Hide in the Snow at Christmas
And a Merry Christmas to you!!
Hide is an original character to my story Three Kingdoms War, the same story as Nikkita Eurum, the other original character I drew a little while back. Specifically, she is the Sleeping Dragon of the South, monarch of the Kingdom on Nanguo. When first working on the idea of the Three Kingdoms War, I had the concept that her personality would be like Ryuubi from Ikkitousen. She has tremendous power, but a lack of a will to use it, and a fondness of her friends. However, I isolate her a little more than Ryuubi. She has friends, but they are not as close to her as Ryuubi’s sworn sisters. Furthermore, she is a bookworm, but more in the vein of the sort of stories a Sansa Stark might read, not like Tyrion Lannister might read – she loves fantasies and adventures, not histories and academics. She reads a lot, but isn’t what you might consider smart.
When it came to her physical appearance, I wasn’t entirely sure how to go. I knew I wanted her to have a more slender figure. She is active enough, forced into activity by her friends, but wouldn’t necessarily be muscular either. Her power is from her blood, not through training. I wanted her to appear as something of an opposite to Nikkita, so I wanted her chest to be much smaller too. But she will be tall, as tall, if not taller, than Nikkita.
When I decided to push ahead with a firmer conception of Hide, I chose to go with a winter theme. The idea here is that Nanguo is something like the Riverlands of Westeros, maybe as far north as Winterfell, but inverted. In other words, the sea that separates Westeros and Sothoryos is about the equator. Nanguo, which is the southernmost kingdom of Ulthos, would therefore have a region that would likewise be near to the southern pole, the way Winterfell and the Wall are likely somewhere near the north pole. But, I have Nanguo not extend quite as far south as northern Westeros extends north. That means that while there is a part of Nanguo that sees snow and cold, it is not nearly as large a portion as the lands between the Wall and Always Winter.
While not as seasonal as the real world, the seasons in Nanguo, and Ulthos in general, do not last as long as they do in Westeros. You don’t get winters and last years on end. But you also don’t get such extreme weather either. The winter may be long, but won’t get as bitterly cold or have such mountainous accumulations of snow. And the length of the seasons is more even. If spring lasts a year and a half, so does summer, autumn, and winter.
To reflect that, a winter themed image would make sense. And you don’t think winter without thinking Christmas. But, GoT does not have a precise allegorical religion. Rather, each religion introduced holds aspects similar to Christianity. Furthermore, so far as has been shown, the World of Ice and Fire has no holidays. There’s even a question as to how precise their calendar system is.
For Nanguo, however, I felt comfortable making that more firm. The idea of a winter holiday makes more sense for Nanguo since winter doesn’t hold quite the fearful terror it does in Westeros. Additionally, because no one knows when winter will come, or how long it will last, it would make sense that there wouldn’t be a holiday based around or near to it. There might be feasts to celebrate the last harvest before winter, but that would also be questionable in places like Winterfell when you had no idea how long winter would last, so no idea how long your stores of food will have to last, or if you can get more from down south. But Nanguo who has had centuries of semi-regular seasons, would have cause to at least develop some sort of seasonal festival.
So that leads us here, the monarch of Nanguo, in winter garb, in the snow.
Hide is wearing a coat. Specifically, it is a VOA Women’s Lapel Neck Coat. I found it on Amazon when trying to decide on a design for her outwear. It was on sale for $1120 at the time. The only real edit I made to it was to square off the shoulders a little. It’s navy blue in the original product image, while mine is red with the lapel being white. I have her wearing gloves, as would be expected for a noble lady standing out in the cold, particularly while it’s snowing. You can’t see them, but she is also wearing black boots. I made them black to complete the Santa look.
I decided relatively early on that I wanted a somewhat unique hair and eye color for her. I chose to make it a melon color, with streaks of green. She likes lazing on the southwestern shore of Ulthos, reading and snacking on fruits. Her favorite fruit is “summer melon” which is essentially watermelon, but with a harder outer rind like a cantaloupe. It contrasts with “winter melon” which only grows in the cold winter months in the Sanan region of Nanguo. It has more of a honeydew melon coloring to it, but retains the cantaloupe’s outer texture. The inner fruit can either be honeydew melon green, or a light shade of watermelon red. Some varieties, particularly the sweeter ones eaten at the height of ripeness, have green striping to the fruit.
I decided fairly late that I wanted her eyes to be pink, simply because it’s a color I don’t use for eyes much. I carried over the same idea of sprinkling green in her hair to her eyes, adding a green halo around her pupil, though it’s hard to see unless you really zoom in. Hide is also the second character I’ve experimented with white pupils for. I usually do black, a lot of anime color the pupils the same as the iris, there’s only one anime I know of recently that did white pupils. It adds an interesting look, so I might try it again with another character in the future.
I wanted to come up with a new idea for a crown. I don’t know what led me to come up with this design, but the end idea is rather practical. It’s a half-crown, worn on the back of the skull, and held in place by a headband.
The setting is a leisure home. You can imagine it would normally be an open field for jousts or the like if it were a warm spring day instead of winter. She is standing out on a deck, bathed in a fresh snowfall.
There’s nothing else I really wanted from this first piece for a new character. My next project for her will likely be a summery sort of piece that shows a bit more of her physical makeup, such as height and build.
Hide is an original character to my story Three Kingdoms War, the same story as Nikkita Eurum, the other original character I drew a little while back. Specifically, she is the Sleeping Dragon of the South, monarch of the Kingdom on Nanguo. When first working on the idea of the Three Kingdoms War, I had the concept that her personality would be like Ryuubi from Ikkitousen. She has tremendous power, but a lack of a will to use it, and a fondness of her friends. However, I isolate her a little more than Ryuubi. She has friends, but they are not as close to her as Ryuubi’s sworn sisters. Furthermore, she is a bookworm, but more in the vein of the sort of stories a Sansa Stark might read, not like Tyrion Lannister might read – she loves fantasies and adventures, not histories and academics. She reads a lot, but isn’t what you might consider smart.
When it came to her physical appearance, I wasn’t entirely sure how to go. I knew I wanted her to have a more slender figure. She is active enough, forced into activity by her friends, but wouldn’t necessarily be muscular either. Her power is from her blood, not through training. I wanted her to appear as something of an opposite to Nikkita, so I wanted her chest to be much smaller too. But she will be tall, as tall, if not taller, than Nikkita.
When I decided to push ahead with a firmer conception of Hide, I chose to go with a winter theme. The idea here is that Nanguo is something like the Riverlands of Westeros, maybe as far north as Winterfell, but inverted. In other words, the sea that separates Westeros and Sothoryos is about the equator. Nanguo, which is the southernmost kingdom of Ulthos, would therefore have a region that would likewise be near to the southern pole, the way Winterfell and the Wall are likely somewhere near the north pole. But, I have Nanguo not extend quite as far south as northern Westeros extends north. That means that while there is a part of Nanguo that sees snow and cold, it is not nearly as large a portion as the lands between the Wall and Always Winter.
While not as seasonal as the real world, the seasons in Nanguo, and Ulthos in general, do not last as long as they do in Westeros. You don’t get winters and last years on end. But you also don’t get such extreme weather either. The winter may be long, but won’t get as bitterly cold or have such mountainous accumulations of snow. And the length of the seasons is more even. If spring lasts a year and a half, so does summer, autumn, and winter.
To reflect that, a winter themed image would make sense. And you don’t think winter without thinking Christmas. But, GoT does not have a precise allegorical religion. Rather, each religion introduced holds aspects similar to Christianity. Furthermore, so far as has been shown, the World of Ice and Fire has no holidays. There’s even a question as to how precise their calendar system is.
For Nanguo, however, I felt comfortable making that more firm. The idea of a winter holiday makes more sense for Nanguo since winter doesn’t hold quite the fearful terror it does in Westeros. Additionally, because no one knows when winter will come, or how long it will last, it would make sense that there wouldn’t be a holiday based around or near to it. There might be feasts to celebrate the last harvest before winter, but that would also be questionable in places like Winterfell when you had no idea how long winter would last, so no idea how long your stores of food will have to last, or if you can get more from down south. But Nanguo who has had centuries of semi-regular seasons, would have cause to at least develop some sort of seasonal festival.
So that leads us here, the monarch of Nanguo, in winter garb, in the snow.
Hide is wearing a coat. Specifically, it is a VOA Women’s Lapel Neck Coat. I found it on Amazon when trying to decide on a design for her outwear. It was on sale for $1120 at the time. The only real edit I made to it was to square off the shoulders a little. It’s navy blue in the original product image, while mine is red with the lapel being white. I have her wearing gloves, as would be expected for a noble lady standing out in the cold, particularly while it’s snowing. You can’t see them, but she is also wearing black boots. I made them black to complete the Santa look.
I decided relatively early on that I wanted a somewhat unique hair and eye color for her. I chose to make it a melon color, with streaks of green. She likes lazing on the southwestern shore of Ulthos, reading and snacking on fruits. Her favorite fruit is “summer melon” which is essentially watermelon, but with a harder outer rind like a cantaloupe. It contrasts with “winter melon” which only grows in the cold winter months in the Sanan region of Nanguo. It has more of a honeydew melon coloring to it, but retains the cantaloupe’s outer texture. The inner fruit can either be honeydew melon green, or a light shade of watermelon red. Some varieties, particularly the sweeter ones eaten at the height of ripeness, have green striping to the fruit.
I decided fairly late that I wanted her eyes to be pink, simply because it’s a color I don’t use for eyes much. I carried over the same idea of sprinkling green in her hair to her eyes, adding a green halo around her pupil, though it’s hard to see unless you really zoom in. Hide is also the second character I’ve experimented with white pupils for. I usually do black, a lot of anime color the pupils the same as the iris, there’s only one anime I know of recently that did white pupils. It adds an interesting look, so I might try it again with another character in the future.
I wanted to come up with a new idea for a crown. I don’t know what led me to come up with this design, but the end idea is rather practical. It’s a half-crown, worn on the back of the skull, and held in place by a headband.
The setting is a leisure home. You can imagine it would normally be an open field for jousts or the like if it were a warm spring day instead of winter. She is standing out on a deck, bathed in a fresh snowfall.
There’s nothing else I really wanted from this first piece for a new character. My next project for her will likely be a summery sort of piece that shows a bit more of her physical makeup, such as height and build.
Comments
Post a Comment