How to Make Tom the Cat Hideout Art in Path of Exile

Tom from Tom and Jerry is all expressive curves: pointed ears, a long tail and a two-tone blue-grey body. The outline engine follows every one of those curves, which makes Tom a great showcase of how decorations bend along a drawing.

The original and the in-game version

Drag the slider to compare the original image with the version rebuilt from Path of Exile decorations. Every piece on the right is a real decoration at its real in-game size, position and rotation.

Why Tom the Cat works so well as hideout art

Cartoons are made of thick outlines and a handful of flat colours, which translate almost one to one into decorations. The outline becomes a continuous chain of dark pieces and each colour area becomes one decoration type.

This Tom the Cat uses 703 decorations of 6 types, with Excavated Brick doing most of the work. That fits inside Path of Exile's 750-decoration hideout limit, so the complete artwork imports in one go.

Decorations used for Tom the Cat

These are the exact decorations in this artwork, sorted by how many pieces each one contributes. The generator picks them by colour, texture and size, so large flat areas use big pieces and details use small ones.

Decoration	Pieces	Share	Used for
Excavated Brick	458		Outline and line art
Sky Shrine Mosaic	147		Colour area
Snow Drift	33		Details and edges
Absorbed Flesh	27		Details and edges
Cathedral Tiles	22		Details and edges
Arcane Astronomy Tool	16		Details and edges

How the colours were matched

Path of Exile decorations come in mostly earthy, stone and metal tones, so each colour in the Tom the Cat image is matched to the closest decoration family while keeping light and dark areas in the right order. Here is how each colour of the original was translated:

How to make Tom the Cat in your hideout

1. Open the generatorGo to the POE Hideout Art Generator and choose Path of Exile 1 or Path of Exile 2.
2. Pick your hideoutSelect the hideout you live in. The .hideout file only imports into the same hideout type.
3. Upload your Tom the Cat imageDrop a Tom the Cat picture with a clear outline and a plain background. PNG, JPG and WEBP all work.
4. Use these settingsArt size 110 units, 8 max colours, outline and line art on. This is what produced the result on this page.
5. Generate a free previewIn a few seconds you see the art built from real decorations at their in-game size.
6. Download and importUnlock the .hideout file, then in game open Edit Hideout, choose Import and select it.

Tom the Cat in Path of Exile 2

The same image in Path of Exile 2 uses 737 decorations of 6 types (+34 compared with PoE 1). PoE 2 has its own decoration set, so the generator only uses pieces that exist in PoE 2, led by Excavated Brick.

Choose Path of Exile 2 in the generator and pick your PoE 2 hideout: the art is rebuilt from PoE 2 decorations automatically, with the same outline and colour matching.

Tips for the best Tom the Cat

• Keep the default outline on: it is what makes cartoon characters instantly recognisable in game.
• Six to eight colours is the sweet spot for most cartoons.
• Front-facing poses read better from the hideout camera than side views.

Importing the .hideout file

Go to your hideout, open Edit Hideout, choose Import and select the downloaded file. Make sure you import into the same hideout type you chose on the website. Back up your current layout with Export first if you want to keep it.

Tom the Cat hideout art FAQ