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Caranthir
Fourth son of Fëanor

Caranthir is a wonderful example of Tolkien's occasionally obvious symbology. The most ill-tempered and harshest of the sons of Fëanor, he is also very distinctly described as having a "dark complexion." Aside from the blatant conenction between Evil and Darkness in Tolkien's work, there's really no other way to explain why Caranthir would have a dark complexion, since as near as I can recall (and could find after some quick research), no other Elf is ever described in that way. But there it was, and so I was caught with the poser: HOW dark? That, Tolkien didn't say. After a bit of doodling with different looks, I finally decided that a deep tan was probably more appropriate than a more extreme dark skin. It had the minor benefit of NOT making him look as if he was the adopted son among his brothers.

Since I figured that Tolkien's description was meant to indicate that Caranthir was a "bad boy," so to speak, I decided to try to carry that over into designing his clothing. The leather jerkin and boots along with the various silver embellishments were intended to imply the family's connections to smithing, even though Curufin was the son who inherited those gifts. The cross straps were drawn after such straps that were used to carry weapons, especially cross-drawn ones. I originally included the weapons in the design, but decided against incorporating them in the Sim, since I'd made Caranthir a little more wiry than his brothers, and the weapons frequently got in the way of his arm movements. Remember, once you've installed him in your game, he's going to show up with the fit medium-skinned male adults.