Researching The Characters' Origins

Following my tutorial with Louise, I've looked into Gerda's background to influence what her appearance will be like. It turned out to be quite difficult to find out what her nationality is which I suppose isn't very surprising seeing as it is a fairy tale.

In the story there is no actual mention of where Kai and Gerda live in the beginning; however throughout Gerda's journey it is mentioned that she encounters a Finn woman and a Lapland woman. Kai, himself, is kidnapped by the Snow Queen and brought to Spitsbergen in Norway, where her Ice palace resides. I also looked up where Hans Christian Andersen was born, which was in Denmark.
   If you take into consideration that at the end of the tale Kai and Gerda "noticed that they themselves had grown; they were not young children", then it would only makes sense that - despite the length of the story - Gerda's journey to find her beloved Kai, had probably taken a few years or so. Most of the clues then, point to her and Kai being Danish which would make sense as the author is also Danish. Gerda's journey very likely took her northwards through Finland and then to Norway.

This was quite in an interesting exercise to do as it made me feel like I knew the character better which will probably effect the way I illustrate her. I will be doing this research with the other characters in the book as well.

Below are some sketches I drew with this new research in mind.