Shading Colour Tips

Bird Wing/Tail Database

If you ever need references for bird wings/tails I cannot recommend this collection enough! It has images of the dorsal/ventral sides of wings from a wide variety of species.

As I have been promising for years, the eye color chart is all cleaned up and ready to be shared! I'm totally ok with this being saved and passed around, that's why all my info is on it.

Basic image description is in alt, and a full transcript of all text in the image is under the cut.

This model has been in a process of expansion and tweaking for a very long time. Huge huge thanks to all the folks who contributed and hunted down photos, helped me name all the colors, and gave the final proofs!

Sparrow's Eye Color Chart 2025 Edition

Eye colors in cats are difficult to model because they vary to a significant extent on two axes. This is my best attempt at a general model of cat eye color based on observation and research into how eye color works across species.

Pigmentation refers to the amount of pigment in the colored layer of the iris. Higher pigmentation causes darker colors.

Refraction means the extent to which light is scattered in the structures of the iris. Higher refraction causes deeper blues or greens.

Eye colors are related to coat color, but not as closely as breed standards might have you believe! Most coat colors can have most eye colors outside of purebred lines selected to meet breed standard.

What Color Are My Cat's Eyes?

Color names are descriptive of the actual color of the cat's eyes - I chose them all to sound nice so that breeders can use them if desired. Note that breed standards have a much broader use of color names - "Amber", for example, may include much of the golden to orange range.

Colors are based on pictures of cats in full white light (such as midday sun fully illuminating the eye), and tweaked to look good on properly color-calibrated screens. Always determine eye colors based on how they look in full light.

Main Block

standard eye colors possible with most pelts

Every cat is assumed to have genes that specify some genetic eye color in the main block, but certain other alleles can depigment the eyes partially or completely, creating the lower block.

Pigmentation and Refraction are modeled here as dependent on multiple genes, which seems to best fit the wide spectrum of possibilities in cats. The actual number of genes is unknown and could be very many, but for simplicity they are shown here on a scale from 1-7.

In theory, the genetic eye colors of the offspring should tend to fall somewhere between the genetic eye colors of the parents. Then, any depigmentation factors are applied, which may result in an actual eye color somewhere below the genetic eye color.

Lower Block

occur with phenotypes which cause depigmentation of the iris.

Gray-blues: Fairly rare coloration. The cause of gray eyes in humans is not well understood, but one theory is that collagen or very small amounts of pigment in the eye alter the scattering of light.

Blues: Most common depigmented colors. Can be caused by white spotting/dominant white, colorpoint, and sometimes mocha. There are also multiple Dominant Blue-eye (DBE) mutations known which cause blue eyes as the main effect.

Albinistic: Caused by complete albinism, which also fully depigments the back layer of the iris meant to keep light from getting through. This allows the red color from the retinal blood vessels to bleed through, and also causes poor visual acuity.

Following is a list of all eye colors shown on the main diagram. Rows are pigmentation levels starting from the highest pigmentation, refraction increases from left to right.

Main Block: Copper, Chestnut, Umber, Walnut, Earthen, Olive, Moss; Ochre, Caramel, Bronze, Serpentine, Artichoke, Fern, Forest; Orange, Amber, Brass, Peridot, Avocado, Clover, Malachite; Saffron, Butterscotch, Shrub, Spring, Jade, Pine, Emerald; Gold, Citron, Pear, Lime, Mantis, Grass, Viridian; Yellow, Chartreuse, Sprout, Laurel, Mint, Turquoise, Teal; Canary, Chiffon, Honeydew, Sage, Celadon, Aqua, Cerulean.

Lower Block: Gray-blues: Frost, Opal, Flint, Storm, Steel, Slate, Cadet. Blues: Ice, Powder, Celeste, Sky, Azure, Lapis, Cobalt. Albinistic: Pink, Mauve, Lavender, Periwinkle, Cornflower, Royal, Indigo.

Combo Colors

Cats can exhibit a few different heterochromia types, most commonly a blue with a non-blue. The other most common cause for heterochromia appears to be localized hyperpigmentation, which can be caused by damage to the eye. It can also happen simply due to differing iris structure or unusual pigment migration within the iris.

It is also relatively common for the center of the eye to be a slightly different color, without being marked enough to constitute full heterochromia. My provisionary term for this is "dual-toned". The boundary between this and "true" central heterochromia is somewhat subjective.

For any form of heterochromia or dual-toned eyes, my recommendation for describing them is to note both colors with a slash. For dual-tones, I generally write the outer color before the center one.

Complete Heterochromia Blue/non-blue is commonly caused by white spotting/dominant white, other combos are rare.

Sectoral Heterochromia Blue/non-blue sometimes occurs with white spotting/dominant white. Can also be from hyperpigmentation.

Central Heterochromia Can occur due to hyperpigmentation, uneven pigment distribution, or iris structure. More common in certain breeds.

Dual-toned Irises Relatively small differences in central eye color are common in cats.

Iris Atrophy Iris atrophy due to old age can cause a distinctive lighter ring in the center of the iris.

All writing, art, and chart design ©Sparrow Hartmann 2025

Icon designs are released to the Creative Commons under a CC-BY-SA license and will be made available for download.

Go to sparrows-garden.com for more genetics resources!

Words to use instead of “said” organized by emotion/intention 2.0

Said is NOT a bad word. ~75% of the time, it’s all you need. But here’s some alternative when you really need to spice up that dialogue! 

Use sparingly for more impact - especially the more dramatic verbs.  Emotion and intent are complex! I tried to reduce redundancy as much as I could, but some words are simply going to be in multiple categories. i.e. “anger” and “loud” share a lot of words

This is a living document and will be updated whenever I think of new words.

Afficher davantage

who are these DIVAS????

im so serious about this but if youre autistic and especially if youre chronically ill creative labour cannot be your only way to relax. working on a creative project is still working. take time to do nothing. its good for you i promise.

hey so it’s march now aka the beginning of endometriosis awareness month and i feel obligated to remind you that debilitatingly painful periods are not normal. if you or someone you know is ending up sick or bedridden every month, you are not crazy and deserve medical attention from someone who will take you seriously

just once I want to see a good post critiquing makeup culture that doesn’t turn out to be made by some janky radfem blog

hi, a lot of you need a perspective reset

the average human lifespan globally is 70+ years

taking the threshold of adulthood as 18, you are likely to spend at least 52 years as a fully grown adult

at the age of 30 you have lived less than one quarter of your adult life (12/52 years)

'middle age' is typically considered to be between 45-65

it is extremely common to switch careers, start new relationships, emigrate, go to college for the first or second time, or make other life-changing decisions in middle age

it's wild that I even have to spell it out, but older adults (60+) still have social lives and hobbies and interests.

you can still date when you get old. you can still fuck. you can still learn new skills, fashionable, be competitive. you can still gossip, you can still travel, you can still read. you can still transition. you can still come out.

young doesn't mean peaked. you're inexperienced in your 20s! you're still learning and practicing! you're developing social skills and muscle memory that will last decades!

there are a million things to do in the world, and they don't vanish overnight because an imaginary number gets too big

ethics of making AI images aside, I do find a bit amusing the kinds of sob stories and mental gymnastics people make up to pretend like drawing is this super technical skill with an impossibly high barrier of entry when its like one of the first hobbies toddlers pick up

suddenly a lot of people think they got the next Lord of the Rings in their head but they were never able to turn their stories into anything tangible because the evil elitist artists are hogging all the talent and skill and they need a bajilion years of training or something as if one of the most popular manga and anime of the past decade wasn't made by a guy that draws like this

captured from an ambulance. captured. from an ambulance. do not stop speaking about palestine please