. They will have stripes of their usual base color, on a very light, silvery background.

(In order: a black silver spotted tabby, a cinnamon silver classic tabby, and a red silver spotted tabby.)

The presence of widebanding will turn a cat into a shaded or shell silver, depending on the degree of widebanding. Their pattern will become more and more restricted towards the cape of their back and their tail.

Shell cats only show their base color on their tail-tip, the top of their head, and as a light dusting across their back.

(In order: a black silver shaded, a black silver shell, and a red silver shaded.)

Wideband (Golden)

Widebanding restricts a tabby cat's base color closer and closer to the tips of each hair. As a result, their golden undercoat shows through more heavily, creating the golden phenotype.

Like silvers, these cats come in the tabby, shaded, and shell patterns. IRL, widebanding is a polygene (many genes interact to form the final pattern). Here, we represent it with just two genes, wb and wb+, which form the gradient of patterns.

Widebanding only affects cats with agouti (tabbies), so golden smoke doesn't exist. Wideband has no effect on red either.

(In order: a black golden shaded, a blue golden shaded, a chocolate golden shell, a black golden shaded, and a lilac golden shell.)

Sunshine and Bimetallic

Sunshine is caused by a different allele on the same locus. It also gives cats a golden appearance. Just like widebanding, sunshine only affects tabbies, and doesn't affect solid cats or red cats. Sunshine cats who are heterozygous for agouti (Aa) will be darker in color.

Extreme sunshine is caused by a variant of the sunshine gene, and gives the cat an even brighter look, with nearly-white undersides.

Uniquely, sunshine can show alongside silver. This creates the bimetallic phenotype. The cat will be silver on their top side, and sunshine on their head and undersides.

(In order: a black sunshine, a black "dark" sunshine, a black extreme sunshine, a black bimetallic classic tabby, and a blue bimetallic spotted tabby.)

Karpati

Karpati cats have a pale, grizzled or roan pattern. This pattern is temperature-sensitive, with cats being born light-colored and darkening over time. Their extremities have very little pigmented hairs, and they always have white ears.

Many examples of karpatis can be found in the link below. They can vary quite a bit in appearance, some looking more "dramatic" than others.

Karpatis

Extension

These three genes are from the same family. Extension genes turn black-based color into red, and thus have no effect on red-based cats. They will always cause solid cats to appear tabby.

Cats with extension genes are born looking "normal" at birth. Over time, they will change into their final color. We don't enforce this color changing rule, so your amber, russet, and carnelian cats have their final look from birth.

Amber

Amber brightens black pelts into an amber color, and blue ones into light amber, or a pale beige look. They may appear similar to golden tabbies or red tabbies.

Non-agouti amber is caused by amber on solid cats. Non-agouti amber cats will retain more of their original stripe color, and have a dark nose bridge.

(In order: a young black amber, a black amber that has finished changing color, a blue amber, a black amber silver shaded, a black non-agouti amber, a black smoke amber, and a blue smoke amber.)

Amber and Russet on Messybeast

Russet

Russet turns the cat into a light golden-brown color, with creamy or light honey-colored undersides. All russet cats will look quite similar, no matter their base color. Black russets will have slightly darker stripes than chocolate or cinnamon russets.

Russet cats are extremely rare IRL, with only one cattery breeding for the color in the entire world. We recommend checking out their website for accurate russet photos!

(In order: a black ticked russet, a cinnamon russet, a chocolate sepia russet, and a black ticked sepia russet.)

Russets at Rafoej Cattery

Carnelian

Carnelian will give the cat a ginger appearance that is almost identical to a red tabby. If a cat is a silver tabby or golden and carries one copy of carnelian, they will display some reddish hues on their sides and neck.

(In order: a black carnelian classic tabby, a blue carnelian classic tabby, and a black golden carnelian carrier.)

Carnelian on Messybeast

Eye Colors

We allow the full scale of realistic eye colors in cats. We don't have set eye color genetics in RoL, just some restrictions.

As mentioned before, cats need either white family markings on the face (karpati does not count), a color restriction pattern, or dominant blue eye mutation to have blue eyes. Colorpoints must have blue eyes. Albinos must have either blue, purple, or pink/red eyes, and they are the only ones who can have the latter two colors.

The only realistic eye color we don't allow is a true brown, as cats can't have brown eyes like humans can. If you'd like to be sure your eye color passes, as long as it's no darker than the top row of eye colors, it should be fine. This chart comes from Sparrow's Garden.

Heterochromia (having two eye colors) is also fine, provided both colors are allowed for that cat!

The Four Sins of Realistic Design

While we allow many stylistic choices for designs, there are some very pretty design choices that we just cannot pass as realistic. These four design elements are as follows:

1. Horizontal tabby markings
2. "Solid" reds (red cats without tabby markings)
3. Tabby stripes lighter than the ground color
4. "Reverse countershading" (the cat's back is light, and their belly is dark)

Black and not-red tortoiseshell cats are another common one, but these can work as chimeras, if you have a rare trait slot open!

Everything else we'll do our best to try and pass with minimal edits.

Conclusion

That should cover most basic phenotypes! As a final note, while IRL nose and paw-pad colors are tied to specific colors, we allow any natural color here in RoL.

To combine certain traits, you may need to extrapolate from here. Real-life photos from catteries will be your best friend. We also have links to some good places to find photos in our #resources channel, and the Genotypes page details broadly how each gene works.

If you have any questions, or need help determining your cat's phenotype, please ask for assistance in our #design-review channel!

(As a bonus, have a pretty taupe ticked tabby, since I couldn't find a good spot for it anywhere else. :])

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