Remember the time I did a character design set that was like, "historical Time Lords (as in Time Lord fashion mashup with various real-life historical fashion)?" Well this time I did "historical Time Lords (as in, in-universe Gallifreyan historical figures)."
Could not resist the urge to include a fuckton of character design notes under this readmore because I put a lot more thought into these than one might think 🔥
The characters' ages; for a long time I assumed that Tecteun predated Rassilon & Omega by a lot, but then we know Nwogu!Tecteun knew R and O, and he doesn't look ancient or anything. I do still think Tecteun is significantly older, but I guess less in a "historical figure to the historical figures" way and more in a "generational gap" way.
The Time Lord Triumvirate overall; I tried to like, take distinctive elements of the various (mostly classic Who) Time Lord outfits, and assign them to characters so that if you combined the trio's outfits here you'd get normal Time Lord fashion. Minus the collar. Omega gets the shoulder-thingies and layered sleeves and poncho, Rassilon gets the chevrons and glitter and basque waist, Tecteun gets the renaissance-style slashed puffed sleeves and a hat.
Tecteun; her first incarnation has appeared on-screen. Her appearance here in terms of face & hair is just Baxter!Tecteun. I have no idea how tall Seylan Baxter is, though, so I decided to make First!Tecteun tall because it's fun. Her outfit is flashier than the one she wore in the TV series because this outfit isn't meant to be workwear; this is how she dresses when she's not out in space or in her basement doing medical malpractice. She still carries her work knife visibly, because it wards people off talking to her.
Rassilon; his first incarnation hasn't appeared, though I found some descriptions on tardis.wiki; dark brown hair, bushy eyebrows, "pale" eyes. I also made him short because in some book the phrase "everyone was taller than [Rassilon]" is unironically used, and frankly having him be like 5'7" doesn't feel like enough to warrant that level of roasting. So he's 5'0". The silver face paint/makeup is inspired by how some Time Lords in classic Who wore makeup like that sometimes (which I think they should bring back).
I made him conventionally attractive on purpose because I got really into the headcanon that he was once the sort of person who would be really vain and put a lot of time and effort into his appearance (hence the crazy makeup and flashy hairstyle). However, becoming a Time Lord and regenerating a fuckton of times gradually causes him to stop giving a shit. First!Rassilon would have an Instagram influencer-worthy skincare routine, Mathews!Rassilon forgets he even has a face or hair or a body in general most of the time and has no idea what he looks like.
The androgyny of this design is also intentional. Since Pythian Gallifrey was a heavily gendered matriarchal society, it stands to reason that a lot of common gendered problems in real life might be inverted there. First!Rassilon knows that he'll be taken more seriously as a man in politics (and STEM) if he follows feminine fashion and styling conventions. He probably gets a lot of comments about this sort of thing.
Omega; his style is less flashy than his teammates because unlike these two clowns, he takes himself and his work seriously. He scoffs at the idea of dressing so obnoxiously as Rassilon or Tecteun. (Nobody tell him that all Gallifreyan fashion is flashy to people who aren't from Gallifrey.) This outfit is meant to vaguely convey the vibe of a person on their way to a white collar job interview that they're feeling very awkward and nervous about.
Believe it or not, I got him being 7 feet tall from the Three Doctors novelization of all places. Which explicitly describes him as seven feet. Probably a different incarnation, but the idea of 7ft Omega hanging out with 5ft Rassilon was too funny to resist (hey, maybe he's been that tall multiple times). Cartoon character height difference having ass aliens.
The design for Omega's face comes from a comic called Eltralla. His name may be Omega but he is canonically a gigachad sigma male. I think I accidentally made him look less "ancient Greek polymath" and more "depressed 19th century American novelist" here, but eh.
The Pythia; I tried to go for the same vibe as that illustration of her from Doctor Who Magazine and I pretty much failed. I also failed to capture any kind of classical antiquity vibe. But I think, if nothing else, that I at least succeeded in making a design for her that looks regal and mystical.
I had to resist the urge to make her taller, because she has been described as "tall" and where I live 5'7" is the lower end of average for a woman, but then I remembered that in most of the world 5'7" is tall for a woman and I just live in the land of giants (also known as Edmonton, Canada).
I imagine her veil and sleeves are always billowing majestically, which is done through magic. This character design really betrays that I have played at least one Fire Emblem game.