Post by Sorrel on Oct 15, 2019 16:59:49 GMT
Far Away Dawn operates on a "semi-realistic" system for character design; that is, you can make cats with naturalistic designs that aren't 100% accurate or realistic, as long as they follow a few basic guidelines:
+ Contains colors generally found on a real cat in those combinations(ie, grey + cream = good!, ginger + lilac = not good!)
+ Large blobby markings are OK, and will be considered as either a type of tabby or a solid color depending on description
+ Does not contain clear manmade patterns or geometric shapes(Exceptions can be made if it's clear that's simply your style; see Blackstar's various diamond-shaped markings for a good example.)
Those might sound simple, but trust us, there's a lot of grey area! This guide aims to help you understand how to make appearances that will definitely be okay, by learning about genetics!
To start with, we'll cover the very basics in case this is the first time you've ever really read about genetics, or just want a refresher!
Genetic Basics
FAD uses Mendellian-style genetics. Mendellian genetics works by looking at pairs of alleles, which together help DNA decide which traits a creature shows or expresses. An allele can correspond to a "dominant" or "recessive" trait; dominant traits are more likely to be observed because they "overpower" less dominant traits and express themselves more easily. An example is brown eyes in humans, or short fur in cats. Recessive traits are more rarely expressed, because they must pair up with another recessive trait to be expressed. An example is blue eyes in humans, or the japanese bob gene in cats.
The overall combination of alleles creates a phenotype- the way an animal ends up looking. Most animals will inherit two alleles per phenotype gene- including humans and cats!
This is an example of a punnet square, a visual representation for genetic combinations. Dominant alleles are represented by capital letters, and recessives by lower case letters.
A punnet square places the alleles from both parents on the top and side of the box, and then crosses them with one another to show all potential outcomes. You can see that in three of the four squares, there is a capital A; that means that on average every 3-out-of-4 offspring will display the dominant trait, while only 1-out-of-4 will show the recessive trait.
But, notice something else? Only one of the squares has two capital A's- and only one square has two lower case a's! This is called homozygous, meaning both alleles are the same. A homozygous parent will *ALWAYS* pass that trait down, and cannot pass any other. So, if we look at the offspring that have AA, this means that no matter what alleles their partner has, their own offspring will *ALWAYS* have at least one A. The same goes for the offspring that have aa- all of their children will inherit a copy of the 'a' allele. But what about the offspring who are Aa? They are heterozygous, meaning their alleles are different from each other. Heterozygous genes have an equal chance to pass on either dominant or recessive traits.
If you'd like to mess around with these a little before we continue, here's a nice generator- Click!
+ Contains colors generally found on a real cat in those combinations(ie, grey + cream = good!, ginger + lilac = not good!)
+ Large blobby markings are OK, and will be considered as either a type of tabby or a solid color depending on description
+ Does not contain clear manmade patterns or geometric shapes(Exceptions can be made if it's clear that's simply your style; see Blackstar's various diamond-shaped markings for a good example.)
Those might sound simple, but trust us, there's a lot of grey area! This guide aims to help you understand how to make appearances that will definitely be okay, by learning about genetics!
To start with, we'll cover the very basics in case this is the first time you've ever really read about genetics, or just want a refresher!
Genetic Basics
FAD uses Mendellian-style genetics. Mendellian genetics works by looking at pairs of alleles, which together help DNA decide which traits a creature shows or expresses. An allele can correspond to a "dominant" or "recessive" trait; dominant traits are more likely to be observed because they "overpower" less dominant traits and express themselves more easily. An example is brown eyes in humans, or short fur in cats. Recessive traits are more rarely expressed, because they must pair up with another recessive trait to be expressed. An example is blue eyes in humans, or the japanese bob gene in cats.
The overall combination of alleles creates a phenotype- the way an animal ends up looking. Most animals will inherit two alleles per phenotype gene- including humans and cats!
This is an example of a punnet square, a visual representation for genetic combinations. Dominant alleles are represented by capital letters, and recessives by lower case letters.
A punnet square places the alleles from both parents on the top and side of the box, and then crosses them with one another to show all potential outcomes. You can see that in three of the four squares, there is a capital A; that means that on average every 3-out-of-4 offspring will display the dominant trait, while only 1-out-of-4 will show the recessive trait.
But, notice something else? Only one of the squares has two capital A's- and only one square has two lower case a's! This is called homozygous, meaning both alleles are the same. A homozygous parent will *ALWAYS* pass that trait down, and cannot pass any other. So, if we look at the offspring that have AA, this means that no matter what alleles their partner has, their own offspring will *ALWAYS* have at least one A. The same goes for the offspring that have aa- all of their children will inherit a copy of the 'a' allele. But what about the offspring who are Aa? They are heterozygous, meaning their alleles are different from each other. Heterozygous genes have an equal chance to pass on either dominant or recessive traits.
If you'd like to mess around with these a little before we continue, here's a nice generator- Click!
