Help/Suggestions?

[Calypso]

Heyyy!
I recently took a look at a few of the mating threads that had wolves that I recognized and I was amazed. For one, having so many colors to pick from makes things much cooler. But I was also wondering something, which anyone can answer but I'm pretty sure the mods would be the ones to ask?
What did you use to come up with what the puppies lookwe like? Is there like a site or something that helps with that?
I'm asking because I want to make family trees for my wolves, but I want things to be somewhat accurate so that it's not all just random. Is there any certain way that you decide what the pups will look like?
Thanks to whoever responds!

[Meds]

Personally, I just look at the designs of both parents, and the supplied grandparents etc, then make up my own mind. It’s a random mix up for me. Sometimes I do like-patterns and like-colours, sometimes new patterns with old colours, new everything, it’s just what I feel in the moment. We DO use random.org to find the number of pups and male/female ratio, though. And if the breeding happens in winter or autumn (autumn, I believe?) we may even throw some defects in there

But Rykett Fierfly and @shiver may have a different method!

[Fierfly]

I draw on a lot of my own family tree when designing pups. I look at myself in the mirror, then consider my siblings and parents, aunts, uncles, cousins and grandparents. Some features I can see are the same down the line, others are completely different and many are combinations of many different features. I'm a lot like Meds, I'll take what's been given me and I play around with it. Recently I did a litter (not even a litter, I only rolled a 1 so it was just one pup) and included a design that neither of his parents had, but was somewhat influenced from further up the line.

Another big part of it for me is the story-telling aspect. As a story-teller, character design is a medium without words to express a character to an audience. Bright, brassy colors work well for independent-minded personalities. Darker or cooler colors for the more level-headed thinkers. This influences my choice for designs as well, my character Epsilon has some very geometric-based patterns and both sides are exactly even, he's very rational and logical and closed in, hence I use cool colors and repeating patterns. Another character, Venus, is very pretty and feminine, but her personality and attitude more closely resemble that of a rattle-snake so I gave her a diamond pattern down her back (Western diamondbacks have been seen around where I live) and darker, more violent colors like red and dark violet. It all depends on what you're trying to convey in personality: and if you're working your way back through a family tree, you've got some freedom to tweak with it ^^.

[Calypso]

Thanks you guys! I think I'll try that. Though I do have one other question. When you guys were making your own wolves and possibly had a family tree, did you work backwards? Like looking at your wolf and deciding which features came from what family members before you've thought of the appearance of the family?
An example might be you make a wolf and haven't thought of any features or anything about their relatives and you say your wolf got the eyes from their dad, the main fur color from their mom, a marking or two from grandmother and the same for grandfather or farther back. I somewhat started to do that with my wolf Nanouk. I don't know what a lot of her family members look like but I know what features she got from which family member.

[Deleted]

I start with my character, then their parents and siblings, then work from there.