As a personal preference, I, as a woman, have always loved blue eyes. Deep dark blue to bright crystal blue, I could gaze into those fascinating orbs in a man’s face all day. Followed at a close second with green/hazel eyes (especially when accompanied by rich, auburn hair–heavenly!). Brown eyes, however, I have never cared for–no offense to the majority of folks out there.
Yes, according to my research, brown eyes dominate our population, both male and female. So much so, that an article I just read–while researching eye color for my last novel,–suggests that in the not too distant future everyone might have brown eyes due to genetics.
But for now, we have variety. And I, as a romance writer, take full advantage of the range of colors available for me to make my heroes and heroines distinctive. Though I have a fondness for blue eyes, so far I only have one hero with sapphire blue eyes, Geoffrey Longford in my current WIP. Strangely, I have two heroes and a beta with brown eyes. You wouldn’t think that, since it’s not my favorite, but that’s how the characters were revealed to me–my muse must like brown eyes, then. J I do have one prospective hero who will have green eyes and blonde hair–and he’s going to be a handful!
My heroines are more varied–I’ve had crystal blue, warm brown, and steel-gray eyes for those ladies. Perhaps in my mind eye color is an indicator of character. I described another beta hero as having “moonlight blue” eyes, thinking pale and cool, because he is a cool customer.
I have had fun, trying to figure out different eye color descriptions–you can’t just say blue or brown all the time. So I’ve actually resorted to optometrist’s charts of contact lens
colors.
Some of them sound really cool, others have given me ideas about what color a character’s eyes could be. My favorite fanciful color is Caribbean Aqua (I had that color contacts at one point in my life!), although one chart had Romantic Violet. This chart is where I got the idea for “moonlight blue” for my beta. The color was perfect for him.
If you really want to get detailed oriented, you can figure out the probability of eye color within a family, if you’ve written your hero or heroine with a lot of siblings. You can find the Athro Eye Color Generator here if you want to play around with the combinations it takes to have various siblings with different colored eyes. I did this with my green-eyed soon-to-be hero, because everyone else in the family had brown eyes and I wanted to make sure green eyes were a possibility for him. (They were.) But did you know that two blue-eyed parents cannot produce a brown-eyed child? I’m using that little piece of knowledge in one of my works also. You wouldn’t think that eye-color genetics was such a goldmine for romance writers, would you?
So how do you come up with eye color for your characters? Does your muse dictate? Do they just spring forth, like Athena from Zeus’s head, eye and hair color already established? Do you use color charts like me? I’d love to know how you “catch their eye.”
Jenna Jaxon Romance--because passion is timeless. 
Everyone in my family has blue eyes. My heroes and heroines eyes are blue, green, amber and gray. I think that eye chart is wrong. The color of the water here is very turquoise.
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I love dark eyes and hair, and usually give my leading characters dark brown hair and eyes or sable hair and raven eyes. I also have a fondness for dark green eyes. One of the families in my Atlantic City books has a number of women with red hair and purple eyes (usually described as amethyst). So far, only one guy in their family has gotten the red hair and purple eyes.
The stepfather of the female protagonist in my Russian novels has heterochromia, as do her baby halfbrother and the oldest child of one of her stepsisters (so far). In the three of them, the condition manifests itself through one blue eye and one brown eye. In the second book, one of her stepfather’s remaining missing daughters is able to recognize him, after 12 years apart, because of that unusual ocular condition.
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My mother has gray eyes. They’ll go from stormy with hints of blue (if she’s wearing blue) to battle ship gray when she’s angry. I gave my hero in my depute book, Windswept Shores, gray eyes because of my mother and also my father’s dimples.
My dad has plan old chocolate brown eyes and so does my sister and brother. My daughter has her dad’s big brown eyes with flecks of green in them.
Here the funny thing about genetics, I was born with sky blue eyes, like both my grandfathers, but unlike both of them my eyes turned to green at around seven years old. I’ve talked to other people with green eyes and they told me the same thing, their eyes changed color at around seven. My science teacher said that it was because there was an equal balance between brown and blue in my family. So in this case brown and blue make green.
Janice~
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I LOVE rich brown eyes. I have hazel, my mom has hazel, my sister has hazel, my dad has blue, my youngest bro has brown–a really incredible brown–and my older bro has blue.
When I was younger I didn’t like my hazel eyes–I thought they were plain just like my plain, mousy brown hair. Now that my hair colour is livened up, I love my hazel eyes that sometimes look more green and sometimes more yellow–depending what colour shirt I’m wearing.
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My husband and both have dark blue eyes…our daughter’s are hazel. A prof at my college told me this ain’t possible. Um, yeah, it is….! LOL
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Two recessive genes.
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Quite a useful post, Jenna!
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I love all eye colors from light to dark. I usually pick based on the hair color. In my family we have every color. I’m green, two daughters are blue and hubby and son are brown. And none are the same shade. So I never gave it a second thought about different colors for family memebers.
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Growing up I used to think I was abopted because I was the only one with brown eyes. My dad had blue eyes and my mom’s were hazel. My grandmother had brown eyes, but I really didn’t think much of that. I just knew I was different. Even my skin tone was darker than everyones. What do you think?
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Great article, Jenna. I bookmarked the link you gave us, and found a few others that show some intriguing combinations, especially for a paranormal creature. Thanks for posting this.
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I did study genetics in university so am aware of the brown/blue issues. However for my devil I gave him brown eyes – pools of brown–this is based on a boy I went to primary school with, Robert. he had the best brown eyes I’ve ever seen My heroine has blueberry eyes with a hint of violet. Not realistic but then who says a writer has to be real? My eyes are grey/blue depending on what I am wearing. Mother’s eyes were green dad’s a bright blue. so the short answer is, yes I also find eye colour important –took me long enough to say that!
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LOL, Sue! That’s ok, I learned a lot. 🙂 Blueberry with a hint of violet sounds perfect for her–an innocent yet old soul. My daughter’s eyes are huckleberry blue and I’d love to have a heroine with that color. But I’m going to have to set a book in the US for that descriptor to work. I think huckleberries only grow in North America!
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Fabulous post Jenna! Personally I tend toward the green, grey, and blue for my heroines, but most of my heroes have brown eyes! Isn’t that interesting….. Never thought about it till now. I think it’s something about big brown gorgeous puppy dog eyes that just gets me! LOL
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A lot of my heroes have had brown eyes, and I don’t know why! I’m not drawn to those. 🙂 But they seem to fit the characters so I’m not going to complain much. Thanks for stopping by, Krystal.
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The eye color usually just comes to me. And usually last! I’ll have the face, the smile, the body..and at some point I’ll find the eyes, too. Green are my fave, by the way.
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I sometimes decide, sometimes it just comes to me too. The muse hard at work I suppose. LOL I love green eyes, too. Thanks for coming by, Kristi. 🙂
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I love giving my heroes and heroine’s eye color. It’s one of my favorite things. Because the eyes are my favorite feature. I love this post. I have more blue eyed heroes than anything else but I have green eyed and brown eyed guys too.
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So are blue eyes your favorite, or the heroes just seemed like blue-eyed devils? LOL It’s one of my favorite things too, Kary. 🙂
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LOL! Isn’t it funny what we authors worry about? Like you I debate endlessly on eye color. For my current wip my hero has brown eyes (or, as I like to call them, chocolate) and my heroine blue (or as the hero likes to call it, navy). The heroine’s brother (who has his own story) also has navy eyes so I kept the eye color in the family.
Gosh, I hope we don’t all go to brown eyes. How boring would that be (no offense to brown-eyed people). Out of the five people in my family only one has brown eyes. The rest have blue and green. Weird.
Great post!
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I think eye-color is one of those details that can suck readers in, so it can’t be underestimated. We are a family of blue eyes, no brown or green anywhere. My parents too. So brown hasn’t won out yet! LOL Though it does have some pretty variations. Thanks for dropping by, Sharon. 🙂
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Great article, Jenna. I think eye color is super-important, too. In my Journey family series, I gave four of the five Journey siblings brown eyes and one icy blue eyes. Most took after their father, the dominant gene, and one took after their mother, the recessive gene. Having a husband who got his Master’s degree in molecular genetics helped me arrive at that possible distribution. There are a lot of variations for brown eyes that I think make them interesting. But my favorite color is green. It’s rare to see vivid green eyes.
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So you have the inside track on all physical type possibilities! Your own personal generator, so to speak. LOL I think eye and hair color, as well as other physical features, shape a character in so many ways and make the reader like or dislike him or her also. Thanks for coming by. I may have to ask your “generator” a question or two sometime. 🙂
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Interesting facts Jenna, thanks. I’m going to bookmark the eye color chart also
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You’re welcome, Lindsay. Glad you stopped by. 🙂
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Great post – love blue eyes also. My daughter once dated a boy who had eyes soooo blue you seen them from across the room.
And as a fellow writer – thanks for the eye colour generator – I book marked that page for future reference.
And as for your hero being green eyes in a family of brown – yes it can happen – I’ve got green eyes and everyone else in my family on my mother and father’s side – have brown eyes.
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Thanks the the affirmation of that, Daryl. I know genetics can be crazy sometimes. My younger daughter has blonde hair and my husband and I both have dark, as does her sister. LOL Glad the generator will be of help to you too!
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