Oz: Dorothy Gale

For my portfolio class, I'm creating a series of character designs with this set including certain ones from "The Wizard of Oz" story. Here is the central character herself, Dorothy Gale. The details about her outfit you can read for yourself, but it's basically a color scheme of sepia and gray. Because the Witch of the East will be more Arabic/Persian/Turkish, I thought the slippers ought to reflect the afore mentioned cultures. These will be silver, like in the Baum's original story. Also, I thought it might be nice if she had a locket with pictures of her mother and father, especially since she's an orphan. Lastly, I added in a little blue bird because of the song "Somewhere Over The Rainbow".

I think it's worth mentioning that Dorothy's own story, before her trip to Oz, is a little darker than in Baum's original tale. The Gale family was probably set during the present time in which it was written, that being 1900. In my rendition, the family suffered some hardship during the Dust Bowl. Fortunately, they were able to keep their land and managed to scrape by. But that was in their recent past, since the present time of the story is set during World War II. If the 1939 film's theme song was "Somewhere Over The Rainbow", mine would be Pink Floyd's "Goodbye Blue Sky". It's a rather depressing time for the Gails, but Dorothy is always the beacon of hope. Of course part of it is that she's still, after all, just a little girl. But it still takes a special kid to keep their cheer after the devastation of the Dust Bowl and hearing about the bombings in Europe.