Ma Xiuying from the Radiant Emperor duology!
Design/research notes under the cut
The characters read 馬秀英 (Pinyin: mǎ xiù yīng), her personal name, and 孝慈高皇后 (xiào cí gāo huáng hòu), her name as Empress.
There's certainly no dearth of material on Chinese clothing history out there. That is, if you can read Chinese, which I can't, so everything I have is from secondary and tertiary sources and/or relies on translation software. Fortunately, we're dealing with historical fantasy here, so some anachronisms are not only allowed but encouraged.
While Shelley Parker-Chan takes many liberties, the books are still set in a very specific time period, which is both a blessing and a curse. Most readily accessible resources will tell you about dynasties, which can span hundreds of years, and the duology takes place in a transitional period. So how to dress a Semu girl from the Yuan dynasty who lives with Nanren rebels wanting to revive the Song dynasty and who later becomes the first Ming empress?
Let's go through them one by one. The best resource was this book which is on the Internet Archive. I disregarded Mongol and Semu influences for the design since clothing is very much political and a way to either stand out or fit in with the surrounding society, see for example Wang Baoxiang wearing a topknot in Khanbaliq. Ma, I imagine, would want to fit in with the Nanren around her, so she's pretty much wearing the attire of Han women under Yuan rule. For the hair I went for something that looks youthful while being plausible, though I found very little on hair in this period, so who's to say.
The next one is from a specific scene in the book, so there is some description to go on: red, long sleeves with gold embroidery, high hair, red and gold ribbons. Since this is the scene where Ma declares herself queen and future empress in front of the Red Turban, it has to be a very deliberate dress. It therefore takes inspiration from Song aristocrats' broad-sleeved gowns as well as from 翟衣 (dí yī), the highest ceremonial gown of both Song and Ming empresses. (Some examples for 翟衣 are in this post, which also features the bird shaped crown I just had to include, and this post.) Her hair still has the loops, but it's much more sculpted.
Finally, Empress Ma! This is mainly based on the two actual portraits I could find of the historical figure that Ma is based on, with elements taken from other portraits and paintings. It includes 凤冠 (fèng guān), the phoenix crown, 霞帔 (xiá pèi), the sash, and 禁步 (jīn bù), the jade belt. This video shows how Ming dynasty layers are worn, but it refers to a much later period so it's not quite the same as Ma's.
(Some additional, historically irrelevant notes: I realized too late that a right-to-left timeline might be more appropriate. Oh well! Also, how the colours photograph frustrates me, I swear I did not make her this deathly pale. And finally, some of the characters look a bit smudged because my cat spilled water on them. I did what I could to save them.)
Mysterious Lotus Casebook 6/?
MLC 1 | MLC 2 | MLC 3 | MLC 4 | MLC 5 LLH 1 | LLH 2 | LLH 3 FDB 1 | FDB2 DFS 1 | DFS 2 JLQ 1 JLQ 2 FEIHUA 1 | FEIHUA 2 | FEIHUA 3 | FEIHUA 4 | FEIHUA 5 | FEIHUA 6 OT3
Gu Xiang
I finished. It won't get any better. Considering I'm still sick, it still worked out well. Aquarius from Roman Szmal, natural W&N sable brushes, white Posca, 100% cotton paper, 300g.
After passing peer review here is my drama recommendation tool
Maybe I will update it in the future but for now I am happy to have watched enough good dramas to make it.
Fluffy slippers >>> sliders (Ew)
I have and use both so
Thinking about how in a way, the identity of Li Lianhua dying was actually for the best, especially if he truly wanted to live for himself.
Li Xiangyi was the street kid unaware of his bloodline, who's adopted by a loving if not slightly dysfunctional (settling your couple quarrels through having the brothers fight to hone their skills was not healthy change my mind) family. And then as a teenager, he defeats this random villain and now he's not just a person, not anymore. He's the fastest sword in the land, he's the leader of the Sigu Sect, and maybe he did establish the sect with the noble intentions of helping people just like his childhood self, but in the end he's a teenager and he becomes a figurehead, a banner, and one command from him could move troops, and he doesn't know how to deal with this much responsibility but he can't delegate it because no one else is competent enough is expendable enough. In the end, Li Xiangyi wasn't living for himself, but for the powerful Sect he established and the ideals he's unwittingly become the figurehead for.
And then he becomes Li Lianhua, and this time it's more obvious that he's not living for himself. His one motive for surviving is to find his shixiong Shan Gudao's corpse, and it's my personal belief that if he'd found his corpse 5 years earlier, he would've buried himself next to his shifu and shixiong within a year. He says he's happy with his more relaxed life, and I'm not saying he's lying, but I also feel like the only way he could enjoy that life without the guilt crushing him was to tell himself "this isn't forever, this doing nothing will end. I can enjoy this because this helps me find my shixiong before I die." But then he finds out that instead of finding his shixiong's body, and therefore neatly tying up all his strings in life, most of what he thought was true is a lie. In a way, he survived only for Shan Gudao, then realized his one motive for surviving was a lie, so really, is there any reason for Li Lianhua to exist anymore, especially when this identity has gotten tangled up with his old life again?
And maybe, a few months after Li Lianhua is publicly considered dead, fortune teller Li will start following Di Feisheng and Fang Duobing around, but that's not part of the narrative. The point is, in order for the narrative to complete itself, Li Lianhua had to die.
The tags are so real, CR Ezreal as a skin and as a character are both the worst things in existence
Chromacrash Ekko and Jinx are supposed to paint white & empty stuff and make it colorful & fun
You know who are in full white outfits….yeah you know where I’m going with this…
Shout out to chengling, man couldn't catch a break throughout the entire thing
I would have suicided long ago in his place so props to him