aven-of-astora eclipseprincess
I officially gave up on trying to figure out the pattern on the crown. Anyway, this one took a lot of thinking and effort, because a big part of Gwyndolin’s look is his outfit and not his look.
If you want to see me desperately scramble my brain for memory of all that pretentious symbolism I’m such a sucker for, it’ll be below the readmore.
The first thing I noted about Gwyndolin’s design notes was the mention of Gwyndolin’s worshipers striving for a specific image of beauty; the maiden dancing in the moonlight. As such, I decided I wanted to play a bit with the idea of an outfit who’s general shape would have some character when doing exactly that. Noteably, I wanted vastly different silhouettes between the dancing and the standing Gwyndolin, as illustrated here by lazily editing royalty free cliparts because fuck off I’m not doing action poses for the sake of brief example at 8 in the morning:
The dancing Gwyndolin. The gwyndolin reveling in the moonlight and his own identity. The cloth is showy and flowy, with all the little tassels flowing about to give the frame a frivolous touch. There is energy and joy in the form of self expression. This is the image that his moon-worshippers are instructed to strive for and express in his honor.
The standing Gwyndolin. The Gwyndolin that holds the posture his dad told him to have. Obedient. The cloth lays down over his frame to create something... formless. It is a universal none-figure, only just enough to make out something humanoid, but not enough to tell what kind of creature it is. It’s played as an eerie figure in many works of fiction because it’s so none-saying that it could just s well turn out to be a ghost or a monster or something else terrible and unknown. In short, it is devoid of any sort of identity. This is the form Gwyndolin would have in his daily life around the palace, and the frame all of the other divines recognized him by.
Both frames are the same dress, but expressed with different attitudes, however we only ever got to see one of them expressed. The potential is there, but the permission and self confidence to act out is not. The potential simply lingers in the silk, like a hidden wish that’s never going to be granted.
The other thing I noted was the contrast between the components of Gwyndolin’s outfit.
There seems to be two major themes in the outfit. The white, soft, silken material that creates the dress and shawl - and the heavy golden jewelry.
The pale soft cloth seems like an obvious reference to moonlight and Gwyndolin’s moon aspect. Notably, the material itself is also what looks most comfortable on him. It’s soft and loose-fitted and it matched his hair and skin in colour.
Meanwhile, the heavy, golden, glamorous bling seem much more cumbersome and centered around sun and regal themes.
That crown especially seems ridiculously over-sized and heavy, like the responsibility is weighing down on his head and covering his eyes. Another thing I noticed is that the neck jewelry seems to be an arrangement of a collar and chains. There are wings on it, but they seem heavy and slouched - not particularly liberating in any case.
I could be analyzing wrong, but I thought the idea of the cloth representing the moon and the jewelry representing the sun (and Gwyn’s influence on him) was neat so I decided to incorporate it.
A young Gwyndo wouldn’t have been crowned and given the authority of “retaining the sun” yet, so I decided to exchange the sunny spikey parts for something else, but I wanted to retain the weight and discomforting feel of it. As such, the “crown” and bracelets were designed with shackles in mind, heavily weighing down on the silk to keep it flying around freely. The veil, for instance, is held entirely in place by an especially heavy and glorified shackle. Meanwhile the necklace is a direct reference to Gwyndolin’s back-wings.
As for the clothing items themselves, I decided early on to give him a veil - in part because both he and his sister has one, but also in part as a way to hide away his face from the world - and covering much more of it than the crown does. The jewelry adorned after he gained his own authority. I also liked the imagery of grieving women, as if the child carries around a sense of tragedy in his wake.
sunlight-solaire was also kind enough to point out the borderline ghostly imagery going on. As if something silent and ominous, yet not quite there is walking the halls. Something that’s best ignored when possible. Nothing’s imperfect wrong here. That sound was just the wind.
The dress itself is a mixed inspiration of the gown medieval children (of both genders) would wear until they were around 7, and some inspirations from old designs of princess Zelda. The sleeves and folds on the dress though, are made to be loose and roomy like the original design, but with the image of curtains in mind.
I know Gwyndolin has his snakes on display in the game, but this is when he’s in charge and the snakes are fucking long at the time. I could imagine him being required to hide them away as much as possible when he was younger. Thus the snakes and face are both hidden away by the veil and the skirt. As if there was a curtain pulled on the individual parts of Gwyndolin’s appearance. To hide it away behind the soft feminine image tailor-suited to him by his father.
Originally, I was gonna have the veil be mildly see-through, but then it started looking uncomfortably like a wedding-veil, and that’s terrible. This is much better for hiding the face anyway though, so I’m happy. As well, I like to think the overall look I ended up with seems to fit in very well with the maiden imagery Dark Souls have presented so far.. minus the ridiculously oversized shackles.
Because while it’s not the responsibility of a crown just yet, it’s still an enormous weight hanging down on his head.
I’m sure there were more things or better way to put all this but I am sleep deprived so I will go for now. Later ya’ll, and sorry, but the other kid requests are not gonna get nearly as much attention.
