the trilling wire in the blood

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.