shwetanarayan:woh-battameez:shwetanarayan:And done!So this is my attempt at a steampunk Indian chara
shwetanarayan:woh-battameez:shwetanarayan:And done!So this is my attempt at a steampunk Indian character. I was irritated into it by bad depictions of Western-aesthetic-pretty Indian Girlies in fake saris. Her hair is partly “inspired” by the Indian-rapunzels, because like Battameez, I cannot imagine an Indian woman with that much hair left unbraided. I’ve tentatively named her Amrita Bai, but that’s probably not period-accurate so it’s subject to change as I do more research. Her family’s from Tamilnadu, & are Vishwakarma caste (specifically metalsmiths, I assume), but they moved to one of the forts under Shivaji’s control, and she’s training under a mechanical artificer there. — All subject to change as I do more research. (Plz do tell me if this is faily somehow…)Real saris are hard. And group-specific; this is a Tamil-brahmin 9-yard sari, and probably not quite period accurate but I’m not sure how it’d be different. No blouse, because this is from my no-British-Raj alternate India. I haven’t actually worn a 9-yard sari myself, so I’m not at all sure I have the folds right on this one. But I did get input from my mother, who has. Anyway ya know what’s not hard? Making her skin dark. I find that dark skin is so much easier to get looking human rather than zombie than pale skin is, so extra wtf to those whitewashers who say it’s haaaard.And now I run off to the doctor.OH MY GOD SHWETA THIS IS PERFECT. CAN I WRITE FIC TO GO ALONG WITH IT. OH MY GOD *BREATHLESS* :DBut, ontological question, if you write fic of my original character before I manage to write my story about her, which one is the fic?(I want to run thoughts about that story by you if that’s okay sometime btw, not that I’m well enough to write yet but hey! Apparently I’m well enough to draw again, which is HUGE, so maybe soon!)ETA: Name and sari do need more work — they are not caste-period accurate (hmm, must chew this over) BUT OH MY GOD. Yeah the earliest sari reference I could find is early 1900s, which is of course way too late. But *something* like it seems eminently practical for engineering work. Must make use of university libraries. & problem with Tamil names that are actually period will be getting Anglophones to parse them at all - but that is also true for those foreign Maharashtrans XD So her name could get shortened, as mine & my brother’s did, because these northerners can’t pronounce proper Tamil names only (I was Shwetambari, he was Saratchandra, we became Sharad & Shweta).btw I invented the changeable-size wrench because the pipe wrench is a) Western and b) not invented yet XD She needs her own TV series. Seriously. I feel like this is the type of character that can revolutionize the entertainment industry. -- source link