Technical information:
This is probably the most complicated character for me to work on. I've always been very preoccupied with gender stereotyping. Too often what writers end up doing is taking a male personality and putting it into female body (priss in BGC). To me It's more complicated than just making the girl act like a boy. That doesn't work for me. To me, that only reinforces the idea of undervaluing all things feminine.

This is an attept at valuing the feminine and I have no idea if I will suceed. Some will say I have. Others will condem my efforts. But that is beyond my controle. I can only do my best. And enjoy myself while doing so. I've always made an effort to make sure my male heroes and female heroes were equal. Never dominating one or the other. Domination is, afterall, what I despise the most in us humans.

I work a lot with role reversal. But here, I wanted also to play arround with the idea of beauty as culturally relative. I made her beautiful. But in the story the people actually percieve her as being ugly. Hence the nickname " The ugly which". A kind of symbolic "just because your culture makes your think you're ugly doesn`t mean you are" (I bring this up here because I don 't think anyone will pick up on it as they read the story. and it is just an anecdotal side issue ...)

I made her beautiful using Kai Nielsen's depiction of romantic princesses(Fig6). Kai Nielsen's characters remind me of Matsumoto Leiji's female charcter designs(figs.4,5). So, I let myself be inspired by those aswell. I just hope this character does not offend.

her hair desing comes from a Quebec signer called Isabelle Boulay and the ``big hair`` styles of the 60s..

Her armour is based on Kay Nielsen's princesses and Kenchi Sonoda's Bubblegum Crisis Knight Saber Armours.
I could have given her a more traditional ``male`` armour but with her helmet on , she ended up looking too much like a small Dregonoth. I was looking for a female Dregonoth design. The Dregonoth is wide at the shoulders and narrow at the waist . So , here I did the reverse: narrow shoulders, wide waist.

I also let myself be inspired by the charcter of Shu Lien (Michelle Yeoh) in Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. Ang Lee did an excellent job in my oppinion in depicting this character. She is femminine and can also skillfully kick anyone's butt. (I'm not a big fan of male and female characters behaving like cavemen a la 300...)

. Knowing Ang Lee's Shu Lien was well recieved gives me hope."

fig.1 Felix Quednau 2006

fig.2 Shu Lien (Michele Yeou) 1999

fig.3 Kenchi Sonoda 1986

fig.4: Matsumoto Reiji 2000

fig.5 Matstumoto Reiji 1982

Kay Nielsen 1914