samcarter / tikzlings

Collection of animals and other beings drawn in TikZ

Contact

You can find me on Mastodon: @[email protected]

I'm also active on several Q&A sites, e.g.:

• TopAnswers TeX
• TeXnique.fr
• Codidact Power Users

TeX Packages

• TikZducks (CTAN, github)
• TikZlings (CTAN, github)
• TikZbricks (CTAN, github)
• TikZmarmots (CTAN, github)
• Jigsaw (CTAN, github)
• Tcolorbox beamer inner theme (CTAN, github)
• Rainbow beamer colour theme (CTAN, github)

Furthermore, I'm one of the maintainers for the LaTeX beamer class (CTAN, github) and contributed to the sillypage package (CTAN, github).

TeX Talks

2024

TUG Annual Meeting

• The moloch beamer theme ( abstract, slides )

Dante Frühjahrstagung

• Neuigkeiten von Beamer ( abstact, slides )
• Das Moloch Beamer Theme - Ein Nutzerbericht ( abstract, slides )

2023

BayTeX

• Neuigkeiten von Beamer ( slides )

TUG Annual Meeting

• The tcolorbox inner beamer theme ( abstract, slides )
• Behind the scenes of the Great TikZlings Christmas Extravaganza ( with Ulrike & Gert Fischer, Carla Maggi and Paulo Cereda, abstract, slides )
• Beamer news ( with Joseph Wright, abstract, slides )

2022

Dante Herbsttagung

• Das Tcolorbox Inner Theme für Beamer ( abstract, slides, video )
• Das TikZbricks Paket ( abstract, slides, video )
• Das Jigsaw Paket ( abstract, slides, video, )

TUG Annual Meeting

• The TikZbricks package ( slides, video )
• The jigsaw package ( slides, video )

Dante Frühjahrstagung

• Das Sillypage Paket ( slides, video )

2021

TUG Annual Meeting

• News from the TikZ zoo ( slides, video )

Journée GUTenberg

• Une courte introduction aux extensions TikZducks et TikZlings ( slides, video )

Dante Frühjahrstagung

• Neuigkeiten aus dem TikZ Zoo ( slides, video )
• TopTeX - eine Q&A Seite für TeX ( slides, video )

2020

TUG Annual Meeting

• TopTeX - a new Q&A site for TeX ( slides, video )

2018

TUG Annual Meeting

• A short introduction to the TikZducks package ( with Paulo Cereda, slides, video )

Dante Frühjahrstagung

• TikZducks ( slides )

TeX Puplications

• samcarter (2023): "Book review: LaTeX Graphics with TikZ by Stefan Kottwitz", TUGboat 44.3 ( doi, url )

• samcarter & Joseph Wright (2023): "Beamer news: 2023", TUGboat 44.2 ( doi, url )

• samcarter & Gert Fischer (2023): "Behind the scenes of the Great TikZlings Christmas Extravaganza", TUGboat 44.2 ( doi, url )

• samcarter (2021): "The TikZlings package", TUGboat 42.2 ( doi, url )

tikzlings's Issues

If tikzducks is also loaded, add the duck to random \tikzling

The duck is sad for not being able to join her friends.

Second body color?

I think it would be great if one could specify a second color tor the body of a tikzling. For example:

\bear[body=blue, body2=yellow]

I think I could make the change for the bear and put in a Pull Request, but wanted to make sure what the right name for the second color should be. It would also be great if all of the tikzlings could have the same option and I'm not sure the right way to do that.

Options for signpost

Consider the two examples.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{tikzlings-owls,tikzducks}
\begin{document}

    \begin{tikzpicture}[scale=5.5]
        \owl[
          signpost={\centering\begin{minipage}{5cm}\centering
            \large Prochain(e) camp(agne) \\ 8 au 16~août 2020
          \end{minipage}}]
    \end{tikzpicture}
    \begin{tikzpicture}[scale=5.5]
        \owl
        \duck[
          xshift=-12.5,
          yshift=5,
          invisible,
          signpost={\centering\begin{minipage}{5cm}\centering
            \large Prochain(e) camp(agne) \\ 8 au 16~août 2020
          \end{minipage}}]
    \end{tikzpicture}
\end{document}

In the fist one, we use the default position for the signpost. But that does not produce a very good result. In the second one, we use a hidden duck to set correctly the position of the signpost. But it is not a beautiful hack.

Should it be possible to have xshiftsign and yshiftpost, and, also, maybe, a rotatesign ?

New animal suggestion (capybara)

Hi,
my good friend asked me if I can make a new animal (capybara). I said yes but I have no idea how you made them.

Can I ask you:

• what tool you used to design an animal and covert it to LaTeX compatible format?

:)

problems with Overleaf

Dear Sirs,
I use Overleaf within my educational project titled LaTeX-2018-edu to teach LaTeX instead of teaching Word.
I have started testing the packages in the document
“The TikZlings package drawing animals and beings in TikZ”
samcarter
https://github.com/samcarter/tikzlings
https://www.ctan.org/pkg/tikzlings
Version v0.8 – 2021/08/06
and it gives a lot of execution problems with Overleaf.

For example: compiling with
\usepackage{tikzlings-bat} gives compilation error;
with the bear package using the following instructions
\tikz\bearwear % default
[long sleeves,
round neckline];
\tikz\bearwear
[t-shirt];
\tikz\bearwear
[muscle shirt];
do not draw the costumes and give 3 errors; in the same package he does not draw red eyes; with all packages the instruction [contour = black] gives error.
I would be very grateful that you solve these problems.
MWE

\documentclass[a4paper,11pt]{article}
\usepackage[utf8x]{inputenc} %per posar caràcters no ASCII
\usepackage[catalan]{babel} %idioma de treball

\usepackage[tmargin=2cm,bmargin=2cm,lmargin=2cm,rmargin=2cm]{geometry} %defineix els marges de treball

\usepackage{parskip}
\setlength{\parindent}{0mm}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage{graphicx,wrapfig}

\usepackage[dvipsnames]{xcolor}

\usepackage{tikz}
\usepackage{tikzlings}

\usepackage{tikzlings-anteaters}
%\usepackage{tikzlings-bats} % doesn't work
\usepackage{tikzlings-bears}
\usepackage{tikzlings-bees}
\usepackage{tikzlings-mice}
\usepackage{tikzlings-marmots}



\begin{document}

\begin{tikzpicture}
%\anteater[eye=red]  % aquest no funciona
%\bearwear[t-shirt]
\end{tikzpicture}

\tikz\bearwear % default
[long sleeves,
round neckline];  %gives error
\tikz\bearwear
[t-shirt];    %gives error
\tikz\bearwear
[muscle shirt];  %gives error

\begin{tikzpicture}
\bee[contour=black]    %gives error don't recognize the word contour
\end{tikzpicture}

\end{document}

coati_custom_body

Good morning, in Some examples section, the last row, the second icon, it should point from
coati_custom_body.tex
to
Coati_custom_body.tex
(and probably a file coati_custom_body.svg should be renamed to Coati_custom_body.svg)

Chinese Zodiacs

The Chinese zodiacs are mostly based on animals and used in various Asian countries, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_zodiac. I know these are a lot but some of them are already implemented.

• Rat (via Mouse implemented but an additional alias might be useful),
• Ox/Cow,
• Tiger,
• Rabbit,
• (East Asian) Dragon,
• Snake,
• Horse,
• Goat,
• Monkey,
• Rooster,
• Dog,
• Pig (already implemented),
• Amabie (アマビエ), not a zodiac but an appropriate addition related SARS-CoV-2 and used along these animals, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amabie and https://www.ac-illust.com/main/detail.php?id=22114392&word=トラさんアマビエの年賀状%E3%80%80挨拶文入り _

Some of these animals are classical choices for favorite pets and hence are interesting outside the zodiac realm.

Additions once the animals are implemented:

• \thisChineseZodiac[options] which like \today selects the current animal at compile time,
• \chineseZodiac[options]{date} which selects the animal of the date, where date might be a date or a year, e.g. \chineseZodiac[options]{2020} equals \mouse[options],
• \thisYearsChineseZodiac[options] which selects the animal of the current year, and
• \nextYearsChineseZodiac[options] which selects the animal of the next year.

The options are passed to the animal, e.g. \mouse[options]. The commands focussing on years are simpler to implement and possibly more important. The command \nextYearsChineseZodiac[options] is useful for new years greetings cards.

If you are able to add one animal by year starting with Ox this year, you might also implement \thisYearsChineseZodiac[options] and \nextYearsChineseZodiac[options] as the existing animals would be sufficient to execute these commands.

Thank you for your work and your time.

Eye does not appear with black dark body

If we use body=black with \bear eye does not appear, here an example

\documentclass[border=5mm]{standalone}
\usepackage{tikzlings}

\begin{document}

\begin{tikzpicture}
\bear[body=black,scale=5]
\end{tikzpicture}

\end{document}

Suggestion: There needs to be an otter

Thank you very much for this package, I use it to label the groups for my students in tests and exercise sheets. The children love them. But now they start to make their own suggestions, one of them was an otter! Since their is neither an otter nor a beaver, my students would appreciate it very much if one day one of those lovely water creatures finds its way into the package.

Keep up the great work and have a wonderful day!

Avoid name clashes with the figchild package

tikzling-ducks

I think that ducks should not be treated as a specific thing, and we should merge tikzduck inside tikzlings, or more precisly tikzlings-duck?

New beings: Robot and Alien

Seeing the discussion, I would like to request for

• A good robot (personal preference: Code parade avatar)
• An evil robot (evil avatar of the above)
• An alien (may be, this one)

suggestion: bunny and beaver :)

It would be great to have bunnies before Christmas! :)

Thank you very much for the funny package!!!

Add humans

Good starting points
tikzpeople
human question, especially this
stickman

\bug, \bat not available?

It gives Undefined control sequence for me, which is not too surprising given the two animals haven't made it to the documentation yet.

But they are still in tikzlings-list. I think they should be removed from it for now.

Shading of 3D coati

The shading of the 3D coati's face, more specifically it's nose and the surroundings, look weird. It looks like the nose casts its shadow to the left, but the light's supposed to come from the left. So the shadings around the nose should be mirrored.

Lines scale badly for different coordinate systems

as reported in https://chat.stackoverflow.com/transcript/message/48858664#48858664 lines scale badly for other coordinate systems

\documentclass{book}
\usepackage{tikzlings}
\begin{document}
\tikz\bear;
\tikz[x=1mm,y=1mm]\bear;
\end{document}

Note to self: don't try to replace the line by a filled shape consisting of arcs - this will break non-linear transformations like the X-mas bauble

cute fish needed

Hello, I have a project for children (too young to know the digits but training in number recognition). It is a traditional game from Reunion Island, played with cards bearing numbers from 2 to 11. The rules are basically that

• the wealth of a player is the number of 🐟 he has with him
• but every player having more than 21 🐟 looses because the fillet has broken
• when the game finishes the winner is the player who has the more 🐟 as long as there are not more than 21 of them.

I need a \fish command so I could make the cards, just posing a 🐟 where a need one. And the fish has to be cute and/or funny to attract the children's attention.

PLatform to Platform

Good day, in Some examples, there is PLatform keyword used in URLs instead of Platform. The files cannot be opened (Xubuntu 18.04, Mozilla Firefox 74.0).

Feature request: overall TikZling styles

In TikZ one can say \tikzset{every node/.append style={blue}}. Therefore, I wonder if it is possible to add styles of the form every tikzling or every sheep tikzling (or just every sheep) so that one can say something like \tikzset{tikzlings/every marmot/.append style={whiskers,teeth} and all \marmots automatically have whiskers and teeth. Or \tikzset{tikzlings/every tikzling/.append style={3D}, and all TikZlings are by default 3D. (I do not know if tikzlings is an appropriate choice for the path.)

Minor typos in the documentation

I found the following typos in the documentation (if you have issues understanding what I mean, just ask, I'm in a hurry right now :)

Schrödingers cat: "dead" not "death"

moles options: "mole" not "mouse"

tikzling: "this only works if you're lucky", not "your"

make build.lua usable for other people

Wolf Addition

My university just adopted a new mascot so I created a wolfling. Would you like the code?
wolf_test.pdf

Change layer for \anteaterhookbelly

The \anteaterhookbelly should be above the fur around the neck -- to be consistent with the bear

\documentclass{standalone}
\usepackage{tikzlings}

\begin{document}
	
\begin{tikzpicture}  

\newcommand{\anteaterhookbelly}{

  \begin{scope}
   \clip
   (0.52, 0.8) .. controls (0.52, 0.23) and (0.3, 0.17) .. 
   (0, 0.17) .. controls (-0.3, 0.17) and (-0.52, 0.23) .. 
   (-0.52, 0.8) .. controls (-0.52, 1.35) and (-0.3, 1.8) .. 
   (0, 1.8) .. controls (0.3, 1.8) and (0.52, 1.35) .. 
   (0.52, 0.8) -- cycle;
   \fill[orange] 
     (0.4,1.6) arc[start angle=0, end angle=-180, x radius=4mm, y radius=6.5mm] 
     -- (-0.8,0.75) 
    arc[start angle=-180, end angle=0, x radius=8mm, y radius=2mm]  -- cycle;
  \end{scope} 
  
}
\anteater
     
\end{tikzpicture}	
	
\end{document}

Suggestion: puffin

We have a suggestion for a new bird: https://twitter.com/mathforge/status/1580292744974848000 😉

a number of ideas

The first thing that came to mind when I first saw your package was that I'd like a tikzling to raise an arm to point to an exercise on a worksheet for children, while saying something. May I suggest support for:

• sideward options for other tikzlings
• hats adaptations if sideward is true
• bubbleside to customize left or right for think and speech
• rotatearms for other tikzlings, and add rotatearmleft/rotatearmright where possible
• means to offset x, y and/or rotation for accessories
• more tikzlings (squid, worm, bird, ...)

(The suggested tikzlings should probably produce an error for rotatearms.)

ps. this isn't a list of demands, I'm happy to help, but no promises though.

Replace Bezier curves with lines

Some Bezier curves react badly to transformations. The idea is to replace them with lines or shapes of other syntax.

Previously I tried to avoid lines because they would not scale nicely, but @ marmot solved this problem (thanks a lot!):

\documentclass[tikz,border=3.14mm]{standalone}
\begin{document}
\begin{tikzpicture}
\draw[line width=0.8pt] (0,0) circle(1);
\begin{scope}[xshift=2.5cm,scale=0.5]
\draw[line width=0.8pt] (0,0) circle(1);
\end{scope}
\begin{scope}[xshift=5cm,scale=0.5,transform shape]
\draw[line width=0.8pt] (0,0) circle(1);
\end{scope}
\begin{scope}[xshift=8cm,scale=0.5]
\pgfgettransformentries{\tmpscale}{\tmp}{\tmp}{\tmp}{\tmp}{\tmp}
\draw[line width=\tmpscale*0.8pt] (0,0) circle(1);
\end{scope}
\end{tikzpicture}
\end{document}

Broom

Hi,

should it be possible to have a broom as accessory?

Feature request: fingers/toes for the pigzling

One of the hallmarks of pig feet is their toes: each leg has four toes, of which two can be seen very clearly from the front. I would like to see this reflected in the new pigzling addition to the tikzling ensemble. Here is a possible implementation:

% Arms %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
\filldraw[pigdark,line width=0.07cm,line join=round,rotate around={70:(0.33,0.9)}] (0.33,0.9) + (-150:0.16 and 0.09) arc (-150:150:0.16 and 0.09) to[bend left] cycle;
\filldraw[pigdark,line width=0.07cm,line join=round,rotate around={110:(-0.33,0.9)}] (-0.33,0.9) + (-150:0.16 and 0.09) arc (-150:150:0.16 and 0.09) to[bend left] cycle;

% Feet %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
%% N.B. 0.3216 ~= 0.225 + 0.1*cos(15 deg)
\filldraw[pigdark,line join=round,line width=0.045cm] (0.3216,0.15) arc (-15:195:0.1) -- (0.2,0.15) to[bend left] (0.25,0.15) --cycle;
\filldraw[pigdark,line join=round,line width=0.045cm] (-0.3216,0.15) arc (195:-15:0.1) -- (-0.2+0,0.15) to[bend right] (-0.25,0.15) --cycle;

and this is the result. Feel free to do as much or as little with this as you want.

P.S. I thought I'd post something here in light of a certain problem with the usual channel… I hope you don't mind my forwardness in making suggestions.

A coati with a right sideward

Good evening,
I'd like to create a coati with a right sideward.
A teacher from Orleans (France) used your package and has found how to create what I'm looking for, as you can see in the attached document.
But I haven't managed to create the same coati.
Have your already done it or could you help me if it's not too time-consuming?
Thanks in advance for your answer.

Wrong place of page number

Hello,

I run a .tex file written by me 2 weeks ago with tikzlings package today (14th, July), while the place of page number was wrong, as contrary, which was good 2 weeks ago. My TeX distribution is MacTeX 2019, and the file was ran with XeLaTeX typesetting engine.

Here is the MWE:

\documentclass[12pt, a4paper]{article}

\linespread{1.3}
\usepackage[margin=2.5cm]{geometry}
\usepackage{microtype, setspace}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage{mathptmx}
\usepackage{lipsum}

\usepackage{fancyhdr}
\pagestyle{fancy}
\renewcommand\headrulewidth{0pt}

\usepackage{tikzlings}
\cfoot{
  \begin{tikzpicture}[scale=0.5] 
      \tikzling[signpost={\thepage}]
  \end{tikzpicture}
}
\setlength{\footskip}{1.5cm}

\begin{document}
\lipsum[1-12]
\end{document}

And the output of PDF was as follows:

It's easy to see the number of page 2 is not at the center of the flag, as well as every page number.

And the previous output of PDF's page number was the same as the tikzlings-doc, which looked like the screenshot below:

I'v no idea why. The difference between them really confused me. It would be grateful if you could help me handle the issue.

Thank you!