Coat Color Information

Basic:
12 Coat colors:

Calico/Tortoiseshell combinations:

Masks:

Effects:

Advanced:
Cats come in 12 basic colors with various effects added on. Those 12 colors are separated into a Black Base or a Red Base. The black base has three full colors; Black, Chocolate, and Cinnamon where as the red base only has Red. The full colors can be each diluted to where Black turns into Blue/Gray, Chocolate into Lilac, Cinnamon into Fawn, and Red into Cream. Think of dilution as your printer slowly running out of ink where the color starts to fade.

From there each of the diluted colors can be modified so that Blue/Gray goes to Caramel, Lilac to Taupe, Fawn to Fawn-Caramel, and Cream to Apricot. Modifying a dilute will give that dilute color a lighter tone and a brownish hue. Now your first step is to pick one of these colors. Calicos and tortoiseshells are the exception as they can have one color from the Black base paired with one color from the Red base, but they must be at the same level ie. a full color with a full color or a dilute with a dilute. You can not have a Black and Cream calico, but you can have a Red and Black calico.

Have you picked your cat's color yet? Great! Now let's move onto the various affects they can have. Silvering will result in a smoke when the cat is not a tabby and will give a silver tabby when the cat is a tabby. A cat can have a white coat through three different methods. First is White Spotting where as you guessed it the cat has various degrees of white patches. An Albino is a pure white cat that can have either blue or reddish/pink eyes. A Dominant White cat is similar to an albino in that they are pure white, but they can have normal eye colors, but can not have reddish/pink eyes. Both Albinos and Dominant White cats will display all white, but will still need a color underneath from the 12 I mentioned previously as white is not a color, but a mask.

I am sure you have seen pointed cats like Siamese or Ragdolls. Their classic markings include darker points on the body such as the face, ears, tail and paws where the rest of the body is a lighter color. These come in three varieties; Color Point, Mink, and Sepia. Color Points have the most contrast between the body color and the dark points as in the face can be a dark brown or black, but the body will be a light cream color. Mink is the next step down where there is less of a difference between the darkness of the points and the lightness of the body. Mink is the last where there is very little difference between the dark points and the body.

Agouti determines if there will be tabby markings showing or not. Note Red cats will show tabby markings no matter what the Agouti shows, but all other colors can come in a non tabby variety. There are four tabby patterns; Mackerel, Classic, Spotted and Ticked. Mackerel is your typical 'tiger tabby' with stripes. Classic is like Mackerel but the stripes are all curvy and swirls around the pelt. Spotted results in spots covering much of the body working into striping on the legs, tail, and neck. Bengals and bengal like cats with rosettes are considered spotted. Ticked has little 'tick' markings in the fur like a bunch of speckles or fleck. This means that the pelt has a grizzled look to it. A ticked tabby can be a solid fleck over the whole body or they may have some leg/tail stripes.

Rufusing is an odd little thing that can brighten or lighten a cat's coat when they are a tabby. With high rufusing the cat will have a warmer or richer coat color where as if there is low/no rufusing there coat will be very cool or dim. Think of it in terms of regular colors where there can be bright sunny yellows or dim rustic yellows. Likewise you could have a vibrant firetruck red or a more dull mahogany. A brown tabby with low rufusing will look more gray underneath the stripes whereas if it had high rufusing it could show more of a light brown color. It will also affect silvers and smokes in the way of tarnishing which can cause the cat to have little smudges of tan around the nose or edges of the stripes.


Examples: