here’s what i managed to came up with, hope it’s at least somewhat informative:
as you can see, the uniform itself is rather plain-looking, except for the sleeves. i get asked sometimes what’s the deal with the sleeves on my hogwarts uniforms, why do they look like that, how do they work and so on.
the thing is, i really wanted to make it look somewhat traditional, a little bit outdated like everything wizards wear, but also i didn’t want to go for oversized bell sleeves that are commonly depicted on wizard robes (if you’re wondering about the reasoning behind this, there’s none: i just have a very deep and irrational dislike for bell sleeves), so i did some researching and stumbled upon medieval hanging sleeves:
that’s where i ended up drawing my inspiration from. i think they look really neat, plus, as one of my followers later pointed out, with these sleeves there’s a lesser risk to get them dirty while brewing potions, haha
regular sleeves that i draw underneath them are part of the robes, not casual clothes (shirts, tees and whatever is worn underneath the robes is not visible unless you unbutton the collar). the design without them seems more sensible, now that i think of it, but i got used way too much to drawing both hanging and regular sleeves as parts of the robes (although hey, robes without regular sleeves can be a thing for warmer weather)
since i’m no clothing designer, i used to have doubts whether this design is functional/comfortable/sewable/wearable at all, but then a group of really cool people actually managed to cosplay it (click: 1, 2, 3), so i guess it’s not as unrealistic as i initially thought
i’m not very consistent in drawing them and i keep changing little things here and there (fastening, sleeves’ length, etc) all the time, but overall that’s pretty much it!
There is an interesting parallelism that can be drawn between Finrod’s and Galadriel’s ends: both of their lives in Middle Earth end with them realising they are not what they tell themselves they are.
Galadriel is prideful and sees herself as utterly blameless, she flat out states that she will not go back as a repentant exile when her house has no apologies to make, despite the fact that she too went against the Valar’s wishes. It takes her the temptation of the ring near the end of the Third Age to face her flaws fully and be able to realise she does crave power and she would be destructive should she grasp for it. Only then she can go back.
Finrod’s realisation is subtler, but no less devastating. In the Lay he falls when Sauron’s song shows him that the image of himself he is painting with his own melody, the blameless flawless hero that is merely a protector of justice and goodness (which he does identify with the legacy of Valinor himself), is not exactly what he is. He did defy the Valar to wear his own crown, he wanted and would have boarded the stolen ships, no matter how they had been acquired. He is not the symbol of ultimate goodness he paints himself as. Only when he realises that, after his very perception of himself has ‘fallen before the throne’, he can help Beren and gain back his place in Valinor.
Under this perspective both brother and sister have to face their own faults, see what they truly are under the image of themselves they have painted for themselves, before they can fully play their part in a plan to banish evil and be allowed back in their homeland.
Despite the fact that I am not deaf, mute, or blind myself, one of the most common questions I receive is how to portray characters with these disabilities in fiction.
As such, I’ve compiled the resources I’ve accumulated (from real life deaf, mute, or blind people) into a handy masterlist.
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