There are two main characters in this story: the protagonist and Hel. I decided to leave the protagonist unnamed for two reasons. First, the term protagonist is gender-neutral, and I figured there would be fewer unfair assumptions and requests about her character if producers were not aware of her gender firsthand. Second, there is something mysterious and formidable about referring to someone only as the protagonist. She would have a name if this project were green-lighted by a studio. That name would be Icelandic and easy enough for non-Icelandic speakers to pronounce (Icelandic is infamous for its pronunciation and difficulty).

The Protagonist

The first character I did a mockup of was none other than our unnamed protagonist. Since I do not have any experience drawing people, I decided to use myself as the canvas. I love makeup and have always dreamed of doing a detailed look for Halloween (curse you, COVID). I surprisingly didn’t need to get that much makeup, as I tend to favor darker colors. I needed a white gel eyeliner, a pale foundation, a black eyebrow pencil, and a wig. The look took about an hour, not including the time to make the fake blood (which is just corn syrup, water, and red food dye).

I went with a smoky black eye with dark gray lipstick. I thought that black lipstick might be too distracting with the Viking face art I would draw. Instead, I drew the rune, meaning death, on her forehead. Fun fact, the rune for death is the rune for life upside down. I was inspired by the look below for the lines I drew.

The inspiration for this look came from the models from Rogue + Wolf, whose clothes, shoes, and jewelry I would own if I had money and didn’t live with my parents (it would give my mom a heart attack). The models are always exceedingly pale, if not painted white. Dark lips, black hair and brows, and red or black eye looks are the norm, and black nails are necessary. Below is just a few looks that inspired this character.

I wanted her to have half and half hair. Hel is always depicted as being half and half of different physical characteristics. So, it makes sense that when the protagonist receives her power from Hel and becomes her proxy on Earth, some part of her appearance would become half and half. The easiest thing to explain to other people would be half of your hair is another color (because that is a popular hair dyeing trend right now). I found a decently priced and rated wig on Amazon, confirming two things. One that I can pull off with white and black hair. Two, I totally cannot pull off bangs. I would have liked the hair to be longer, but those wigs were out of my price range. A happy perk of this project was that I now have a hairpiece that I can use for many different characters (including Cruella da Vil).

The outfit for the protagonist was minimal because I had to only work on what I had in my closet. Luckily, black is my color. So I went with leggings and a tight crop top since she would wear high-mobility clothing. After all, she is ridding the world of evil. The look was similar to an ensemble featured on Rogue + Wolf (the first image in the gallery below). In an ideal world, her outfits would be those featured below. Black on black, with bold graphics, emphasis on comfort (*cough cough* leggings), and combat boots. She would have multiple piercings and a penchant for wearing various rings.

Hel

I depicted Hel as she would appear in the mortal world. Hel is often described as half-blue and half flesh-colored, half “ghostly” white and half “night” black, or half skeleton and half alive. Because any one of those combinations would scare and freak the living daylights out of people, I decided to tone her down. In the mortal world, she would have her skin appear completely white (she is the goddess of death) and wear blue makeup. She would color her eyebrows to be brown to give some impression of natural color on her face (it wouldn’t fool anyone, but she would think it does). I had to buy a blue eyeshadow pallet (thank you, Marshalls) and white and black water-activated face paint for this look. Shockingly, I owned two blue lipsticks. This look took about two hours, mainly because I had to wait a few minutes for each coat of white paint to dry before I could add another. I needed about four coats, and it took thirty minutes to get this white. Ideally, I would have used opaque white paint, but time and money played a huge factor. Hel and the protagonist have the rune symbol of death on their forehead.

I didn’t want to reuse the wig from the protagonist, and I also didn’t want to buy another wig. Instead, I covered my hair with a black scarf, which had to be washed to get the paint out. I wore a black tank top and a black leather jacket. Hel would completely cover up her body to hide as much white skin as possible. It is worth noting that I did this look when it was 80 degrees in my house. For her jewelry, I choose a pair of dangly black gem earrings ($8 at a local store) and an intricate dark metal necklace (clearance from H&M several years ago).

Despite thinking that Hel would be the most detailed look to do, I loved her the most. I loved the way the eye look turned out. Blue is not a standard color amongst my many makeup products and is not one I ever use. It was fun to use the color, and now I want to incorporate bolder colors into my everyday looks.