My reasoning for putting Celeborn in the 4-6 range of the scale was to make it perfectly plausible that he and Galadriel (3) would have a daughter at 6, which would make it more likely that Celebrían at 6 and Elrond at 9 would have Arwen at 10, just like Lúthien. I do understand that that seems darker than his description, so...I agree, let's roan him. If he and Galadriel are both rare roans, then their daughter would have to be, but of course we've already made her one anyway. So he was already going to be a carrier; now we just need to make his mother a carrier too. That's a slight adjustment which keeps all the probability happy.
I am okay with Elwing being 9; I don't need her to be a 10. That's still 'raven black' and won't make it look weird when she and Earendil have dark-haired sons.
Here is a lovely piece of artwork by Jenny Dolfen:
In it, a silver-haired Elwing walks along the beach with a blond Earendil and their two sons. I actually had the chance to chat with her while she was painting this (she puts up video tutorials sometimes, where she shares her work as she does it), and in the discussion, of course elvish hair color came up. She was thinking that Nimloth would have passed on the silver hair to Elwing, and so chose to represent her this way. I love the painting, and the color scheme that screams 'last happy moment together' for this family. But...I have to admit that they don't really look like they're the parents of those kids. A darker-haired Elwing would make this more visually believable.
Of course, I am also planning an Elwing costume, and when I wear it, I don't intend to wear a wig, so in my mind, Elwing's hair is 'exactly as dark as mine' 😉
I like combining silver and black, because it's the same pigment and it really shouldn't be independent. And since silver shouldn't really be dark enough to 'wash out' blond, we're just having it replace the brown (blond) pigment with a small amount of black pigment = silver. So, it seems to have some basis in a mechanism for gene expression. I like that. I also like not adding a zillion independent genes as fixes for tough spots in the family tree, as that feels like cheating.
So as it stands, we have:
VWXYZ
5 genes working together to determine brown eumelanin inheritance - all 5 genes are incomplete dominant, and their effect is cumulative. The more pigment 'on' genes you have, the more pigment you have. The more pigment 'off' genes you have, the more dilute your pigment is. Shades range from 0 (platinum blond) to 10 (black)
R/r
Simple recessive red (r) accounts for red pheomelanin inheritance. This pigment blends with the shades of brown, though it is drowned out by the darkest shades. It runs in Mahtan's family, but is somewhat rare in elves. Those without red hair are RR or Rr.
S/s
Simple dominant silver (S) accounts for black eumelanin inheritance. It replaces the production of brown with black for all shades on the scale from 0-10 (white to jet black). This trait is not found in humans (ss), and is unique to elves.
T/t
Very rare simple recessive roan (t for 'tiger stripes') removes the pigmentation from half the strands of hair, leaving them white. The overall effect is to make the hair appear significantly lighter. Examples include: brown roan (brown/blond + white), black roan (black/silver + white), and red roan (reddish brown + white). Galadriel is a blond roan. All other examples occur in the royal family of Doriath and are black roan. This trait is not found in humans; all humans are TT.
I think this system is very workable! The only problem is that now I will have a fit if someone decides a character in our project 'has' to have a hair color that DOES NOT WORK within this genetic frame work! 😉 But no, this is good, and I think has about the minimum to describe the full range of hair colors we'll see believably. Now to translate MS Word colors to wigs and get characters assigned (at least to a range; we don't have to be needlessly definitive).
I am okay with Elwing being 9; I don't need her to be a 10. That's still 'raven black' and won't make it look weird when she and Earendil have dark-haired sons.
Here is a lovely piece of artwork by Jenny Dolfen:
In it, a silver-haired Elwing walks along the beach with a blond Earendil and their two sons. I actually had the chance to chat with her while she was painting this (she puts up video tutorials sometimes, where she shares her work as she does it), and in the discussion, of course elvish hair color came up. She was thinking that Nimloth would have passed on the silver hair to Elwing, and so chose to represent her this way. I love the painting, and the color scheme that screams 'last happy moment together' for this family. But...I have to admit that they don't really look like they're the parents of those kids. A darker-haired Elwing would make this more visually believable.
Of course, I am also planning an Elwing costume, and when I wear it, I don't intend to wear a wig, so in my mind, Elwing's hair is 'exactly as dark as mine' 😉
I like combining silver and black, because it's the same pigment and it really shouldn't be independent. And since silver shouldn't really be dark enough to 'wash out' blond, we're just having it replace the brown (blond) pigment with a small amount of black pigment = silver. So, it seems to have some basis in a mechanism for gene expression. I like that. I also like not adding a zillion independent genes as fixes for tough spots in the family tree, as that feels like cheating.
So as it stands, we have:
VWXYZ
5 genes working together to determine brown eumelanin inheritance - all 5 genes are incomplete dominant, and their effect is cumulative. The more pigment 'on' genes you have, the more pigment you have. The more pigment 'off' genes you have, the more dilute your pigment is. Shades range from 0 (platinum blond) to 10 (black)
R/r
Simple recessive red (r) accounts for red pheomelanin inheritance. This pigment blends with the shades of brown, though it is drowned out by the darkest shades. It runs in Mahtan's family, but is somewhat rare in elves. Those without red hair are RR or Rr.
S/s
Simple dominant silver (S) accounts for black eumelanin inheritance. It replaces the production of brown with black for all shades on the scale from 0-10 (white to jet black). This trait is not found in humans (ss), and is unique to elves.
T/t
Very rare simple recessive roan (t for 'tiger stripes') removes the pigmentation from half the strands of hair, leaving them white. The overall effect is to make the hair appear significantly lighter. Examples include: brown roan (brown/blond + white), black roan (black/silver + white), and red roan (reddish brown + white). Galadriel is a blond roan. All other examples occur in the royal family of Doriath and are black roan. This trait is not found in humans; all humans are TT.
I think this system is very workable! The only problem is that now I will have a fit if someone decides a character in our project 'has' to have a hair color that DOES NOT WORK within this genetic frame work! 😉 But no, this is good, and I think has about the minimum to describe the full range of hair colors we'll see believably. Now to translate MS Word colors to wigs and get characters assigned (at least to a range; we don't have to be needlessly definitive).
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