I grew up in an era where women in stories and movies (if there were any) inevitably screamed, fainted, or mysteriously “lost” their clothes under stress! Women were expected to look to men for help and protection, and the vast majority of the exciting and adventurous stories I was exposed to were purely from the male point of view. I enjoyed them nonetheless, but I longed for a female voice in my head. In truth of course women have always been resilient, capable, and intelligent and now I am loving that there are myriads of strong women characters to be seen in books, movies and TV programs reflecting that.
With all that in mind I created two warrior women characters for my story, to be hunters and protectors for their community.
Rowan and Amber are close friends and skilled archers. You might notice Rowan is a lefty! Amber is tall and serious, she loves weapons of all kinds. All my characters are into archery but Rowan is also a capable medic. Both girls are devoted to Zahrah, my scholar character.
Each of my characters starts out as a vague idea in my head and this is my material starting point - a dull collection of sculpture wire and wool. Once I start making the character the wool takes over and dictates a lot of what happens. Add a lot of imagination… tons of time… a few needle felting and sewing skills of course and ….voila! - a character is born.
Each of my warrior women took about a week to make, but even after I think they are finished I often keep going back and making little adjustments - perhaps more wool on the face, or limbs, more hair, or just a lot more felting. I don’t name them until after they are pretty much complete. At that point I go through a list of possible names and see which one the character wants to have. I wanted my community of warrior women to be inclusive so I relished making a darker skinned girl. She’s made from a luscious brown colored wool called Chestnut. The purple hair was an afterthought - I have so many lovely little bits of colored wool it would be a shame not to use them!
I decided to make Rowan pale and red haired - representing my touch of Irish ancestry. I had intended for both warrior women to have the same “uniform”, and I half made a dress the sam as Amber’s for Rowan, but she decided on something a little different. I didn’t argue - I am always guided by what my characters really want! ;)
After I had dressed the warrior girls and given them bows and arrows, Amber absolutely had to have a short sword. Once again I used up some wine bottle foil to create a sword blade, glued it to part of a cocktail stick, which I then decorated with a bead and leather wrap. The faux red leather I bought from JoAnn Fabrics is lovely to work with and very easy to sew. I made a nice little scabbard for Amber’s sword and attached it to a belt. For an idea of scale the sword is 3 inches long. In my story Rowan has to carry medical supplies so I created a backpack for her based on the one I made for Nieva. The back pack contains some medical “instruments” in the form of tiny scalpels etc. and will have medicines and bandages in it eventually.
I haven’t got to photographing the scenes of the story where my warrior women come in, I’m still busy with Nieva and Affie’s adventures. However, here’s a little scene along the journey where Affie learns archery. I wonder if she will get on well with the warrior women?
