I have bred my pastels to a few different types of normals. Mona Lisa is a reduced pattern, light yellowish normal. A real smoker! She was our first ball python and specifically picked because of her light coloration and clean reduced pattern. She bred to our pastel het for SK line axanthic and produced washed out pastels that where nice and light yellow but didn't have the POP you look for in the yellows when you (at least when I) buy a pastel.
Now Lucky was our first animal to bred to. We purchased her because she was large enough to lay eggs our first season instead of waiting for Mona to grow for another year. Lucky is a darker normal female nothing really odd or different except she has a nice dark coloration. (not super dark). She produces the nicest pastels I have ever seen. Her babies POP! They have clean sides and beautiful oranges that gradually fade to a goldenrod yellow. So I prefer darker somewhat reduced pattern females to make pastels with.
Photobucket is doing maintenance right now so I will have to post picks later.
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