A matter of great importance

[tardis_stowaway]

Greetings, wise f-list!  I saw a description of Eleven's hair color in an otherwise wonderful fanfic that confused me, since it was vastly different from what his hair looks like to me.  However, it occurs to me that I'm not sure I've looked at Eleven on anything other than my laptop screen, so maybe my colors are off.  However, everything else (like photos of people I know) seems to be colored correctly.  I mentioned it to the author, and she stands by her description.  It's entirely possible that I am crazy!  I look to you to resolve the confusion.[Poll #1585424]
I've deliberately chosen an Eleven-free icon so any coloring effects by the icon makers will not affect your voting.  Feel free to discuss or elaborate in the comments!

Comments

[sahiya.livejournal.com]

Definitely medium brown, as far as I can tell. What did the fic describe him as?

[tardis-stowaway.livejournal.com]

The fic described his hair as black. I'm still scratching my head at that.

[kerravonsen]

There is NO WAY that Eleven's hair is black. Not in a million years, not unless he got stuck in a coal mine.

[tardis-stowaway.livejournal.com]

Ha, yes!

[sahiya.livejournal.com]

That's . . . just not accurate. Weird.

[wendymr.livejournal.com]

Medium? No way! Tennant's I'd describe as medium brown, or maybe chestnut. Matt Smith's is very dark brown, darker than John Barrowman's, and I'd say pretty close to black.

[sahiya.livejournal.com]

Uh. I have to disagree here. It is darker than Tennant's, but I would say it's definitely lighter than John Barrowman's and nowhere in the ballpark of black.

[tardis-stowaway.livejournal.com]

*squints* Matt Smith's hair looks lighter than Barrowman's to me. I'd call it darker than Tennant's, but not by much, and I just don't see it as anywhere near black.

Take home lesson: color perception is highly individual.

[wendymr.livejournal.com]

I'd have to see him and Barrowman together under the same lighting, but *my* colour perception says that Smith's and Tennant's hair colour aren't even in the same universe. How weird!

[mysticalchild_isis]

I don't even describe my own hair as black, and it's definitely darker than Eleven's. (e.g. icon)

[tardis-stowaway.livejournal.com]

Yeah. Lots of people have VERY dark shades of brown hair that still aren't true black, and I don't see Matt Smith's hair anywhere near that end of the spectrum.

[dameruth.livejournal.com]

I'd say medium-to-dark brown.

If you want to set up another poll, you could ask people what color they think his eyes are -- that's another thing that's all over the map on fanfic. I've seen blue, brown (!), green, grey . . .

[tardis-stowaway.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I considered adding eye color but decided that would be too divisive. :) He has those eyes that are an in-between shade, which look different depending on lighting. I'd call them blue, but I can sort of see where the other interpretations are coming from. Aside from the brown, which puzzles me. Even hazel would be a huge stretch, and brown just doesn't match the closeups I've seen.

[skalja.livejournal.com]

It says something about our fannish habits that I know EXACTLY which (very excellent) fanfic you're talking about. XD

I voted medium brown, but that's part "it looks sort of in-between to me" and part "it's never made an impression on me whereas I think I would register light or dark brown hair as such."

[tardis-stowaway.livejournal.com]

t says something about our fannish habits that I know EXACTLY which (very excellent) fanfic you're talking about.

Ha! That's funny.

"it's never made an impression on me whereas I think I would register light or dark brown hair as such."

Yeah. The color of his hair is just rather nondescript. Apparently his hair tries to make up for that with being very noteworthy in shape.. ;)

[skalja.livejournal.com]

Hee!

Actually, I bet I know why zie sees his hair as black -- this season is kinda dark, visually speaking. I mean, everyone's faces are lit just fine, but it doesn't seem as super-saturated as previous seasons and even the day scenes are kinda grey/cloudy. That could just be MY perception, of course.