King of the Mine

 A dwarf built every now and then keeps one healthy and brisk. This began with the simple idea of using the classic castle panels with the half-timber/fachwerk printing. It reminded me of some great dwarven coat designs from the Hobbit films. The character design and crafts are pretty much the best those films have to offer; I can barely watch them now, but occasinally I browse through my art books of them.

Here, the main design challenge was to find the right balance between prestige and mundaneness. Most dwarves seen on fiction are dressed for war, with axes and chainmail and occasional iron helmet, but I wanted none of that. This is a dwarf at home. But it is not an ordinary worker dwarf, either. I like Pratchett's notion that there are hundreds of dwarf kings, as every mining colony of led by a king (no matter of sex of the King). Thus, the title could be better translated as a chief mining engineer. That was the mood I aimed for. 

Regular bright red is not the most common choice for a task like this. To make the whole look harmonious, I used rich but earthy hued of reddish brown and dark orange, with some complementing dark tan fur to add sense of prestige. There's also a printed belt or a cummerbund with a flame pattern. I framed the half-timber panels with black to make them look complete, and added a rim of metallic gold - the most prestigious colour there is - to make it look a bit less like a lumberjack's flannel shirt. Finally, a light bley beard and hair added some complementing coolness to the otherwise warm scheme. It also fitted the elderly feel I wanted to capture. Eyebrows are especially crucial to expressive faces. They are dark bley to stand out from the hair. The character's status required some jewelry, and trans-clear opals were mundane (yet beautiful) enough, while not making the dwarf look too over-groomed with gold and gilt.

The structure is unusually complex, as I wanted to have a slight angle on those panels. The same angle continued to the legs to make the character feel natural and down-to-earth. This created a challenge in the ankles, which now required a slight angle. I used one of my pet parts, the ball turret socket, to create this shape. Not the first time I've done this with dwarf boots, and certainly not the last.

-Eero.