rat

鼠

ㄕㄨˇ shǔ

Two versions of the same picture, and both are free with no account and no watermark. The first has no background at all, which is the one to send your artist — but a phone or computer photo viewer set to dark will show black strokes on dark grey and it can look like nothing downloaded. If that happens, use the second one: identical characters on a plain white background. Either way you get the characters on their own — the square and the faint guide lines you see above are not in the file. Each character is 1000px, so a two-character download is 2000×1000, and the script and layout are the ones you picked.

Script

Characters

Layout

Chinese makes no split between rat and mouse; one character covers both, and it carries the zodiac year more than the animal.

Before you commit

Choose with care鼠 is not a flattering animal in Chinese. It turns up in words for cowardice and petty greed. As a zodiac marker it is fine; as a standalone boast it is not.

Pairs well with鼠 with 子 gives 子鼠, which any reader parses instantly as the zodiac sign rather than vermin.

At small sizes13 strokes with a dense lower half. The four short legs blur first; give it room.

Meaning

Rat or mouse. The single character for the whole rodent family.

The default written form, and the one used for the zodiac sign.

Other characters for “rat”

What to do next

Pick the script and layout you want above, download the PNG, and send that file to your artist. Ask them to work from the file rather than redrawing the character freehand — that is where strokes go missing.

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