Dwarves and Womanhood

Female Dwarf Barbarian
Rough Sketch
Graphite on paper

I used to play role playing games years ago. In the fantasy genre, you can find thousands of female Elves to one female Dwarf image. While it isn't particularly fair, I understand some reasons that may be a contributing factor. Female Dwarves are famous for having facial hair and more masculine features than their Elven peers. Dwarves in general are short and stocky. Their skulls are shorter and wider. It is very difficult to keep all that is written about them true, while making sure they are female in appearance.

This is just an exploration of what my mind says a female Dwarf might look like. I think of them as short stocky Amazon women, or maybe along the lines of those tough pioneer women. Very proud, very tough, yet very much female in the way they think. In my opinion she is just not thick enough. Of course, most of the reference I had was skinny women. Compared to them, she is a brute. This is a good start, I suppose.

This is an interesting contrast from the Aachen study. Those women are very round. So what makes a woman feminine? Is it just her brow/eye area? Is it her cheeks? Her lips? Can you broaden a chin and add whiskers to a face and still recognize it as a woman? These are all great things to think about and explore while I work on this painting.