Character Name: Zongroff Gral’Shaak
Fandom: Realms of Peril & Glory: Vael
Played By: Liz Campbell
Yarn Used:
Skin: CraftSmart Value - Curry
Shoes: Loops & Threads Soft Classic - Black
Trousers/Shirt: Loops & Threads Soft Classic - Navy
Armor: CraftSmart Value - Charcoal
Lettering: Loops & Threads Soft Classic - Black; Loops & Threads Impeccable - Soft Yellow
Hair: CraftSmart Value - Burgundy
Sticks: CraftSmart Value - Burgundy; Loops & Threads Soft Classic - Black; Sculpting Wire
Basic pattern here.
Poor Zongroff. She really is overworked (even if most of that is her own doing, let’s be honest), and she takes on so much—responsibility, guilt, you name it. If ever a character needed a hug, it was her, even if she rarely accepts them. Especially after the way the beginning of Campaign Two has gone!
Zongroff differs from the base pattern as follows:
Legs: Zongroff is an Orc, and she’s usually described as being tall, so I made her legs maybe a little longer than I usually do. Other than that, I made them the way I usually do characters with cuffed trousers.
Armor: The official art has her wearing a breastplate. I interpreted it to be somewhat akin to the bulletproof vests most police officers wear (at least in the US) and ran with it. The most important alteration I made is that, when I got to the round where I decreased the waist in slightly, at each decrease I chained 5 and then worked the next stitch (no skips), creating a little loop on either hip…to be holsters for Zongroff’s sticks. (I don’t remember if it’s been established that she wears them on her back or hip holsters, but shh, let me have this.) At the neckline, I stopped the armor color and switched back to the navy for her uniform shirt for a couple rounds before switching to the neck color.
I also, after I was done stitching, decided that official Guard armor would probably indicate as such, so I did my best to embroider “NHG” (for New Harbor Guard) on the back, in black outlined in yellow so it would be reflective. This is not a detail that has ever been established in canon, but it also hasn’t not been established in canon, so suck it.
Head: One of these days I’ll actually get the spacing on the hairline right, but this is apparently not that day. Oh, well, it works well enough. Zongroff has her hair up in a ponytail in the official art, so I just looped in the hair all around her hairline and drew it up together, which gave me exactly the effect I was looking for. I was trying to crochet fangs on either side, but it didn’t work out the way I wanted it to, so sorry about the wonky tooth.
Weapons: I had to do something a little different for Zon, like I do for everyone else, so I decided to give her her sticks. I’m actually really proud of how they turned out for as simple as they are. I took the same sculpting wire I used for Bags’ legs, made a loop at one end to both anchor the yarn and give it a handle, and then tied the yarn to the loop. I actually did the foundation of the sticks using a “cast on” technique from knitting! Once I’d done that all the way to the tip, I wrapped the yarn back around over the cast on until I got back to the initial knot and tied it off to the tail. I then tied on a bit of black and wrapped that around the handle for the grip. Later I will probably seal the tip with hot glue, but for now, I think they look pretty good!