They are just giving us the same options that pretty much every illustrator has used for just about every book cover with a Drow on it. I mean just look at all the Drizzt's out there...
Jeff Easley got him with Blue-Gray skin
Brom and Lockwood had him Purple
Elmore's got him looking all jaundiced and basically Yellow
There are only a few here and there that go full underdark, but even there its usually when he's got his hood up full body shot heheh.
Jet-Black sounds cool as a descriptor, but doesn't translate all that well visually if you're trying to show the forms in 3 dimensions. Minthara is definitely more purple than ebon here, same deal for the default Drow "Who do you dream of?" first option. I agree though the defaults highlighted when you first open the skin tone screen should probably be a little darker on the color scales for Drow characters.
ps. Justin Sweet had the best run I think IWD2. Those are still among the most popular floating around, and closer to the black you're looking for I think. Still its been going down even in this game when you look at Viconia. In addition to making her more classically attractive in the sequel, they lightened her skin from a dark purple, to a light blue. Just kinda the way it looks now in the popular renderings.
Last edited by Black_Elk; 13/10/20 08:48 PM.