The Wintersmith

[tealin]

The Wintersmith! I finally got around to reading the book* and this was one of my favourite images. It started out as a speed painting but was kind of blah so I bounced it off a friend of mine and his suggestions got it to where it is now. Tadaa! I'm also mulling over some sketches of other characters but I don't know when those will be along.

*how bad a fan does that make me?

Comments

Accent on Accents

[thefordmustang.livejournal.com]

I always like reading your opinions. Ultimately, I think if they made a movie of "Going Postal" I would prefer someone unknown and European if I were the ruler of the world.

Wow, I am not the only one who thinks that about Moist has a slight accent? I thought I was the only crazy person on the planet. I am probably affected by my experiences growing up foreign in the USA and now being surrounded at work by people who are either from outside the USA or grew up foreign in the USA. I certainly agree with your statement about schooling and that people can learn to hide accents, but depending on the age of learning another language will always have a basic accent that comes out from time to time. I am not a linguist, but I have read that the best time to learn a language without an accent is up to about 5 years old, but after that people will always have an accent. It gets less noticeable over time, but it is always therein the background. People do learn how to hide it with concentration, but they will drop back into it as their natural way of speaking when not concentrating. I like to think Moist is a natural mimic and probably quite good at picking up languages- it would be fun to hear him be able to switch accents and speech mannerisms with his different personas, but he still has this "self" accent that he finds himself falling into, especially when he is forced to be himself (to me so much fun of the book is him learning how to be himself- the accent would be a symbolic way of doing that). So, yes, he could pass himself off as one of the locals, like as Mr. Spangler he would seem at first to be from Ankh Morpork, but when he is caught off guard by Vetinari he would slide into his native accent because the situation would have shocked him out of concentration. But then when he's on the run he's right back into using a fake persona. But eventually he would start being more and more himself. Even so, I don't want to give the impression he would stand out, especially in a multicultural city like Ankh Morpork. He has lived there for a long time. I rather picture him speaking more like someone who has been living abroad and not using his native language for a long time. It's like what I hear from the people at work. Many of the Swedish and Norwegians here at work speak with British or American accents, but then you start hearing an odd, very charming turn of the phrase or a lilt in a word that makes them sound slightly exotic. That is how I would imagine Moist as speaking when he is being himself. It comes off as being charming rather than strange.