#berelain

MY ARTISTIC CHOICES (canon corrections welcome)

Berelain is written as one of the most beautiful women in Randland (arguably THE most beautiful vs Lanfear). The boys all love looking at her and the girls hate her guts, but Berelain is someone who knows how to use every weapon in her arsenal, and her looks are high calibre weapons. It’s easy to imagine a beautiful woman, but beauty is subjective and so I only had Jordan’s descriptions of Berelain to go by. They were fairly generic - black hair in shining waves to her shoulders/dark eyes/voluptuous with quite a few of the lads and even Lews Therin admiring Berelain’s bosom. Galad thanks she’s “gorgeous” and I think that’s significant coming from a guy whose probably had his choice of beautiful women since he was old enough to notice them (and for them to notice him). From Galad’s perspetive (written by Sanderson), Berelain has perfect lips and cunning eyes. I think he even notices her eyelashes at some point?

So my Berelain has generically beautiful features. She’s stunning, but it’s so hard to capture that show stopping kind of beauty that Jordan assigns some of his characters. I’m satisfied with how she looks and quite enjoyed painting her face! I didn’t work on the hands as much as I should, and it shows.

I did this one sort of in reverse - usually I painted the outfit and body first, but this time I did the face first, then clothing since I had a strong image of how I wanted Berelain to look, but next to no idea about what she should wear other than the Diadem of the First.

It was her clothing that actually gave me the most trouble. For all of Jordan’s dress describing, he didn’t actually say much about Berelain’s clothing beyond the colour and whether or not her boobs were on display. Since Berelain showing off her assets was a distinctive characteristic of hers, I had to give her a dress that showed off her bust.

There was no real information I could find on what the styles were like in Mayene, but in the Wheel of Time Companion, it says that Jordan based Mayene culturally on the cities of the Hanseatic League, Genoa, and Venice. So of course I had to read up on the Hanseatic League and discovered it was mostly German and other European cities spanning from the 12th - 15th centuries. I gather Jordan probably meant Mayene was like these cities in terms of trading and economics, but I took a look at what women historically might have been wearing at that time.

It was pretty typical “medieval dress”, so I took that and combined it with what I knew about Berelain’s proclivities and came up with a clingy bodycon dress that had a low neckline and left her shoulders bare (she wears shoulderless dresses in the books), The billowy sleeves are my take on those medieval tear drop shaped sleeves that were all the rage back in the 1200’s – Berelain would probably wear something sexier, since a couple of times Rand describes her dress as being something that one should probably wear with a lover. That made me thing of gauzy fabrics. Rand also notes that Berelain dresses are “thin and clingy” silks, and on one occasion he says her dress is “soft blue”. I took that to mean a pale blue colour rather than the texture of the dress being soft, so my Berelain is in a pale blue. I didn’t want to do her in Red (when we first meet her in The Dragon Reborn, she’s wearing red silk according to Mat) since most of the prominent fanart featuring her already has in her in red, and I’d just done Rand in a red coat.

The pattern embellishments on the dress are another concession to medieval fashion. Like with my Rand portrait, I used a pattern overlay for these instead of hand painting the pattern myself.

The Diadem of the First is described in the books as “a golden hawk in flight, resting amid the hair of the wearer, and affixed to a slim golden band”. I’ve got the slim golden band bit down, and after researching what made a Diadem a Diadem and not a circlet or crown or whatever, I went with this style. The Hawk’s wings are intended to sweep back above the wearer’s temples, but I couldn’t be bothered mucking around with more shading and perspective so it may look flat here. I’ve seen other interpretations where the hawk’s wings are the circlet itself, or the hawk is much smaller on the circlet.

I decided that Berelain, whose status is basically a Queen, would be wearing jewelery also!

The actual earrings I’ve given her really exist. You can purchase your own diamond, gold and pearl earrings from Paspaley Jewellery for the low low price of $18,280AUD! I was googling earring inspiration and the Paspaley pearls came up – I’d seen and loved the design before but there’s no way I hell I could afford them, but I can paint them and give them to a fictional character!

I re-used the earring as a matching pendant, and painted the chain link by link. The good thing about a marching earring and necklace set is that I only had to paint the earring once, then I just copied the layer to make more haha. Here are some close ups:

And speaking of pearls, it was a deliberate choice also since Mayene is a costal city, and I’ve read that Berelain holds some parallels to Cleopatra. There’s a famous story about Cleopatra making a bet with Mark Antony that she could host the most expensive dinner party ever. To win the bet, she drops one of her priceless pearl earrings into a glass of vinegar, waits for it to dissolve, and then drinks it. That strikes me as such a smarty pants Berelain thing to do. My Berelain also sort of has Cleopatra vibes since the Diadem gives off Egyptian aesthetics with all their winged motifs. Jordan would be proud of my historical/cultural/mythological layering in this image, I think!

So we have our Berelain! I think Galad's going to have his hands full with her.

I’ve decided that I just can’t do a “Dirty Version” of Berelain. She’s not a fighter, although she does know how to fight. She doesn’t get involved in any battles in the books and is usually at a distance from where the combat takes place. It just feels wrong to cover her in blood and dirt and rough her up (or maybe Rand’s “don’t hurt women” has rubbed off on me?).