| sumi on showa can be very sexist! If you are talking males and females your opinion must remain fluid and within context.
Some showa fish from front to back and others, from back to front.
Kage is a much abused term! there is a 'kage pattern' which is not unlike kanoko in beni. It is a real reticulated pattern to the sumi. Unfinshed sumi however is just that- unfinished. People seem to now and recognize deep beni stars in young beni plates ( thanks to Tosai Sakai's teachings) as part of beni development overall. But they have not, as of yet, come to recognize sumi development within a region of sumi.
It is helpful to look at sumi development this way- sumi gathers together around a center point within skin. But the skin is also growing and covering these gathering cells making then seem to disappear as the skin deepens and covers the sumi concentration. So as a baby is black and then all the sumi 'goes down' and then 'rises' again, it is really just layers of sumi cells that are appearing in the new dermis and epidermis being formed.
So males are thinner skinned than females and finish earlier. That is why they are more dramatic and prettier/finished when young. Females will have deep complex dermis and deep dermis with layers of fat cells. And sumi cells are attracted to fat cells as gathering points. So females always will have the densier sumi and the nicer quality sumi in the long run. Not to say that sharp quickly finished males don't have very attractive sumi. But if they don't finish soon they will never finish. That is not kage sumi-- that is poorly concentrated sumi.
In the case of smokely looking sumi in otherwise great females with finished sumi, that is sumi cells traped in layers of skin and not the same as having poor amounts of sumi cells . So for males, it is lack of numbers in a section of skin in a one dimensional situation. And for females, it is a three dimensional issue with either lack of numbers per depth area of skin or dense skin hidding deeper sumi. This gives a different effect. |