Got one new Scopa card done last night, and revised another.

So here’s a new Jack (though maybe it should be Knight?) of Coins.

Going with the business attire the other coins had, I thought I’d go with a polo shirt here. It’s awfully plain; no pinstripes or layers to add interest. I’m not sure if that’s a good or bad thing.

I sent this Queen of Coins to the client last month, and he commented that she looked a bit too androgynous.

While I’d prefer not to have exaggerated sexual dimorphism in my stuff, I can kind of see where he’s coming from there.

I was reminded a bit of this children’s RPG that made a point of having dignified, non-sexualized female characters, and people complained that the characters weren’t recognizably female.

A tangent: when I was a kid, I thought girls’ nails naturally grew pointy, and boys’ nails came out square. And I met a girl with square nails, and got very confused.

Yes, there are of course physical differences between genders, but a great many of the things we think of as ‘feminine’, especially with regards to people’s faces, take conscious effort to produce: styled hair, makeup, shaped eyebrows, more saturated colors on glasses and clothing.

I’d love it if we lived in a world with less gender-specific grooming, but we don’t live in that world, so let’s be practical about it: a character who doesn’t follow at least some of these conventions is likely to cause confusion. I get that.

I don’t like it, but I get it.

I’d also love it if we lived in a world where most people didn’t care whether or not another person’s gender was obvious from their grooming, but again, we don’t live in that world.

So I went ahead and lengthened the hair, enlarged the earrings, made the eyebrows arched and the glasses brighter.

But I didn’t add makeup.

Makeup is gross.