edit: Companion piece (Howl Jenkins) can be found here: [link]

Eeek. Where to begin. Well, I just re-read Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones. That is an amazing book; I love it to pieces. I must purchase it the next time I find myself in a bookstore. I would recommend you find it at your local library.

I saw a subbed version of the Miyazaki...but it was mostly a disappointment after the book. Some things I think he imagined really well, but overall, I would have much preferred a closer portrayal of the book rather than some random anti-war propaganda (but it is Miyazaki, so I suppose I should have known better).

Also, I was surprised upon the second reading to find that Sophie actually has "red-gold" hair and is pretty. I missed that the first time around, I think, because in the movie, she's like "I've never been pretty!" and whatever. She's still not as beautiful as Lettie, according to Ms. Jones, but still.

So I wanted to draw a picture of pretty-Sophie with red-gold hair. Except...this didn't really come out the way it should. If I was just drawing some other Edwardian-styled woman, it would be a-okay. But this girl (whose facial features/bone structure was based off of Miss Paraguay 2006--I mean, what? Beauty pageants undermine all our feminist advances in this world!) does not look like she's 18, and she may be a little too pretty (I don't know how I'd draw Lettie) and this picture doesn't really seem to capture her spirit. Actually, if her hair was dark brown (as Miss Paraguay's is), I think she'd look a little Andie MacDowell-ish, but that's probably because I was watching a bit of Greystoke--The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes the other day. My goodness does Christopher Lambert have a big forehead.

I meant for her to be looking shyly to the side in the scene where Howl first approaches her as she's on her way to see her sister, but she looks like's going to faint or something here...but with that corset as tight as it is, she probably is.

And, I need to learn how to shade clothes.



Meh. Anyway, the picture in the background is a screencap from the movie.
Miss Paraguay I sorta based her bone structure off of: [link]
References for clothing: [link]
References for physical descriptions of the characters from the book: [link]