Thank you for this chart, that's really helpful!
You’re welcome, and thanks!
I figured out how to upload all three charts to my media page here. The % charts have been adjusted to match the third chart in coloration.
So it looks like we agree about S being both silver and black.
And it looks like you’re using roan exactly the way it works in horses, with alternating hairs being stark white regardless of what the other genes say.
And I agree that the silver+red combo is looking pretty ewwww for the most part. Maybe we'd want a more purple-silver look for some of those? Probably best avoided, except *possibly* in the case of the red-headed twin whose hair darkens with age (picture a red 7 shifting to the 7 of the red-silver side). Tolkien did give us a silver-haired Míriel; we might as well make use of her genetics somehow. So I do like the idea of using that to create Fëanor's raven black hair. Curufin should have the exact same hair as Fëanor, of course.
I don’t know if Curufin needs to be identical to Fëanor, but sure why not. I’d prefer to pretend that silver+red isn’t an option, but the 3-6 range doesn’t look so ugly. It’s also possible that I didn’t make those shades brown enough to account for pheomelanin. 7 rr S may be close to the color on your avatar instead.
But noooo to purplish wine hair. Not only ew, but we risk making it look unnatural.
So Mahtan 6-7 auburn, Nerdanel 5 light/golden brown, Feanor 9 S raven-black, Maedhros 5 copper, Maglor 7-8 brown, Celegorm 5 golden brown, Caranthir 8 dark brown, Curufin 9 S raven-black, twins 7-8 copper -> dark auburn, or light auburn -> chestnut. I would accept Maglor being dark grey instead of brown.
Want any actual blonds to start out platinum and darken to golden with age, in the same way? Any blond could except Galadriel who was already visibly roaned as a child, in Season 2.
I wanted to explore the possibility of black roan silver hair for Thingol.
Although the “mixed grey” wig doesn’t look bad, I don’t think roan is actually necessary in Thingol’s case, though he can be a carrier. At 5-6 (dark enough to father Lúthien) he’ll still be grey. And that removes the need for Olwë to be roan, he can just be a 0-1 S. (I understand you want Thingol to have a higher #, so Luthien is more probable.)
And a much paler shade of roan (say, 3-4) could look like this
I like that for Nimloth. Or make her a 5 S roan.
Since roan replaces half the hairs with white, a rough estimate of the overall effect is to divide the eumelanin # in half. So Nimloth at a 5 would look 2.5, in the middle of the “star-like silver” range. If Celebrían is a 4 roan, she’d look about 2. (I tried to make a chart of the whole range or roan silvers, but it looks too ugly in Paint.) The darker shades (and possibly 6) will look like salt-and-pepper, which looks less like "I was born silver" and more like middle-age. So I'd like to avoid it even though it's perfectly plausible.
I gather we'd like to flip the ratios, though; make it predominantly blonde streaked with silver grey.
Yes, “honey” looks better for Galadriel.
So, my counterproposal, with only Galadriel, Nimloth, and maybe Celebrían as roans. This way roan only needs to run in 3 families:
Indis = R?, ss, Tt, 3 deep gold
..Finarfin = R?, ss, Tt, 4 dark gold (6.3% chance of a 4)
Olwë = R?, S?, Tt, 0-1 white
..Eärwen = R?, Ss, Tt, 2 star-silver (not 3, because "swan-maiden" might imply almost white hair. Or alternatively, she has pet swans or hangs out with wild ones.)
....Galadriel = R?, ss, tt, 3 gold roan (27.3-31.3% chance of a 3) the way you made roan work now, she can’t have silver S
Thingol = R?, Ss, T?, 5-6 grey-silver
Melian = ??, SS, TT, 10 deepest black
..Lúthien = ??, S?, T?, 10 deepest black (3.1-6.3% chance of a 10)
..
Beren = R?, ss, TT, 5 golden brown
....Dior = ??, Ss, T?, 10 deepest black (3.1% chance of a 10)
Galadhon = ??, S?, Tt, ? (Thingol and Olwë’s brother in my proposal for SilmFilm)
..Celeborn = R?, S?, Tt, 2-3 star-silver
......Celebrían = R?, Ss, ?t, 4 silver (15.6-23.4% chance of a 4) can be roaned down to “2”
..Galathil = ??, S?, Tt, ?
....Nimloth = ??, S?, tt, 4-5 silver roan “2”-“2.5” (I prefer 5 so Elwing can be 10, and Nimloth’s mother can more plausibly be dark)
......Eluréd and Elurín = ??, Ss, Tt, 9-10 (raven or deepest) black
......Elwing = ??, Ss, Tt, 9-10 (raven or deepest) black (6.3-15.6% chance of a 9, 0-3.1% chance of a 10)
......Eärendil = R?, ss, TT,
4 dark gold
........Elrond = ??, Ss, T?, 9 raven black (3.1-6.3% chance of a 9)
........Elrond’s children = ??, Ss, T?, 9 raven black
Celeborn = 4-6 S* Tt? (grey)
Celebrían = 6 Ss Tt or tt (grey, roan an option)
Arwen: 10 S* Tt (darkest black)
I’m surprised you’re willing to make Celeborn so dark. Of course he could be a 6 roan if you want, but then his mom has to carry it too. To me “silver long and bright” seems more like a straight 2-3. I think we should look at the %s when both Galadhon and Galathil marry dark-haired women, and see where it’s most likely for Celeborn and Galathil to be, given Nimloth as a 4 or 5. Hmmm... Celebrian has to be at least a 5 if we want her children to be 10's.
So, who wound up with the 'roan' trait (tt) in this version?
We agree about Galadriel (obviously) and Nimloth, and Celebrían. But I want to keep Dior’s sons dark, and don’t see a need for Thingol and Olwë to be roans. Eärwen, as you said, would be odd as a roan since her children are all blond. My proposal has only female roans, which may be chance or significant.
black but if we *wanted* to, we could make Idril a carrier, too, through her Vanyar mother Elenwë. I'd just as soon avoid that, though, since we're not going to express it in Elrond or Elros anyway.
Yeah, no need for extra Vanyar with unnecessary roan genes. Besides, if they don’t express it and neither do their descendants, they’re T? and we don’t need to know what the other allele is.
The easiest, most straight-forward way to have white hair is to be a '0' on the pigment scale. Pure recessive vvwwxxyyzz
Nobody has this on our list
Not sure if it would be
true snow-white, or platinum blond like Malfoy.
The other thing about white is, of course, the question of 'how white is white'?
I’d say make Olwë as white as we can without looking “unnatural”. If we want more we can do the same with Galadhon (he probably marries a dark-haired woman, and still has light-silver, non-roan sons).