Notice
All designs shown in the following guides are for tutorial purposes only and are not to be heavily referenced or traced. Doing so violates our Rules#Imagery|Imagery rules, as many designs shown are likely to be of the artist's own characters, and you may receive a reminder or even a warning from an admin if caught doing so.
Thank you in advance!
Contents
To make this article easier to navigate, all tutorials have been listed below.
- User Tutorials; charart tutorials made by other casual contributors.
- Downloading the Blanks; how to download these blanks to use them.
- Videos; video tutorials.
- Shading and Lighting; how to add shading and lighting.
- Tabby Patterns; different types of tabby patterns and how to draw them.
- Mackerel Tabby; how to draw a mackerel tabby.
- Classic Tabby; how to draw a classic (blotched) tabby.
- Spotted Tabby; how to draw a spotted tabby.
- Ticked Tabby; how to draw a ticked tabby.
- Agouti; how to draw agouti (non-striped tabby).
- Marbed Tabby; how to draw a marbled (clouded) tabby.
- Solid; how to colour a solid cat.
- Mottled/Brindled; different types of mottled, or brindled, patterns (tortoiseshell variants) and how to draw them.
- Tortoiseshell; how to colour a tortoiseshell.
- Calico; how to colour a calico.
- Torbie; how to colour a torbie (tabby tortoiseshell).
- White Spotting; different variants of the white spotting gene and how to draw them.
- Tuxedo; how to colour a cat in the tuxedo pattern.
- Patched; how to colour a patched cat.
- Van; how to colour a van (Turkish Van) cat.
- Colourpoint; how to colour a colourpoint cat.
- Rosettes; how to draw rosettes.
General Information
Downloading the Blanks
Go onto the Character Blanks page.
Click on the charart lineart you'd like to colour in.
At the top of the image tab, you will find the file link. Click that.
This will take you to the file page.
Click on the image and it should take you to a vignette.wikia page. Right-click the image and select Save As.... Rename (optional) the file and download it.
Getting the lineart into your Art Program!
Next, open up your art program of choice. These linearts were created on MediBang Paint, so that will likely be the most compatible program, though any will do.
Microsoft Paint does not work with these blanks. However, multiple linearts have been converted to be compatible with Paint, so do check those out if that's the only program you have available.
At the top left of your screen, there should be a button under the name of File.
Left-click File and select Open....
Go to your Downloads folder (or wherever you put the downloaded blank) and select the lineart. Either double click it or click Open to open the file.
Once you have opened your canvas, select the lineart layer and choose the brush Magic Wand.
At the top of your screen, you will find selection options. It is suggested that you use the options shown below, though it is completely optional and you can use your own settings if you so wish.
With the Magic Wand tool selected, click on the outside of the lineart. Once you have done that, click Select at the top of your screen and select Inverse.
When that action has been completed, create a new layer by clicking the paper-looking icon in your layers tab.
Drag that new layer underneath the layer with the lineart on it and after that, you're ready to colour!
Below, there are several tutorials on how to colour multiple different designs and fur patterns. Alternatively, you can check out the user tutorials, tutorials created by multiple talented users on this wiki, and learn other users' unique techniques!
Tutorials
Shading and Lighting
- Coming Soon
Tabbies
The tabby pattern, or "striped" pattern as it is occasionally called, is one of the most common cat patterns. On top of this, they're also probably the one pattern that appears most in both canon books and fan-fiction!
Tabby cats are sometimes mistaken to be a breed in and of itself, though this is not the case at all!
There are multiple different types of tabbies, though this tutorial will only be covering the basic five: Mackerel, Classic (Blotched), Spotted, Ticked and Agouti.
When drawing tabbies, try to avoid Triangle Tabbies and Y-Tabbies unless the character's design specifically demands it. While these are stripes, they are less form-fitting than natural stripes and just space fillers instead. (Quite often pretty visually unappealing, as well!)
What you should aim for with tabby cats:
• Clear, distinct markings and stripes
• Stripes and patterns that curve in the direction of the lineart
Start with your tabby's base coat before you draw your stripes. Make sure the belly, paws, tail-tip and face are slightly lighter than the base colour, and that the back is slightly darker than the base colour.
Always outline the eyes with the lighter colour!
Mackerel Tabby
Two common mistakes I see with people drawing mackerel tabbies is that they either make the stripes too thin and/or don't curve the stripes around the body of the cat, leaving them with a very 2D-looking image and pretty odd-looking stipes. A good way to avoid doing this is to look at a reference of a mackerel tabby cat while you're drawing it, use a bigger brush for the stripes and also try to figure out where the natural curves of the body would be.
If you're still struggling to get the stripes natural-looking, try to draw simple, curved lines across the body, not particularly where the stripes would be, where you think it'd naturally curve, and then draw your stripes over that! (On a different layer, of course)
Classic Tabby
A common mistake I find is that people tend to just draw mackerel tabbies with thicker stripes and one or two swirls in the midst of them. While this can occasionally work and is probably the easiest technique, it isn't particularly realistic!
As the stripes of a classic tabby are pretty complicated in parts, try to use multiple references and don't make them too thin nor too thick. Most classic tabbies have a recognisable circle-like marking in the middle of their main "swirl", which is usually on their flank or hips, which the below example shows clearly.
This is called a bullseye, and if the tabby cat has a dorsal stripe alongside it, it's referred to as a butterfly.
Spotted Tabby
Common mistakes I find when it comes to spotted tabbies is that people will either make every marking spots, draw hollow circles instead of spots or even draw a mackerel or classic tabby and add spots in-between the stripes.
While these techniques are fine, especially if that is your character's actual design, I find the most visually pleasing way to draw spotted tabbies is to curve the small spots in the way you would a mackerel tabby's stripes, and make sure that their neck, legs, face and tail don't get mixed in with the spotting.
If you're struggling with drawing spotted tabbies (they're very hard for even me to draw, I wouldn't blame you if you were), I'd highly suggest searching up reference images to view whilst you're drawing the tabby or even lightly sketching mackerel tabby stripes on top of the base colour to then use as a guide on where to put the spots!
Ticked Tabby
These tabby cats are pretty hard to draw due to their flecked coat, which makes them an uncommon choice for chararts, though the hard work definitely pays off if you manage to get the pattern right. Agouti, which is what the flecked hairs are called, is an occurrence when two or more colours appear in one band of fur, often dark and light.
The best way to draw the ticked tabby's agouti freckles is to either scatter the coat with small dots which you then smudge to look like strands of fur or, alternatively, draw closely-packed lines across the coat, flowing with the natural fur, which you then smudge. The below image is a mixture of both these techniques!
Agouti
The same technique used to draw ticked tabby cats' flecks applies to this pattern as well: Scatter the coat with small dots which you then smudge to look like strands of fur or, alternatively, draw closely-packed lines across the coat, flowing with the natural fur, which you then smudge.
Useful references for this coat pattern as they may be difficult to find:
• [1]
• [2]
• [3]
• [4]
Marbled Tabby
- Coming Soon
Solid
- Coming Soon
Mottled/Brindled
Tortoiseshell
Start with your tortoiseshell's base colour. For simplicity, I'm just going to be drawing a classic black and ginger tortoiseshell, but feel free to use whatever colours you'd like!
Next, create a new layer and clip it to the layer with the base colours. Block out your tortoiseshell's brindles (these can be as dense or as few as you'd like) with a ginger colour in the direction of the fur; don't worry about these being perfect, just get the shapes down!
Afterwards, you can add extra details to the brindles (or just leave them as they are) to make them more form-fitting or simply make them look more intricate.
Typically, the ginger patches on tortoiseshells have tabby markings. I prefer adding these to make the design a bit more realistic, but this step is completely optional! If you need help drawing the stripes, I'd suggest referring to the tabby tutorials, but don't worry about making it too detailed as the brindles will be smudged later on in the process!
I usually create a new clipping layer to draw the stripes on, but using Protect Alpha will work just as well!
Afterwards, you can use your Smudge tool (I like using between 10-25% size) to smudge the brindles! I would suggest smudging them in the direction the fur on the cat would go, but don't worry if you're not able to visualise that, just smudge the brindles until you think it looks decent ^^
Once you're done, you can add as many extra details as you'd like. To finish my charart, I just added the ear and nose colours and shaded it! :D
Calico
The only difference between a calico and a tortoiseshell is the distribution of white spotting, a gene that causes variable white markings on a cat. In the case of tortoiseshells, as the amount of white spotting increases, the tortoiseshell's brindles form more distinct patches of colours, up until neither colour brindles into the other (If enough white surrounds the patches).
If you'd like to learn more, I'd suggest referring to messybeast.com!
Start with your calico's base colour. For distinct patches of colour, I'd suggest starting with an off-white. Otherwise, follow the above tutorial to draw a tortoiseshell, and then add white markings (Usually in a tuxedo or medium-bicolour pattern).
Afterwards, you can start to draw on the patches of colour on a new layer. You can start with either black or ginger — the order doesn't matter —, but for this charart, I'll be doing the black patches first.
Then, add on the ginger patches on a new layer, above the black patches. This calico doesn't have a large amount of white spotting on its coat, so I've added a few brindles in alongside the patches (primarily on the tail).
Optionally, draw on stripes to the ginger patches.
Merge the two layers together, and blur or smudge the edges of the patches.
Add your finishing details, and you're done!
Tabby Tortoiseshell
Start with your torbie's base colour. For simplicity, I'll just be doing a classic black and ginger tabby tortoiseshell, but feel free to use whatever colours you'd like!
Realistically, black tabbies have light-to-dark brown bases and black stripes (This is because the stripes of a tabby cat are actually the cat's true colour!), but feel free to colour it however you'd prefer.
Next, gradient the base colour from dark to light and add the black stripes. Don't forget to draw the stripes on another layer! (This will come in handy later on) If you're struggling with this step, I'd suggest referring to the tabby tutorials.
Then, block in your ginger brindles on a new layer, above the stripes.
Copy/paste the stripes onto a new layer above the brindles and drag both below the original stripes layer (which I would suggest hiding for now!) Turn on Protect Alpha for the new stripes layer and colour it in ginger.
Then, clip it to the brindles layer and merge the two together.
Drag the layer back above the black stripes.
Afterwards, you can start smudging the brindles using the technique explained here!
Add your finishing details, and you're done!
White Spotting
Tuxedo
- Coming Soon
Patched
- Coming Soon
Van
- Coming Soon
Colourpoint
- Coming Soon
Rosette
- Coming Soon
Videos
