Additional eye shapes and/or pupil sizes?

[MiuKitten Resident]

I'm a huge fan of KittyCats! lovely eyes and in fact eyes are my favourite trait. I'd love to see eye shapes and/or pupil shapes become more diverse, similar to the ways whisker shapes and shades are.

Eye shape thoughts..
Narrowed/Predatory, like when you're playing with the cat with a toy it's pouncing at.
Extra-wide, perfectly round
That disdainful half closed look of a bored, haughty cat
Slanted or more pronounced upper/lower corners

Pupil shape thoughts...
Slit (even smaller than small)
Night vision (extra wide)

I would love to have more eye shapes and pupils to work with as I'm breeding out my favourite eye colours, and I wonder if other breeders might feel the same.

[Tad Carlucci]

I'm going to chime in once again in opposition to increasing the number of values for eye shape and/or pupil size.

Why?

Because keeping these traits at just two values maximizes the effect of genetic drift for them.

Huh?

Well, that means that if you don't pay attention, you're very likely to lose the recessive value and have to work to re-introduce it if you want to produce an 8- or 9-trait cat. Increasing the number of values for these traits actually devalues high trait counts.

[Kayleigh McMillan]

I like this idea it has my support

[sneakpastu Resident]

More shapes for the eyes would be a nice thing. Cats in the real world have very expressive eyes sometimes....and just the four options doesn't cover it. I don't see where it would diminish the value any.

In other words.....Yes! More types of kitty eye shapes!

[Vrem Vaniva]

I'd kinda like to see "huge" pupils, since RL kitties often appear that way when they are sneaking, sleepy, or otherwise just looking their most mysterious.
(Huge pupils might be good for blacking out unwanted eye colors -- but then why breed with unwanted eye colors in the first place? There are only a few eye colors i'd want to do this to.)

I'm with Tad on this, though --
The number of "permutations and combinations" is already mind-boggling, so having only 2 possible eye shapes, and 2 possible pupil sizes, helps to keep a lid on it.

It's also one pair of traits that you can get without being an expert, so it is nice to have this small area where you have a 50% chance of "a success experience."

[MiuKitten Resident]

I do understand concern about adding new traits. I come from a time when a 3T cat was high quality, and pretty much anything sold like hotcakes, so I was initially thrown by the introduction of whisker shape and colour traits. My "perfect" 7T cats were no longer perfect and it took a little while before I started to realise how certain whisker shapes and colours really made look and contributed to the overall package. In this case, I'm not asking for a new trait - say, nose trait - but just more variety in a trait we already recognise. We do have a traited eye shape already (mysterious) and a traited pupil shape (small), and I think adding a few more would make for incredible variety. As a breeder, I love a challenge. I understand you can lose any special recessive trait if you're careless and don't work with it, but so will you lose recessive furs, eye colours and anything. I also love the idea of having even more variety, especially as eye "expressions" reflect the mood. A startled wide eye versus a sleepy (or contemptuous) narrowed eye...that would add so much to the overall look. Personally, I can't wait to see wide eyed Ody Burst or Passion Russians come Halloween.

[Nino Heartsdale]

I am with Vrem and Tad on this one - the number of possible combos we already have should keep anyone happy for at least one life time
As a KittyCatS Auctioneer... I know adding more traits and permutations will make it even more complicated to go through the pedigrees and do them any kind of justice!
As a RL Artist - I think that cats are born with basic eye shapes - the rest of the things being mentioned are a cat's expressions.
To have an expression as a permanent look... hmmmm..... be same as a person walking around looking perpetually surprised! LOL
What would be nice perhaps is to have a greater range of expressions rather than more traits.... just my view!

[MiuKitten Resident]

(01-06-2014 04:36 AM)Nino Heartsdale Wrote:  I am with Vrem and Tad on this one - the number of possible combos we already have should keep anyone happy for at least one life time
As a KittyCatS Auctioneer... I know adding more traits and permutations will make it even more complicated to go through the pedigrees and do them any kind of justice!
As a RL Artist - I think that cats are born with basic eye shapes - the rest of the things being mentioned are a cat's expressions.
To have an expression as a permanent look... hmmmm..... be same as a person walking around looking perpetually surprised! LOL
What would be nice perhaps is to have a greater range of expressions rather than more traits.... just my view!

Maybe I'm weird, but I get really excited every holiday when we know we're getting a new fur or eye colour or shade out of our starters. There are already many beautiful traits but I'll be sad the day KittyCats! runs out of new ideas. It's a fun time whenever you have new and exciting traits to rush into the cattery.

I'm not sure about the auction thing. When I go to auction they usually say "#7 is a Balinese Cream, Tapestry Reef, mysterious eye, small pupil, Blush shade..." so I'm not sure how different "Tapestry Reef, rounded eye, slit pupil, Blush shade.." would be.

I do agree about the expressions, that's a cute idea.

[Kayleigh McMillan]

I like the expression idea as well

I had a cat IRL which had unlike it's fellow cat permanently a very big pupil unless the sun was shining big time.
It gave him a littlebit of a melancholic and wise expression.
I loved that about them his eyes were not so much static because the lighting in the eyes plays a big role in making the eyes lively.
I remember Callie asked me one time if I ever noticed why the Kittycats' eyes had that lively outcome after I remarked I noticed that they are.
Frankly I had no idea I only knew that was true.
It turns out the highlights in the cats' eyes are super realistic.
The light comes from the same direction on both eyes and the highlights are on the outside of one eye and the other on the inside.
I have seen breedables who exactly mirrored the highlights along with the eyecolor why the animal looked not only static but a little weird also a bit crossed eyed.
So perhaps even with a larger variety of eyeshapes the Kittycats with these excelent highlight will still look good.
I have to see it to know it though :-)

[anna Acanthus]

Much as i'd like to see this i fear that Tad is right on this one (sighs)
Also for the reasons given by Vrem and Nino.