Dark Elves

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

No idea. Blame Gary Gygrax when they developed Drow for AD&D? 

[toxicpixie]

Becuase they live underground and are eeeevviiillll! The black helps them blend into the darkness... and be more eeeeevvvviiiilllllll!

[jchaos79]

Yep two good explanation.

Maybe toxicpixie's answer is less academic but is more convincent.

I didn't released that blue eeeevvvilll dudes comes from D&D and pale skin tone comes from GW world.

Thanks!

[Lord Kermit of Birkenhead]

Shades of Blue Meanies - from "Yellow Submarine".

IanS

[O Dinas Powys]

I think it derives from the comic convention of shading black with blue, eg Superman's hair or Judge Dredd's uniform.

Gygax's drow were conceived as appearing like a photographic negative of a regular elf, hence black skin, white hair and eyes. He may even have used negatives to illustrate the weird, unlearthliness of their colouring.

The first place I remember seeing blue dark elves was in 1^st Blood Bowl, the playing pieces were cardboard stand-ups with a cartoony  illustration. The Darkside Cowboys were also shown as blue-skinned in the Blood Bowl 2 rulebook, although from the figures painted in White Dwarf and other illustrations pale skin was the more common choice.

Cheers,

Meirion

[O Dinas Powys]

PS If you have an iDevice you can turn the screen negative by triple-tapping the button.

I've just had a play and real, colour photos of white skin come out blue 

Illustrations can come out blue or grey, presumably depending on the pigments used and the surface they were painted on.

Who'd have thought! 

Cheers!

Meirion

[toxicpixie]

That's quite cool

Fits with Gygaxs' initial conception of "Dark Elves" - or as described, Black... from wiki from the 1st Ed. MM -

They are said to be evil, "as dark as faeries are bright"

Fighting Fantasy also had "Black Elves" IIRC who were the same, but I suspect Warhammer went from dark skinned ones to light when they got the mythology rolling and Dark Elves are dark because of their actions, but are pale because they're the pallid Arctic dwelling on-copyright infringing totes not stolen from D&D y'all versions of the already somewhat pale and wan High Elves...

Interestingly in Tolkeins conception "Dark Elves" just referred to Elves living in the shade of forests and trees, then was used for those who didn't travel West to see the Light of Valinor, as opposed to eeeeeevvvvviiiiiil "anti-elves".

[Ithoriel]

Alan Garner's Svart Alfar (Black Elves) are black & white, piebald goblinoids. So many colour schemes to choose from!

[toxicpixie]

I like Garners Svarts, they tick a nice Scandanavian style
Of dark elf / goblin for me, even if the Norse dark elf is more "dwarf" as we'd probably understand from D&D and Tolkien!