different color bellies

[Lady Ten]

This is another one of those types of markings/pelt patterns that people will add onto a physical description while assuming it makes sense without really thinking it through. I don't know whether it makes sense or not, but let's have a go at thinking it through, shall we?

On occasion, I see people describing a cat as having a base coat of one color and then a belly that is a slightly lighter/darker shade of the same color. On black cats, white cats, and grey cats, I'm certain this isn't possible (with the exception of white markings, but I doubt that's what anyone has in mind) so I'm going to focus on tabbies.

Tabby bellies generally look a little lighter than the back and flanks of the cat due to the lack of darker stripes, but is this just a default feature of tabbies warranting no mention, or are there different grades of tabby-belly-lightness?

This may sound all very nit-picky to get into all this, but I actually find it strange that people will describe the belly as a different color at all (unless it's white) so this is an investigation into whether such a descriptor is in any way a realistic and notable trait.

[hauer]

hey, ten.

I gave google a very quick and dirty search for tabby bellies; some of these do happen to be paler than the base pelt while others are not, so I'd say granting tabbies a small spectrum of bellies isn't too out of line. I've yet to see a darker belly, but honestly I'm not invested enough in finding one. maybe someone else might.

in any case, including that their cat's belly is paler is probably just out of completeness. I myself am more partial to appearances, and I appreciate a thorough description building the image for me. (I'm thinking more in terms of describing a cat in some kind of profile, though - semi-randomly inserting a full description of exactly how a character looks isn't really to my tastes in any kind of roleplay, ehe.)