Redesigned Elven Units

[Amaranth]

I really wish I could get golden, silver haired elves back. I loved that variety in high elven units in 2.1, new ones have nice textures, armors and such but I don't know. They look too plain to me this way. Too human. It may just be a minor detail but it's still bothering me. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate all the hard work done in this mod, I just don't like change, can't help it.

[Maiar93]

I believe that elves have golden hair and humans it's called blonde in ME

[Amaranth]

I believe that elves have golden hair and humans it's called blonde in ME

Fair enough. Edited

[Louis Lux]

Elves in middle earth were mostly dark haired. Those with golden hair are of Vanyar descent (Vanyar stayed in the undying lands). So the new high elves are completely accurate in that regard.

I fail to see how this makes them more human like, since blonde hair is much more common among the edain.

[Amaranth]

Elves in middle earth were mostly dark haired. Those with golden hair are of Vanyar descent (Vanyar stayed in the undying lands). So the new high elves are completely accurate in that regard.

I fail to see how this makes them more human like, since blonde hair is much more common among the edain.

Alright it may be so lorewise, I know, but I don't think were all dark haired, there still should be some golden and silver haired elves in an army of thousands, or at least that was always how I pictured elves. And I'm pretty sure some would agree with me, since most description of elves depicts them fair haired, darker hairs might be more dominant among high elves but I really don't think this would apply every one of them.

[Ultra123]

i agree here, super models but variety in a game of clones is much welcomed.

[Ciloron]

I have to agree on LL's side. The Vanyar were the ones with golden hair, Galadriel for example had a Vanya grandmother

[Dutch-Balrog]

No need for changes. You don't complain about the gondorian soldiers in the films all looking the same? Or the uruk-hai in TTT?

[Elensul]

Hair color ? Lorerape hair color ?

No please no...

Made me laugh though))

[Amaranth]

I was just saying I liked the previous more variety hair colors better, It was just my humble opinion I am not trying to argue about which one fits the lore best and besides it's not at all completely against the lore, since it does not say only strictly Vanyar had golden hair, or Noldor had dark hair, it's just a general view. Not everyone in Ireland are redheads, right ? That reminded me, lore also says there were elves with red hair colors, I haven't seen any in this game so far.

By the way new units looks much more realistic than the previous ones, armours, faces, weapons really great, I don't want to give the impression that I didn't like them completely.

[Withwnar]

I am a big fan of the lack of blonde hair. So when one does come along - Glorfindel - it is something special. In fact his name pretty much means "golden haired" ... kind of pointless if a lot of Elves also have golden hair. He may as well be called whatever Elvish is for "has a face".

Some of the Elven Rangers have reddish hair. Or perhaps brown hair with auburn highlights.

[Ngugi]

Think only 2 elves are known to have had red hair, one was Fëanors step father at least.
Honestly lore is already ignored, not that it matters, when it comes to the teleri (sindar and half the avari) who should have dark hair. Exceptions are Thranduil who are blond (thats why Legolas is depicted blond; while we honestly do not know) and the royal family where many had silver or silverish hair.
While exection do occur they are fairly rare as they often are noted as a special trait (Glorfindel and Finarfins house for Noldor). To edit skins to make very, very few with different hair colors seems more pain than gain and I'm not sure if the engine handles that?

[KnightsTemplar]

To my knowledge of moddings, you seriously simply cannot do the 'making them very, very few'.
Unless you make a crazy texture containing crapload of normal hair and only 1 single blond.
Otherwise the engine will just do it random, and chances are that you have a tons of them.

[lolIsuck]

I thought there were only 4 variations possible?

[Maiar93]

I personally prefer black hair(big fan of Fëanor here) and grey eyes, (i think that it's the noldor who have those traits)

And since there were no actual vanyar in ME, except a very few calaquendi who are somewhat related to vanyar, (like Galadriel), maybe it's not possible.

[Amaranth]

Lorewise speaking, as far as I know almost every elf desribed by Tolkien were fair haired, except Elrond and his family. And we do not even know if Legolas was blonde or dark haired. I don't believe we can draw a very certain line where canon starts when it comes to this little detail. And the movie trilogy confused everyone as people are tend to accept visual references over their imaginations. Tolkien himself often stated confusing descriptions about elven appearence, you know he describes bearded elves, in fact he also mentioned that elves may grow beards at a certain cycle of their lives, yet we did not see any bearded elves in any movie, or games. So this whole guardian of the lore act is a bit pointless in my opinion, no offense to anyone. but I rather use my own imagination than blindly following the lore.

[Curufin]

Lorewise speaking, as far as I know almost every elf desribed by Tolkien were fair haired, except Elrond and his family.

Urm lolwut? Where did you pull that from.......?

Most sindar and noldor were dark haired.

[Amaranth]

Urm lolwut? Where did you pull that from.......?

Most sindar and noldor were dark haired.

Again, I don't believe you can say strictly all of the noldor and sindar were darkj haired, some the noldor and sindar you know might be fitting that description, you can not say it applies to every one of them. Though that goes both ways, same for fair haired elves. Just try to understand what I'm trying to say before immediately going "lolwut" you're just making me repeat myself. The reason I started this topic was to express how I felt about the redesigned units and their lack of variety in hair color between themselves (4 color before, 2 color now).

We see a bearded Elf in TATW 3.0. Beards are extremely rare, so far as characters having them in the books. I know of only two cases and one was from his early writings, not the 'official' books.

I wouldn't say "blindly following", merely "following where we can, with what we know". My lore knowledge isn't extensive but "almost every elf desribed by Tolkien were fair haired" doesn't sound right to me. The Vanyar are the key. When a character is described as having blonde hair Tolkien mentions it in terms of being a special case ... "because they have Vanyar blood".

I understand what you're saying, and you're right too. But Vanyar were among the High Elves right ? There are descendants. I just hope you also understand what I'm trying to explain this whole time

[webba84]

One point worth mentioning is that many of the HE faction units are described as being mostly not comprised of Noldar. Only the Eldarinwe units are predominantly Noldar with the others comprising mostly of other races of Elves living in those lands (Sindar, Telari? been a while since I last read a lot of Tolkien.) This would suggest a greater variety of hair colour is quite plausible for the HE milita units.

[Louis Lux]

Red hairs are a noldor trait I believe and there were just a few of the noldor left in ME.

When Tolkien describes the elves as fair, he probably means their skins and not theirs hairs.

As far as modding is concerned yes it would be a bit hard for a layman to do what you want, easiest way would be to replace the brown or black hair with blonde. (half the unit will be blonde this way). Noretirno units have a sandy blonde (or golden-brownish if you want) hair variation and mithlond nobles have a silver hair variation.