47 Replies

    • Yep. There were no illustrations at all on that site before my chart went viral. Now there are, eerily familiar, with the eye colour one lifted direcly.

  • Thank you so much! I was just wondering why the Cinnamon and Fawn versions of everything are in grey and aren’t recognized by pedigree breeders. Is there a reason for this? Thanks.

    • I’m not sure what the reason is, it could be that the genetics of these were only understood too recently. But breed criteria are arbitrary and reflect a human decision rather than genetic. Some breeds only admit one coat colour, for instance, which doesn’t mean that these cats can never be born different, but then they are not considered proper examples of the breed.

  • So, in regards to messybeast, are you going to contact the person who runs that site? That does not sit well with me.

      • I’m so sorry that you were stolen from. Some people I think have a harder time realizing that “internet” does not equal “free.”

        • Say what you wish about me or whatever, but I’m not entirely sold on the plagiarism thing. Maybe they changed it, but the thing is, their lines aren’t the same, cat genetics don’t change from person to person so the colours do very little changing, so do the white patterns and so on. You also can’t argue that making a chart like this is strictly your thing because having that visual can help some people understand a bit better. Furthermore, it is simpler to put charts like that on your own page rather than, say, put links to another page simply because someone else already made a chart. That’s, to me, like saying that just because someone else already wrote an article about a fact, you’re plagiarizing if you write your own and put it on your own site rather than linking it or using the other one and crediting. But that’s just my viewpoint. Also, the charts on messybeast do expand a bit on things that you simply didn’t see necessary to put in yours, meaning that that in particular is technically more unique to messybeast, just saying. I just don’t see any reason to hate messybeast for having similar charts for colours and patterns

          • It’s very simple: given their images are copied from and in places directly lifted from my chart, I have to put up a warning so people are aware it’s not the other way around. The information is not new or copyrighted, but my organization of it and graphics are. That’s why this chart is the first of its kind, the world bestseller on the topic, and being picked up by scientific publications, while messybeast is just someone who put the contents of a published book online (by their own admission), and didn’t know how to make images for it until they found my own to copy. If they had asked permission to post my entire chart on their site, I would have given it, but they didn’t. You can have your viewpoint, only it’s holding on to the wrong end of the stick.

  • Hi! Thanks for making this. This really helped me draw realistic cats. I’m a little confused on the eye color thing–cats with all white fur can obviously have blue eyes, but you also said whitespotting can make blue eyes possible. Exactly how much whitespotting is required for a cat to possible have blue eyes?

    • It’s not the amount that matters, but the location. You can think of whitespotting like a splash of bleach that turns fur white and eyes blue if there is contact. Whitespotting over one eye will cause it to be blue, and if it covers or is very near both eyes, they will both be blue. In fact, when a cat has all white fur and blue eyes, that means it has full-body whitespotting.

  • Hi! Great info! How did you learn all of this? I would love to learn more about cat coat genetics but I don’t know much & don’t understand all the genetic jargon. Are there any books, websites, etc out there in layman’s terms?? lol Thanks!!

    • A lot of research on and offline. I was focusing on the colours and terminology, though, not the genetics, so although genetics do come into it, I didn’t have to research that in detail.

  • Wow! This is amazing! I ran across your site while trying to figure out how to describe my kitten (I’m still lost but she has very rare coloring). I’ve just purchased a poster of your wonderful work 🙂

  • I see the available size is 22″ x 16.4″, which is slightly smaller than a standard 1/2 poster. Can past customers tell me if this is too small for a wall reference display? Hard to read?
    Does it come in a full poster size (24″ x 36″)?

    • Hi Sharon, I don’t know what you’re looking at but if you actually select the Large poster size you’ll find it’s actually 44″x33″. The Medium size is 31″x23″ which is still large enough.

  • Went to messybeast.com and found this:

    “Note: I’m aware that Messybeast information, including novel terminology, was reproduced by deviantart’s “cedarseed” without attribution and that hir successor, “majnouna”, objects to me creating my own charts from my own information. Depicting my own content pictorially is not plagiarism as alleged by said individual, but is a legitimate use of my own collated data presented in standard textbook format.”

    I would like to smack these people for you.

    • It’s funny because they told me, when confronted, that their information came from a published textbook, and now they actually claim they own cat genetic terminology? Never mind, they’re not worth it.

  • Hello! The chart seems to be down? It’s so useful and awesome! When I first saw it like a year ago I loved it and I love sharing it with people.

    Thank you, I hope you’re having a great day!

    • This happens sometimes but usually clears up if you refresh after a few moments 🙂 I think this page is a bit over-popular!

  • I have enjoyed this chart previously using Chrome. Tonight, neither Firefox, Internet Explorer or Chrome will display your colorful cats. I am missing them. Sad.

    • Hi Don, try refreshing later 🙂 A few people have reported this but it always clears on its own after a while. This page seems to be too popular for its own good!

    • Sorry, your comment got lost in my mailbox! This is included in the pdf ebook, but cannot be bought digitally as a poster. Thanks for understanding!

  • Hi, I’d love to buy the book but I don’t like ebooks. Are you planning on selling the hardcopy books again? Any time soon? Thanks.

  • I HATE plazerisem (and I know I misspelled that). This is such a great tool, I use it all the time as a reference sheet when making my various Warriors OCs! The newest cat that I’ve made (and not able to make before) is a dilute calico she-cat (I haven’t got a new for her yet). Oh and by “made” I mean making art for the cat ?

A penny for your thoughts!