Ahh, Pamu. My little trauma-drama king, the feminine pharaoh, the hopeless gay, the long-dreamer -- no matter what you call him, I still adore him. I've said before that I consider this stupid cat to be like my fictional son, and I mean it! It's really funny, to be honest -- Pamu started off as a background character in the story of TCotC, and now... Just look how far he's come. He's one of the two main characters, and as far as I'm concerned, he's the main character!

I got lazy with the background and kind of regret it, as I just love how Pamu himself turned out... But it's not worth spending hours on a great background. I've got comic pages to get to and finals are coming up -- I need to be spending my time wisely. The hieroglyphs on the side there are straight-up copy-pasted from the cover of TCotC; they say "(a) shadow like the living," which is a title I chose for Pamu because of his story (and personality). His secret name/Ren (part of the ancient Egyptians' concept of the soul) is "Shuyet," which means shadow; funnily enough, the shuyet was also another part of the soul, too, but the reason Pamu gets such a redundant/simple Ren for a pharaoh will be explained in the story!

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In any case, this was an exploratory art piece where I kind of redesigned Pamu's royal attire last minute. Before now, he had really simplified clothing, and he had all the traditional highlights of the pharaohood: a nemes headdress, a false beard, some weird arm cuffs, sandals, an usekh collar, and a simple pleated kilt (shendyt). He looked awkward, but that was kind of the point -- Pamu never wanted to be pharaoh, but as the last possible blood heir who can take the throne, he's forced into a role he doesn't want and isn't ready for... And it shows. In this exercise, I wanted to draw him in royal attire, but decided to step out of my previous design; I wanted Pamu to look odd and awkward, but not completely janky. I put some thought into what Pamu himself might choose to wear, as he's incredibly self conscious and would absolutely worry what people think of his appearance every second of the day.

That's where this whole rehaul started. I kept many of the same elements from his previous royal attire; first and foremost, I fixed his headdress -- before, it had an incredibly simplified design and was much easier to draw, but it looked nothing like an actual nemes from his time period. That was the first thing to change. I kept his shendyt the same as before, and almost did the same with his usekh; I really like the idea of a fabric/leather usekh, not only because I don't want to draw tons of beads for the collar but also because I just think it'd be way more comfortable. In the end, I decided to keep the fabric/leather idea, but I included a little more detail so it looked three dimensional instead of flat.

Now for what I removed -- the first thing to go were his sandals, and then I decided at the end to cut out the false beard, too. The sandals were an easy choice, as they were: A) hard to draw, B) uncomfortable to wear for Pamu himself, and C) a little impractical for a digitigrade sapient. Getting those sandals to look right for a creature already walking on paw pads and with a much smaller "foot area" than a plantigrade human was hell, so I'm glad I ditched that idea. And now for the more controversial choice -- getting rid of the false beard was a really hard decision, especially because it was such an important thing for the pharaohs to have. The false beard was important because it signified the pharaoh's masculinity and reinforced their status as a god on earth -- even pharaoh Hatshepsut herself was depicted with a false beard for this very reason. It was tradition, it was symbolically critical, and it helped define the recognizable image of the pharaoh regardless of their individual appearance in life (there's a reason a good many depictions of Egyptian pharaohs look the same, if you exclude the Amarna period -- that was quite literally the point, as the people of Egypt needed a "standard" figure that they could recognize as representing the pharaoh). So why did I decide to get rid of it?

I got rid of the false beard because of what it meant for Pamu's character. Pamu is a pharaoh at the start of his journey in the main story, but he loses his crown very soon after; he is very clearly not the ideal masculine pharaoh, he feels unfit to rule, and he is doomed to fail from the start. I liked the symbolic and narrative implications behind deliberately excluding the false beard from his design, so there you have it!

You might also notice that I added a semi-transparent veil and more beads around his body to hold said veil in place. I decided to include this element after making the decision to exclude the false beard; whereas the false beard has implications of masculinity and is the tried-and-true standard for the pharaohood, a veil suggests the exact opposite! I felt it made Pamu's attire more androgynous and helped imply his self-consciousness as a pharaoh (you know, "hiding behind a veil" and all). It visually underscores important elements of his character from the get-go and adds something more intricate to his design -- I personally think it was a great idea.




What do you guys think of his new look? Let me know!