One of the things they changed with the most recent patch was to make eyelash color match the hair color choice. Not just for Minthara but for custom PCs as well.
This was a terrible choice, since it makes the eyelashes just look like a bad eyeliner application depending on the hair color you choose.
Whiteout for mascara is fine for D&D fashion week, but in that case they should make eyelashes a separate field in the appearance tab the way the eyeshadow is handled, since now I can't stand looking at any character with white hair, because of what it does to the eyes. I'm sure it was meant to add another layer of detail/realism to the face models, but it ends up just looking poorly rendered now.
Um... actually you can still choose black eyelashes in the hair options with white and many other colored hairs. It's in your character creation "appearance" options.
I wasn't able to see any appearance option that governed this consistently. With the "All colors" tab selected most colors will still show dark lashes. For the lighter shades there are some pairings of similar colors one of which affects the lashes and brows, and the other which doesn't. If you deselect the "All" to show only natural colors there are only a couple light grays that do it. I guess it's the look they must want her to have, but I think she looked better before for the reasons above.
All the whites still blow out the hair though and give those artifacts. The lashes look the same for the all the color choices that affect them, they break up at the edges except for when viewed in the super zoom. I think its mainly the opacity. They need to knock it back and soften it up, so the hairs are more transparent. That would help to prevent the scatter effect when its being animated and the hairs are bouncing around. Right now its like you can see it pixelating by individual strands. Particularly stark when the hair is white shown against a darker eyeshadow or skin tone or set against a dark backdrop or feature of the environment. The environmental lighting also doesn't seem to carry as well when bouncing off the hair. The chroma seems to change more than the value in dim light for example, which is a little wonky. Its only really noticeable like this because its otherwise rendered out pretty well and the modelling in this game is pretty gorgeous, so it stands out more by comparison I guess.
I think the purple worked better for a couple reasons, but mainly because we perceive color relative to the other colors around it. Since we see her usually indoors during most cutscenes and in orange lighting from flames, the purple made a nice complementary contrast. You can see it in the screens a few posts above. Instead of appearing cool against a warm backdrop, now she looks warm against a warm one, because of all the oranges and reds carrying through. It makes her eyes more red as well. Its subtle but I noticed for sure. Orange and Green lighting is classic horror, and I think her purple gear worked nicely against it. The trim on her new gear makes it look more like a button up shirt than armor. I think they should hit the drawing board again.
The main reason she looks better in the cutscene screenshots above, as opposed the convo shots above, is because she is being backlit there in the cinematics, which obviously makes her look more ominous and badass hehe. To see the difference you'd need the same shots side by side. She's not as bad as the convo pics above would suggest, but the changes still stand out pretty markedly. It was kind of a curious choice.
If they really want her to look more badass, they should dress her in black. Black threads, Indigo/Purple skin and White hair with a tiny flash of red from the belt jewel and her eyes. That is a pretty classic villainous look and color combo. Really hard to top I'd think. Unless they want to go Black with hints of Green, which is witch-queen classic, that might also be cool. But I kind liked the purple they had initially, much more than the red-orange-purple at any rate. They basically inverted the main color-values of her outfit. Now the areas that used to appear light seem more muted, and everything comes across in the midrange, instead of setting up a nice contrast. You can see it in how the collar and trim look now relative to each other, and how the rings and decorative metallic parts of her shirt now look flattened out and more like a cloth pattern. Especially the detailing on the arms. The first read was much more dramatic.
Not to over scrutinize MInthara's looks, I'm sure if they took away Halsin's guns or locks they'd probably get a similar response haha. I think she has a memorable face and voice and makes for a solid B villain. She's more Shar-Teel than Viconia. I was kinda surprised when she ended up being a Cleric and not just some skull cracker haha. It's more the ancillary elements in her design that they could play up though I think. I liked the raggedy sleeps-where-the-goblins-sleep vibe of her first haircut, but I think they could go next level with it. If she was dressed in all black in the opening scene when the Nautiloid is crashing, I think it would make her seem like a more serious threat and general point of interest. Cause you'd know immediately she was all darkside cutthroat murderess for sure in that case. Give her a sword, and it's like done deal!
