This topic came up on cosplay.com...

[ohariko.livejournal.com]

[Poll #1187121]
I'm interested in to see what your guys opinion is because the way I look at it, Lulu's hair is black and nothing more but some morons on cosplay.com thinks it's dark brown: http://www.cosplay.com/showthread.php?t=147188 .The nice easy way for me to remember it is that Lulu is black, Suzaku's hair is brown. Simple, ne? What's your opinion?

Comments

[angel-dunnant.livejournal.com]

They still don't believe it's black even though Lelouch has black hair in all those official pictures, manga and merchandise? D8
I'm impressed on how stupid people can be...

[thickets.livejournal.com]

People who are colorblind don't see in black and white. XD It means that certain colors look the same to you (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_blindness). I've never heard of people having weakness in black and brown (usually it's brown and green or red and blue or whatever) though. Also, I've never heard of people being colorblind "in one eye" as that poster on cosplay.com said ....

[emifujiwara.livejournal.com]

I'm sure his hair are dark, with purple and brown higlight.
And figurines of Lulu have black hair. =)
Dark brown? What? Is it a joke? XD

[nitaspitas.livejournal.com]

As a cosplayer (whose sister cosplays Lulu (http://www.cosplay.com/costume/123236/) :D), I'd say that it makes more sense to use a black wig for Lulu for it to be recognizable because in the anime his hair is relatively black. I get anal and nitpicky about certain things, but in the end, it comes down to people recognizing your cosplay as a certain character. Since most people who watch the anime think of Lulu as having black hair, even if it's not pure black (because whose hair is?), if you choose a brown wig because when you zoom in on it and look at it by itself, it looks brown, people will definitely confuse you for Suzaku. Or Rollo. (I was thinking of doing Rollo, and I was having a similar problem of trying to figure out how to distinguish him from Suzaku...)

As for the colored shadows, most of the time, they're just shadows :D The only time I've felt the need to include shadows was for Nia (http://www.cosplay.com/costume/117964/) (from Gurren Lagann) because the style of the anime was such that the shadows left as strong of an impression as the actual hair color.

[phyrexians.livejournal.com]

genes :D.

either marianne carries the gene for brown hair or charles does. Its not unheard of, specially with all the possible gene combinations :).

[firebird-88.livejournal.com]

Oh wow. O_O;; I did not know that, lol. I'm legally blind in one eye due to lazy eye but colors have always been very clear to me, so I didn't see that. XD Sorry! Yeah haven't heard of the one-eyed thing either...

[rainbow-cnxn.livejournal.com]

...

Black.

Okay, granted, there is no such thing as "black" hair. (I'm Asian, and although my hair is "black", it's actually a really, really dark brown, and you can sorta see the brownish red undertones when I'm standing under a bright sun.)

In that case, you can say that Lelouch has really, really dark purple hair. But for all intents and purposes, it's black.

Purple's not a real hair color, you say? Well, neither is green or pink or fuchsia.

[diamond-vesper.livejournal.com]

I don't think its black... I think its dark brown... if you look at Li Xingke, his hair colour is different from Lelouch... I think Li Xingke has black hair... Now, I think its more of dark brown, but its not really the common dark browns we usually see... I read through wiki and I found some similar colours... called taupe or sepia... or mixture of those kind of browns... well, I think its somewhat more darker (as in a bit more black) of those colours... now the pictures of Lelouch show many different shades, but I think mostly, it is brown, rather than black.

[kanasaii.livejournal.com]

Lelouch's hair colour did make me ponder for abit when I was working on his costume. But eventually I went with black, because toys, official goods carry black haired lelouch :)

It's very common to see newtype, ashford graphic, and any other illustrations carrying tint of brown, grey or purple because those are supposedly 'highlights' to give hair volume in 2D perspectives.

So plain-minded-ly, LELOUCH HAS BEAUTIFUL BLACK HAIR.
It's often better not to crack nuts just to argue about his hair colour.

Also thought it this way, if Suzaku has brown hair, why would they want Lelouch in some half-assed brown, dark brown, blah brown?

Come on, he is the 'dark prince' give him his smexy black locks XD

[zalem.livejournal.com]

Christ, black, dark brown...who cares? I can't believe those cosplay people are even arguing over such a silly thing. They should just pick a wig color and be done with it. I highly doubt anyone will care.

[ikui.livejournal.com]

Well being asian and going to a school full of them, there really are different types of black hair and some come off looking as a dark pale brown. Ultimately though? Dark dark brown hair = Black hair so yeah Lulu's hair is black.

And as for the question of why brown in some art? Well I digital colour as well so I know that to even dare and colour anime hair as pure black in certain styles of pictures just makes the hair look flat so then artists op for different colours like dark brown or dark purple and then add in black highlights. In other words, they are just adding shape to his hair and it is really black.

[waterpuzzle-.livejournal.com]

Ahaha. Even as a Lelouch cosplayer myself, I have to agree with you. An argument for that is indeed rather silly. Especially with Lelouch, whose hair color is so obvious, whether it be black or black with dark purple tint or dark brown tint.

And, yes, like most Lelouch cosplays, I also use black for mine (http://lunarloopcosplay.deviantart.com/art/CG-Lelouch-82121109).

[nomoreprinces.livejournal.com]

Well I just took the RGB values off the official site's artwork. Lelouch's hair breaks down to:

red: 22%
green: 18%
blue: 19%

It leans toward purple-ish more than brown. If it were brown, that green % would be bigger than the blue %. As it is with each value so close to each other, it's more of a slightly reddish dark, dark, gray.

[honou-no-izumi.livejournal.com]

My hair is Black and it seemed dark brown under the sunlight but it's still undeniably Black. Same as Lelouch's hair. Even if I am slightly color blind I still knew black when I see it. XO

[keele-san.livejournal.com]

IMO it's black... or uber dark brown like my hair... but it really looks black... when light hits my hair at certain angles only then it would look brown.

I agree with the others that the purplish/brown tones only give shape to Lulu's hair, or else it would really be flat.

besides, a black-haired Lulu looks better for me xD

srsly, cosplay.com peoplez are too anal about the hair color >_> I bet if it was a CC cosplay, they won't mind if it's shocking neon green or yellow-green as long as its a light green >_>

[fulguratus.livejournal.com]

WTF?!? I by accidently voted for Dark Brown instead of voting for Black. >.>

So yeah! One of those Dark Brown votes is actually one for Black.

And honestly, WTF, I don't comprehend why there's arguing. I mean I could maybe see the dark purple argument but dark brown . I mean I can understand I guess but I too looked at official pictures and it's very black.

[sevthebat.livejournal.com]

Okay, these people are clearly neglecting the fact that anime ≠ real life. (And from cosplay.com, why does that not surprise me?)

It's very difficult to shade black hair in an art style that uses black line. Using dark shades of grey as a "black" color makes everything look desaturated, and you can't use a solid #000000 black because the detail in cel-shaded art is achieved 90% of the time through line, and the rest of the time through highlights. So excuse Sunrise for wanting the details of their protagonist's hair to be, y'know, actually visible and choosing to go with a purplish/redish "black" some of the time.

His hair is obviously supposed to be black, or if not then very, very close to it. =_=;

[ohariko.livejournal.com]

They forget that alot that in anime, black isn't always black. Like in D.Gray-Man, Kanda's hair and Lenalee's hair is tinted with blue or green shades, but their hair isn't that color. It's black.

[sevthebat.livejournal.com]

Exactly. They ought to open up all the images of black-haired anime characters in a color picker some time.

As an aspiring artist who has actually been paid to do cel-shading on a per-hour basis (i.e., as a job, not a one-off commission), I'm telling you that it would be impossible with CG's art style for Lelouch to have pure black hair and not look ridiculous. The black might not actually be there, but it's implied.

[sapphirus.livejournal.com]

Sad thing is that Charles' hair is all curly white now. :( We can't tell unless we make the supposition that given V.V.'s and all of Charles' other offsprings' light hair, then Charles also had light hair.

...That actually makes Lelouch the black sheep.

[sapphirus.livejournal.com]

...W-what Duke? D: ???

[sapphirus.livejournal.com]

:O I wanna know who's genes involved pink hair! But then with C.C.'s green hair and Mao's white...

:( Oh anime, you and your crazy colours.

[lockon-dynames.livejournal.com]

Lulu's hair is black.

[sapphirus.livejournal.com]

And I think the first prince's hair was a pale brown?

The pink hair though... There's no such thing as mixing white with red to make pink, is there?

[sapphirus.livejournal.com]

That's only if there's two recessive genes and no dominant ones, right? :< I...I don't remember my HS biology enough to play with genes like that.