#mottling

e^b/e^b Co/Co Ml/Ml mo/mo

I think this is a perfect example of how mottled birds will take whatever black they can get and deposit it after the white before the feather returns to its usual pigmentation.

The cockbird is really beautiful: these photos by FIAV - Federazione Italiana Associazioni Avicole on Facebook.

Mottling. A text-book of topographical drawing. 1907.

The look..of Logan*

Tackling the beast that is Wolverine’s hair and Make-up Design for ‘Logan’ became the almighty task of Make-up Master, Joel Harlow. 

Make-up brushes sharpened and ready to claw..I mean go..Harlow was set the task of breaking down, aging, scarring and distressing Jackman’s skin. Creating layers of beatings, wounds old and new and a simply stunning broken, alcohol ridden skin.  In the story, Logan’s body is rejecting its metal-infused skeleton, and the self-healing power he once possessed that kept him ageless is failing. 

Harlow played up the character’s suffering through physical trauma on the body. This included scarification highlighting gunshot wounds, stabbing, and fight wounds, as well as emphasizing the character’s troubled mental state and alcohol addiction through a weathered, jaundiced appearance.“Our marching order was that everything had to look real,” Harlow says.

To research the makeup designs for Logan and other mutant characters in the film, Harlow turned to his personal library of biology books, and searched the web. He zeroed in on trauma studies to aid in creating the charred, burned skin of Caliban (played by Stephen Merchant), the scaly skin of Parker Lovein’s Lizard Boy, and the seeping sores on Logan’s knuckles where his retractable metal blades continually tear through his skin.“To do this kind of visceral makeup without being respectful of what lies beneath the skin can be hokey,” Harlow explains.To ensure that his team would be able to perform the labor-intensive, realistic makeup effects, he began by breaking down the script, noting where scenes took place in each character’s timeline.He took mug shots and body shots of the actors, and photographed every stage of makeup application. He carefully monitored such details as the look of Logan’s beard.

 While Hugh Jackman’s natural facial hair formed its base, its length and coloring were constantly adjusted. Special bloodshot, yellowed contact lenses were created for Jackman to further enhance the authenticity of his physical decay.

There are believed to be multiple mottling alleles, all of them recessive to non-mottling. They cause different chick down patterning and varying amounts of white. I am not going to cover all of the alleles, all you need to know that mottling is mo and nonmottling is Mo+

There is some debate as to whether the less even pattern found in exchequer birds is a different allele or if the neat, v-shaped white mottles could simply be achieved through selective breeding. My thoughts? Probably both. Uneven mottling can be turned into neat mottling through selective breeding, but there are some alleles that are messier than others.

It is believed that mille fluer is buff columbian but with extra modifiers, specifically melanizers like the pattern gene and melanotic to create spangling.

The interruption of pigment production by the mottle also helps create this neat spangle. It takes longer for a bird to produce pheomelanin than it does eumelanin. So the mottle interupts pigment, then the bird produces eumelanin, then pheomelanin. That is why the double laced wheaten pattern that you find in dark Cornish gives black edges around the mottles on Spangled Cornish.

The bird works with what it has. If there is no melanin present in the feather at all, the bird will not produce a black edge around the mottle, as evidenced by this red mottled Ancona photographed by Breeding Chickens with Sander.

The black in the spangles can also be diluted to blue or white using the blue and dominant white genes. This cute "Golden Neck" d'Uccle is genetically mille fluer with the dominant white gene.

Mottled is unique in that a mottled bird changes with every molt. The initial chick down looks pied, as seen by these mottled Cochin chicks from Murray McMurray hatchery.

Pied is gene present in many species that give an animal colored patches on top and white patches on the bottom. (See pied guineas, peafowl or pied ducks.) But mottled is not the same mutation as pied. Pied remains the same pattern throughout an animal's life.

The first chick molt gives the same impression

(photo from One Hundred Dollars a Month.)

However, with respective juvenile molts the white becomes more and more evenly distributed over the bird until you get the first adult plumage: the first time the mottling is evenly distrubuted over the whole bird.

With each respective adult molt the bird gets more and more white but distribution continues to be relatively even. (different bird but you get the point)

Now lets cover some oddities. The Ayam Tulak has what looks almost like pied plumage and based on the pictures, the pattern may remain constant throughout its life. However, there are none here in the US and its inheritance is unknown. I would like to know if it is allelic with mottling or if it is true pied (or something else.)

White crests in Polish (this one being a white-crested chocolate) is also theorized to be allelic with mottling.

If you look at the chick down, it is very similar to mottled chick down.

Also, while most of the white distribution on white crested blacks is on their crests, some do have a few tiny mottles on their bodies. Personally, I have seen a white crested black with some mottles at a show.

White crested black is recessive to nonmottled but codominant with at least one other mottling allele.

I'm building a chicken color genotype based on the genes Tumblr chooses, then I'll draw a male and a female specimen for you all to see.

I wrote about mottling in more detail here.

Mottling creates white spots on the ends of every feather! Also, if there is black present in the feather, usually the bird will create a black border between the white mottling and the pheomelanin on the feather! Mottled: mo/mo

Non-Mottled: Mo+/Mo+

Ummm…I mean it’s probably doable.I don’t really have any materials for a tutorial, because I haven’t used colored pencils in forever and most of mine are broken, but…This is what I do in Sai for their patterns:

First mottling color / base mottling color. If you’re using pencils, you should start with the lightest shade, just because you’re not gonna be able to put it over the darker ones later (unless you use opaque paint).This is basically just a bunch of spots with variance in size, and clustered according to character. (Fun fact: Each of them has a different mottling pattern. I do this to give them a little more individuality.)

Second color. Same thing, just on top of the old one.

Repeat.

I put the “skin” color / body color underneath the mottling.If I have to adjust either of them for the sake of contrast / clashing / whatever, I do it now.

Marker brush for the lighter areas / muzzle / stomach patches.If you’re using pencils, make sure you fade the body color out instead of trying to overlay a new color like this.