Ok, technically he’s John Wemmick, but he’s referred to simply as “Wemmick” throughout most of the book. So…
W is for Wemmick – from Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
Wemmick is one of my favorite characters from all of Dickens’ writing. Wemmick is a bill collector for Jaggers who winds up befriending Pip. Despite his stodgy career, it’s revealed later in the novel that he’s hilariously eccentric. He lives in “Walsworth,” which is what he calls the house he’s had constructed in the likeness of a miniature castle–complete with draw bridge, moat, and a cannon that he fires off at regular intervals. He lives there with his father, whom he refers to as “Aged Parent”-or “Aged P” for short.
Here’s how Wemmick is described in the novel:
Casting my eyes on Mr. Wemmick as we went along, to see what he was like in the light of day, I found him to be a dry man, rather short in stature, with a square wooden face, whose expression seemed to have been imperfectly chipped out with a dull-edged chisel. There were some marks in it that might have been dimples, if the material had been softer and the instrument finer, but which, as it was, were only dints. The chisel had made three or four of these attempts at embellishment over his nose, but had given them up without an effort to smooth them off. I judged him to be a bachelor, from the frayed condition of his linen, and he appeared to have sustained a good many bereavements; for he wore at least four mourning rings, besides a brooch representing a lady and a weeping willow at a tomb with an urn on it. I noticed, too, that several rings and seals hung at his watch-chain, as if he were quite laden with remembrances of departed friends. He had glittering eyes — small, keen, and black — and thin wide mottled lips. He had had them, to the best of my belief, from forty to fifty years.
I’m much happier with Wemmick’s clothing here than I was with The Time Traveller, who was supposed to be from a similar period but who really didn’t look it. I’m also reasonably happy with the character design and pose. I did an initial sketch that I wasn’t very happy with; I’m glad I re-did it.
I have no clue what I’m going to do for next week’s “X” subject. Xenofilius Lovegood would have been a good choice, but I’ve already done a Harry Potter character.
Next week: “X”…
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