I love and hate sideways gradient

I love it because it offers something unique for stick figures but I also hate it because it’s exclusive to regular segments and smooth segments and you have to be very precise with it when curving, becoming costly in sticks. I would also really like a sideways gradient triangle

This all stems from my attempt at making the original godzilla himself, ShodaiGoji. I never thought I’d get stuck at the fucking dorsal trying to make it look good whilst not taking up the entire node count

Tangent aside, this is my progress