Charart/Apprentice Tutorials

These are tutorials to make chararts, usually for apprentices but anyone can take a look at them. Stealthfire is being left in charge of doing this because she's the only one here who actually knows what she's doing. Enjoy! \*Please note that there can be more than one on each subject, and would actually be preferred in case there's something for a specific program that needs to be pointed out (i.e. the first tutorial is done in paint.net but in GIMP something important needs to be pointed out to make it in that program. I don't know if that actually happens but...)

Here is what we're looking for:

* Shading placement
* Pupil placement
* Tools for specific programs
* Bicolors that don't include white (ginger-and-black (Milkweed), silver-and-ginger (Silverflame), etc.)
* Texture
* Anything else that might be helpful

## Tools for paint.net

### Layers

Hi, I'm Warriorcat1195, and I'm going to show you how you work with layers on paint.net. By showing you a picture and saying nothing else.

But I did make the picture, so, yeah.

## Solid-colored cats

### Paint.NET

Hello! Warriorcat1195 here and I'm going to show you how to make a solid-colored cat! I'll teach you the basics of doing a charart as well. Keep in mind I use paint.net, v.4.0.9. This may become outdated fairly quickly, but I don't think there'll be too much of a difference!

   **1.** Select your lineart. I chose Cats of the Park (shorthaired), but it doesn't matter. Once you've chosen your lineart from the list on the charart page, right-click it, press "Open in New Tab", then go to the new tab, right-click the picture there, and click "Copy". Now, go into paint.net, go into the file and hit "File-new" \*(or Ctrl+n), then press "Edit-paste" (or Ctrl+V). Now make a new layer and paste the same picture in (or instead of making a new layer just hit Ctrl+Shift+V). Double click the two layers from the layer box off to the side and rename them, the bottom one "color" and the top one "lineart". \*Please note for shortcut keys (Ctrl+V, etc.) they may only work in Windows. I do not know if it will work the same on a MacBook.

**2.**There are check-boxes next to the two layers. Uncheck the one that says "color". Now, click (once) on the lineart layer, and go to the toolbox on the opposite side of the screen. Select the magic wand and then click on the white space in the lineart. Now press the delete key on your keyboard. Keep doing this until you only have the black lines.

**3.**On the box with the color wheel, you can hit "more" to see easier ways to change the color. This is when you pick the color you want your cat to be. Re-check the "Color" layer and once you get this color, use the bucket tool to fill it in. If you accidentally filled in the lineart (like I did just now) simply hit Ctrl+Z (I'm not sure if it's the same on MacBooks. If Ctrl+Z doesn't work try Fn+Z or Option+Z) and fill it in on the color layer. **Tips:**If you select orange from the basic colors on the left of the box, then slide the slider off to the left closer to the black side, you can get brown! If you are doing white, you can skip this step, since it's already white. Some people like to darken the white a smidgen so in reality it's a really really really really pale gray but looks like white, but it doesn't matter. If you are doing black, DO NOT use pure black. You must lighten it a smidgen so it's really a really really really really dark gray but looks black, otherwise this WILL NOT work. One more note: there is no such thing as a pure ginger cat, so don't do it. Ginger cats must be tabbies. We are not learning tabbies.

**4.**Press the "Add a new layer" button at the bottom of the layer box. Rename it "ear pink". Take the pencil tool and select a pink color. Remember: the darker your color, the darker the ear pink, and vice versa. If you are doing black, make the ear pink more of a dark magenta (forgive me if I spelled it wrong) than a pink. Make sure you're paying attention to your blank--some blanks, such as this one, has only one ear facing you, so only one would have ear pink. Now, look up at the top of the screen where it says "Effects" and select "Effects-Blurs-Gussian Blur". Blur the ear pink at a rate of 2. This does not change for any color, any lineart, how you blur the ear pink is constant.

**5.**Create another new layer and name it "shading". Color-pick from the color layer using the color-pick tool. Now, make that color darker--a LOT darker. Take the paintbrush tool and thicken it to 6. Pick a side for the light to be shining from; left or right. I chose left, meaning most of the shading will be on the right. Draw over the lineart, and if there are any lines on the lineart that don't reperesent the face, claws, pads, or outline, draw over those, because they usually represent indentations in the cats body, thus they would be a bit darker. If you are doing a darker color, make the shading thick. For a white cat, however, make the shading very thin, otherwise the cat will end up looking gray. I'm pretty sure anyone who's worn a white shirt to school understands how easy white gets stained. Gussian blur the shading at I'd say around 15. I did this one at 12, but it varies depending on color and everything else. If you are using a kit or StarClan kit lineart, make sure you don't blur it over 5--being smaller, the shading disappears easier. Also, ignore the white dot on the picture--I don't know why it's there or how it got there.

**6.**Go to the lineart layer to do your eyes, nose, and pads. Not every lineart has the nose--like mine, where it's pure black--but if it does, I usually use a color close to what you used for the ear pink. Same for the pads--and again, not every lineart has the pads. Mine does, but very few do. When doing the eye, make sure the pupil is pure black, and that there's a white dot somewhere near the pupil. This represents light, and makes the cat look more alive. Don't question it; I don't understand either. When doing the eyes, take the color you used for the iris and make it lighter and darker in some places. This is adding depth to the eye, which makes the cat look more realistic. Magic, huh?

**7.**This is when everyone else will tell you to get rid of the waste from the shading and then save it as a .png to flatten the image. Well, I have a different approach. Saving it as it is to a .png for me makes the file unopenable, so save it as it is now, but as a .pdn, which means don't change anything. Save it as [Name of Character].[pose/rank].pdn. For example, Furrypelt.kit.pdn, Firepelt.warrior.pdn, Amberheart.star.pdn. I named this one Tutorial.CotP.pdn. Select the place you want to send it to, and hit save, closing the window.

**8.**I'm sure you're thinking, "then what happens to the shading waste?" Reopen the file you just saved by right-clicking the file and pressing "Open with-paint.net". In the layer box, you'll notice a button at the bottm that says "Merge Layer Down". Go to the top layer, which should be the lineart, and spam this button repeatedly until it's all one layer. Then, take the magic wand tool and select the empty space around the picture. At the top you'll see a blue bar that says "tolerance". You can play with this to get all the waste in one go. After you've selected all the waste, hit "Delete" on the keyboard. Then, go to File-Save As.

**9.**After hitting "Save As", you'll notice a button that says what kind of file you'd like to save it as. Click on this and a drop-down menu will pop up. Click the "PNG" option. The window will remain open this time, but now you can admire your work. This way, if you put this up for approval or something, and they ask you to fix something, you have a file with layers to work with, and the waste that's still in the .pdn file allows it easier to fix shading issues. Then every time you're done you just have to remember to hit "Save As" every time. Sure you have to deal with shading waste every time, but is that really such a bad thing? It doesn't take long. To me this method equals convience.

So now you know how to make a solid-colored cat on paint.net! Enjoy!

### GIMP

Hi I'm Spooky and in this I'll teach you to how to make a solid-cat in GIMP v. 2.8.

**1.** Firstly, open the blank in GIMP. Make sure to upload it directly from the wiki, so as to get the full size image.

**2.** Click the white area in the lineart using the color-select tool. Then, use the erase tool to swipe away all of the white. When selected, the image should have somewhat squiggly lines on edges of it.

**3.** Now, go the right side of your screen. Right click in the "Layers" area select New Layer. Keep all of the settings as they are and click "OK". You should now have another layer, and it will most likely be on top of your lineart layer. Click and drag your newly made layer underneath the original lineart layer.

**4.** Go to the left side of your screen and select which colors you would like to make your cat be. GIMP holds two colors, a secondary and primary, at one given time.

**5.** On your base layer (the one that's under the lineart) use the pencil tool to completely fill in the image.

**6.** Make another new layer for the shading on the image. This layer needs to be placed over the base and under the lineart.

**7.** Go on your newly made layer and set the opacity to 50%. This can be always changed later, but 50% usually is a good starting point. I like to use black shading tints, most of the time.

Add shading. This is a tutorial on the apprentice blank, so I chose it's light source, and added the appropriate shading.

**8.** Smooth out the shading. In this image, I've blurred the shading on the edges.

Some prefer to smudge their shading, but that's harder for solid cats so we'll stick with blurred.
The reason I blur only on the edges is to make sure the shading doesn't leak away from the lineart, which happens sometimes. (sorry for the already clear backdrop; lost track of a screencap)

**9.** Go onto your lineart layer now. Fill the outsides of the cat with a color not used (purple and red usually work)

**10.** Use the color select tool to select the red, and then erase it with the erase tool.

Go on your base and shading layers and erase the waste there as well.
Any other layers with waste should be erased at this point, as well.
And there we have it! A complete image. Go save it however you might need to, and make sure to store it somewhere that'll be remembered later.

See ya'll later :).

## Tabbies

### How to Make a Tabby

Hello! Warriorcat here--again (I'm sure you might be getting tired of me)--and here's how you make a tabby cat! I'm making an undefined tabby--which literally means what it sounds like: I'm making a tabby cat that's really not any specific type of tabby. However, this tutorial still works for any type of tabby, whether it's specific or not.

**1.**Pick your blank and color. I'm making mine light brown. A tabby cat can be any color but white. Unless you count those ones that are white with black stripes like a white bengal tiger, but I'm unsure if those are real or not. Just don't do them. Also, don't do something like a ginger-and-white tabby or something. This is a solid tabby, not a bicolor tabby.

**2.** Make a new layer and name it "stripes". Color-pick from the base color and darken it--a *lot*if you're doing gray or brown, for ginger just brighten it. If you're doing one of those weird black tabbies, both the base and the stripes should be not quite black, with the stripes a bit darker. For black tabbies, the stripes should be visible, just not obvious. Now, if you're doing an undefined tabby, like I am, just make random lines and squiggles around the cat. I like to do mine by outlining the stripes in pencil, then filling them in with the bucket. I don't know why. You can also just use the paintbrush. Then blur it at a rate of 1. **Hint:**Every tabby cat has a line coming from the side of their eyes and going to the back of their heads, and lines above and mostly between the eyes that often resembles an M, sometimes exactly, sometimes faintly.

**3.** Do the ear pink as you usually would. When it comes to shading, make sure the color you choose is darker than the stripes. Also make sure you don't end up hiding the stripes in shading, since this layer will be above the stripes layer. I've made that mistake a little too often :/ I understand that this shading probably needs to be defined a bit, but I think you get the gist of it.

**4.**Color in eyes, pads, nose, and herbs (the last three only appear on some blanks) in the lineart layer, delete the shading waste, and you're done! Not difficult, right? Tabbies are surprisingly easy. Trust me: I thought it'd be difficult at first, too. Be sure to make your tabby stripes vary a fair amount--unless you're doing a mackerel tabby, in which case all the stripes would all be straight and even. And also thin.

Hope this helped! Enjoy your tabby kitty!

### Different Types of Tabbies

Warriorcat again, and I'm going to explain the different types of tabbies. Here is the description of each:

**The Classic Tabby:**Tabby cat very similar to the one above, with the stripes varying in shape and size, and a signature bullseye shape on its side.

**Marbled Tabby:**Variation of the clasic tabby where the stripes are simply "more chaotic". (see this page for details)

**Mackerel Tabby:**Tabby cat where all the stripes are congruent and evenly spaced on the cat--for the most post. (see Grassheart)

**Broken Mackerel Tabby:**Mackerel tabby where each row of stripes is not necessarily one straight line; instead each row has three lines lined up as though they were connected and erased in parts. (see Misty)

**Pointed Tabby:**Uncommon tabby cat where there are only stripes on the face, legs, and tail. (see Foxkit)

**Spotted Tabby:**Uncommon tabby cat where the head, legs, and tail are stripes, but the rest of the body is spots. The inside of the spots are generally a lighter color. (see Leopardstar, Riverkit)

**Ticked Tabby:**Uncommon tabby cat where the head, legs, and tail are stripes, but the rest of the body is tiny little dots. (see Hawkpounce, Lionstorm)

Please do not copy and paste these example pictures to use for your chararts; these are just here for reference. Also, I don't think they actually came out too well XD I think that ticked tabby looks more like the computer is glitching out than it being intentional! If someone can make better examples please do...

## Bicolors

### \_\_\_\_\_ and whites

Hi, Warriorcat--***again***--and I'm going to show you how to do a bicolored cat. Now by "bicolor" in this instance I mean \_\_\_\_\_ and white, not like the weird ginger and black cats (see Milkweed) that Erin Hunter does. Someone else will teach you that; I don't really know how they do it XD

**1.**Set your base color (this is the white). I'm leaving mine as pure white, but some like making it a ridiculously pale gray (darken it, like, 3 shades at max). Either way works fine.

**2.**Create a new layer and pick your other color (the blank above). I'm doing black-and-white since I have a cat in real life that's black-and-white and she's *adorable*. (see Belle) Anywho, pick you color. Your options are black (make sure you don't actually use pure black), brown, or gray. If you're feeling brave, you can use the tabby tutorial above and do a \_\_\_\_ and white tabby, which would allow you to do ginger and yellow as well. However, this would take an extra layer. Once you've selected your color, draw an outline in pencil of where you want that color to be (around the white) and use the bucket tool. Gussian blur it at a rate of 2 so the line between the color and white won't so rough (this is why we have two layers). This will cause the edges to not be the pure color, so you'll have to go over that again with the pencil. Tedious, but necessary. **Note:**By creating a new layer, you must make sure you outline the lineart, otherwise you just bucket-fill the entire picture. Trust me: I have made this mistake plenty of times.

**3.** Do the ear pink as you usually would. Now you're doing shading. This isn't really much different, however if your cat is at the right angle (mine is not unless you put the face in shade and I don't want to do that) you'll be using two different shading colors; one for the white, one for the other color. I know mine is hard to see since it's black, but you can see the waste, and if you zoom in I swear it's there.

**4.**Fill in ears/nose/pads and remove shading waste and you're all good! Really not difficult. If you look closesly at the pic I have here, I did the eyes and nose to look like Belle. She's my favorite kitty in the whole world :) she even sometimes looks down on us like this from her cat tower. Aren't cats adorable?

Anyways, here you go; a bicolored cat! This also works for cats like Bramblestar and Firestar who have a pale belly, but not white. You just have to change the base color.

## Mottled

Okay, Warriorcat again, I know, I've done a lot, but I'm the only one doing them, so... I think this tutorial can be used for mottled, flecked, speckled, and dappled cats, since they're all really synonyms (seriously look up their definitions they all say spotted). So, let's begin!

First, pick your lineart and base color. I think these guys can be yellow, brown, and gray...? I know those three for sure, unsure if there's more. Last I checked ginger *has*to be a tabby, don't know if there is such a thing as a mottled tabby. Wouldn't think so, but, check with Stealth and/or Google, they probably know.

Create a new layer and name it "spots". make the color you used above darker and put random spots and squiggles around, probably on brush size 3 or 4. Gussian blur at a rate of 1.

Ear pink is usual, I don't think there's really anything special about shading, except, make sure that it's darker than the spots, which it should be anyway. Hey, for all paint.net users, if you look at the thumbnail at the top of the screen, have you ever noticed it looks better than the actual picture does?

Add your eyes and nose, remove shading waste, etc. etc. Not difficult, right? Right. A lot of these patterns seem difficult until you try them. Of course, mine could probably be better. Haven't had much practice. And that's important: practice. Practice practice practice. You know the old saying: practice makes perfect. Actually, according to my brother, that is not true. Practice makes perfect practice. Perfect practice makes perfect. Idk that seems like the same thing to me. Either way practice eventually leads to perfect.

So, hope this was helpful, I know it was kinda brief, but, that shows how simple it is!

## Torties and Calicos

### Tortoiseshells

Heigh-Ho, Warriorcat here! Lol, Muppets joke (I would appreciate you letting me know if you get the reference). So, tortoiseshell tutorial. Ready? These *are*a bit difficult and quite honestly I'm not sure if I'm doing it correct XD you can start with this and perhaps ask Stealth or another experienced Charart member, like Brambleshade for some other pointers.

Start by making it black (not pure black!! D:) as your base color. Some tortoiseshells will have white on them, but limit it to the chest, belly, and *maybe*paws. Too much more and it becomes a calico. Now, the amount of white will actually affect a later step; the more white on a tortie/calico, the more separated the colors are. Which actually means that below I should've smudged this a LOT more XD

Take your paintbrush and draw random patches and squiggles around the cat in ginger. I think I did this on brush size two or something and then bucket-filled it in. Keeping up? Because this is where people typically mess up (or at least me).

Take your smudge tool and try to do it all evenly. I don't know if all programs are the same, but if you have a pressure bar, put it in the 60s. Now, if you look at pictures of tortoiseshells, some look like this, others their fur has like small spots of black and ginger and the rest is mostly flecked brown or something (similar to Blossomfall I think). Either is fine, and quite honestly I don't know how to do the latter, so let's just stick with this XD

I know you probably can't see much of a difference here, but gingers have to be tabby, so you put just visible tabby stripes on the ginger part (zoom in on the pic if you can't see them). Use a paintbrush size 1 and draw it like a mackeral tabby (see above). Then, use your smudge tool and, leaving everything at default (if your pressure bar is still set in the 60s bring it back to 25) and switch it to a size of 2 (again I'm unsure if this is all the same for programs other than paint.net), then drag your mouse over each stripes once or twice.

There isn't anything surprising with the earpink, however, if you put ginger on one of the ears (you can) I would use a brighter ear pink for both ears, whether they're both in ginger or not. Since mine are both in black, I used a dark ear pink, but if one or more had been ginger I would've used brighter on each. Shading is a bit difficult, since if you put black shading on the ginger it would like a bit weird, and vice-versa. Idk I think you might actually be able to pull it off, but here's how I did mine. Blur as you see fit. I think I actually did this at like 8, but to be fair I made the shading thin to make sure the colors would stay on the right colors. Plus this is a StarClan kit pic, so... Idk like I said blur as you see fit.

Eyes, nose, pads if you haven't gotten those yet, remove shading waste, boom, you're done! A hopefully beautiful tortoiseshell! Quite honestly I'm not sure how well this one turned out, but, I think it'll suffice until someone puts up a better tutorial and/or I get better and update this one LOL.

### Brindled Tortoiseshells

Guess who? ***IT'S WARRIORCAT!!!***Alright, these are actually *easier*than normal torties, so brace yourself for unexpected simplicity. O.O

So, start with your base color as (not pure) black.

Take a pencil and make small squiggles all over the kitty in ginger. Not very difficult.

Take your smudge tool and go over each "brindle" once or twice. I found it easier when I put the pressure on 100% as opposed to the default 25%. You can of course play with the other settings to find something you think looks nice. I don't think I really smudged these enough, but, eh.

There's nothing exactly surprisng about shading. You don't even have to worry about the having multiple colors (like above and below) because they're so small black works over them and it doesn't look weird.

Just finish up and you're done! Eyes, nose, shading waste, all that stuff. See, brindled torties really aren't that hard. And if you see a cat whose description says "tortoiseshell w/ leaf-like markings" (see Leafkit) they're brindled torties w/ the the squiggles in the shape of leaves.

So, I hope this helped. This one was quite brief because there really wasn't anything difficult to go over! Good sign for those who like simplicity! ;)

### Calicos (a.k.a. tortoiseshell-and-whites)

Warriorcat again, and no worries, calicos (or tortoiseshell-and-whites, which is what they will be called in their description from the allegiances or something) are a lot easier imo.

Make your base color white, then create a new layer and name it calico. Both the ginger and the black will be in this layer. Take your pencil and draw some patches of each color. Tip: most calicos have the colors on their face similar to this one. It doesn't matter which color you start with. I did ginger first then used that as a guide to where the black goes. Once that's done, blur at a rate of 2, then color in the edges again, like with the bicolor tutorial above.

Next, create a new layer and name it stripes. Add some stripes anywhere there is ginger. If you can, get the stripes going from the side of the eyes to the back of the head. Usually on torties/calicos it's a mackeral tabby pattern. Then blur at a rate of one.

Next do the earpink. For both ears, make it light like the ginger side (if you look close you can see a bit of earpink peeking out from the shading on the black ear, and you can tell they're both light). Next is shading. Three different colors are used here, black, brown, and gray for black, ginger, and white respectively. If you notice how close the gray shading on the hind leg is to the tail, that actually causes problems :/ when I blurred it I then had to erase the edge of the tail on that layer because the gray shading had seeped over. It's a bit complicated working with that, but, you figure it out. Once you've lined up the colors, blur as you see fit.

Once you get rid of the shading waste and fill in the eyes and nose, you're all done! Not exactly complicated! I <3 calicos. Mom says they're very friendly and cuddly! I also got a stuffed calico when I was four. I named her Patches, and I bought a dress once that came with a smaller version for a doll, so I put her in that on Sundays. She doesn't go into church with me, but she still wears the dress. Sorry, off topic lol. Anyways, calicos. There you have it.

## Other Helpful Tips

* If you use a Mac, you've got to click the magic wand (or color select tool) to select the white in the lineart, then erase it manually with the erase tool.