Coat Colors

Created: 3 September 2020, 21:41:24 CDT

Last updated: 27 March 2024, 12:13:54 CDT

OVERVIEW

What are Base coats?

Dragon coat colors are determined by their genome. The first four entries of a geno, bb/tt/ss/nn+ tell you the dragon's coat color, and some genes have the opportunity to change a dragon's coat color to be in that color's allowed sliders. We call the latter "Color modifier genes." Dragon coat colors must come from the provided sliders, however markings are allowed to be colors not from the sliders if you are choosing a shade of the color. I.e. a Bronze dragon base coat has to be from a slider in the Bronze section, but you can pick any shade of brown for the markings, or any shade of white/etc not from sliders. If you have a Bronze dragon you can use any of the provided Bronze sliders, and so on.

Right click on any image in this guide and select "open image in a new tab" to view the largest version available.

Basic Coat colors

There are four main base coats that can create combination coats
bb/Bb/BB = Bronze
tt/Tt/TT = Tarnished
ss/Ss/SS = Silver
nn/Nn/NN = Obsidian

Every character is made up of at least one of these colors, but can have color modifier markings that change the color.

DISCLAIMER:
The names of coat colors have changed! You may still come across the previous name on older Genos/Imports.
Umber ---> Bronze
Haze ---> Tarnish
Ivory ---> Silver
Golden ---> Gold
Vanta ---> Obsidian

READING A BASE COAT COLOR

Letter Punctuation

To determine your base coat, we need to look at the first four letter combinations. bb/tt/ss/nn+ is the base coat of a genome, a base coat is either "null" "recessive" or "dominant."

Lower case letters are "null", this means they are not active and will not pass. One upper case letter and one lower case letter means the marking is "recessive", this means they are active and pass the coat color at recessive (low) rate. Two upper case letters means the marking "dominant", meaning they are active and pass the coat color at a dominant (high) rate.

In our nesting system, if no coat color passes via the rng system, it defaults to the most common coat color in the pairing.

If your coat reads "Bb/tt/ss/nn+" you have Recessive Bronze and use the Bronze sliders! If you have "bb/Tt/Ss/nn+" you have Tarnished Silver, and so on.

Combination Coat Colors

Combination coats occur when two recessive or dominant coat colors are present, or in the case of "Tarnished Gold" Three coat colors.

Tarnished Bronze = Tarnished and Bronze coats present
Tarnished Silver = Tarnished and Silver coats present
Gold = Bronze and Silver Present
Tanished Gold = Bronze, Tarnished, and Silver present

Obsidian does not create color combinations when paired with other coat colors, instead it creates a passable mutation called "Melanism" which makes coat colors darker. See the Melanistic guide in the genetics portal for more information about its allowed colors and behaviors!

NATURAL, NON NATURAL, AND ANY COAT COLORS

Natural Coat Colors

A natural Coat color refers to any of the base coats and their combination found in the start of a genome. The start of a genome refers to any letters that appear before the "+" in the geno. These are "Bb/Tt/Ss/Nn" When a marking says it can be natural colors, it can come from any base coat slider in this guide, and off the slider so long as it fits within the color range (i.e. using a different shade of brown not available on bronze sliders for a marking is allowed!).

Non Natural Coat colors

Non Natural coat colors refer to every other color available, this is your greens/blue/purples/reds/etc. These colors are usually caused by genes like Azurite, Garnet, Jade, etc. which cover different areas of the color spectrum. When these appear, you will see them after the "+." If you apply these colors to the base coat of a dragon, then the color must come from a slider. If you apply it to a marking it can be any color in that color's allowed region i.e. Azureite = any shade of blue for markings, whilst for its base, must come from a slider.

Any Color

"Any" Color refers to a few select markings/coat colors where any color can be used for the coat/markings. Sometimes a marking might have rules that restrict this "any" rule, such as Toxin requiring bright markings (or vibrant pastel for the aid in silver coats). Always double check a guide's rules on these!

DESIGN GUIDE SWATCHES

The below swatches refer to the design guide of markings. The below list corresponds with the swatches in a left to right fashion and are often attributed to the base color of a design.

Any colors: This swatch means a marking can be any color.
Base Coats: This swatch means a marking can be a shade off a natural base coat slider. It doesn't have to come directly from the slider.
Mod Effect If applied to Base: This swatch refers to if you use a color modifier marking such as Azurite or Jade as the base coat color. A marking that has this in green means that the marking can be a shade of that color modifier.
Darker and Lighter: These last two swatches mean that a marking can be darker or lighter than what it sits over on the base coat or marking beneath it.

Picking a coat color

Dragons

Can only pick one color from the slider for the base coat. However Webbed wings can be lighter or darker than the base coat.

Gryphons

The front half and back half can be two different shades of the same coat color. I.e: a bronze Gryphon may have a darker front half and a lighter hind end, or vice versa.

The Color slider

The color slider is made of three parts:

A top portion which is Luecistic coloration
A middle portion which is the allowable coloration of any character without a color mutation.
The bottom portion which is the melanistic coloration

If your dragon does not have a color mutation such as leucistic or melanism, you have to use the middle portion of the slider!

COAT COLOR SLIDERS

Basic coat colors refer to the four main colors: Bronze, Tarnish, Silver, and Obsidian. These colors combined together will make combination coat colors, covered below this section.

All sliders were created by @Kobold_Ghost with help from @AveryFish and @Cryptid-Horror

Bronze and Tarnished

(bb/Bb/BB) and (tt/Tt/TT)

Bronze is the most common coat color. It falls into the range of brown colors. Tarinshed is the second most common, and is a more desaturated brown/grey coloration. Tarnished has a special reaction to other coat colors found in the combination of tarnished with other coats.

Silver and Obsidian

(ss/Ss/SS) and (nn/Nn/NN)

Silver coat colors are shades of white/cream, and have very subtle color hints in them. In some cases, you have to choose a darker silver color to pull off markings like Tobiano, that have to be white. Obsidian refers to black colorations of the base coat. When obsidian passes to other coat colors it creates "melanistic" mutation, and these colors have to be picked off the melanism sliders found in the melanism guide.