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i do not bite i am friendly i swear. put your hand in my mouth. see? i haven't bitten it. your hand is unscathed. if you did it again i still wouldn't bite you. do it again i won't bite. keep doing it i'll never bite you. you can trust me my teeth are sharp because i have never dulled them by biting. see how sharp they are? why don't you put your hand in there and see how sharp they are. i won't bite you.
a precious stone you say? shining brilliantly of its own inner light? found deep within the earth and engendered such feelings of possession twas akin to madness?
really love how stressful the hobbit is for everyone outside of thorin and company. to be sure they are all stressed as well but for more grounded and expected reasons. like danger to life and limb and the question of what to do about the dragon. gandalf has a to do list a mile long, half of the boxes related to ancient evils and concerns about the origin of precious dwarf stones (and also the dragon too to be fair). im sure everyone was much relieved when bilbo produced an entirely normal precious stone from his pocket (if not a very beautiful one) before they too regained the capacity to be concerned for more normal things. like bilbo's life.
secret look at whats underneath all of the paint and more charcoal and more paint and more charcoal and more paint and m
toss stones at me in the street i'm making a post about idril but talking about maeglin for several paragraphs. also throw stones at me because i'm talking nonsense about elves again.
the craft maeglin is known for is metalwork, it is the distinction given to him and the skill that he is praised for, and it is the distinction granted to his house when he is granted his own official lordship. the idea that idril would match or outdo him in the one thing that is most valuable about him, that anyone would do this and render him obsolete but particularly her, plays heavily on his fears of usefulness and making himself invaluable to turgon. in reality its not as though turgon would be rid of him even if he were useless. as his sister son and as a resident of gondolin, maeglin will not be going anywhere even if he wished it to be so. but the need remains to make himself valuable, to earn the respect and the safety from the individual who as of yet holds power over him.
the uglier part of him that needs to have mastery over everything cannot stand that it would be her encroaching on his craft. he can have anticipatory satisfaction at taking this from her and comfort taken in knowing that he will be the one to take this from her. But the knowledge curdles in him that he will only have this by taking and knowing that her skill is something she has and very well might still have even if she is kept from exercising it. the satisfaction in taking is diminished knowing the truth of it is he's threatened by her.
his projection of his father as someone who was all powerful completely overrides any self-awareness or consideration of the possibility that maybe his father's domination stemmed from the same insecure place as his own does. in being his child and not his spouse and coming from a perspective where eol always was superior to him because he was a child, he's still looking at the specter of his father through this lens of being below him. they were never on a footing level enough for him to interrogate why it was that he did what he did and what made him do so. and he holds fast to what was ingrained in him by his father regardless of where he finds himself now, as an adult, when it would not be impossible to attempt to look back and make sense of what his father had done. because these lessons can still hold true if he holds to them. he is praised for his usefulness and rewarded for his loyalty to his uncle and he is rewarded with control. and where these beliefs are challenged with the limits of his control or limits to what he is allowed he grows bitter and resentful at being denied what he believes is his due. (and frightened at the possibility that for all of his work at being someone valuable and necessary, this does not actually guarantee anything. if this hasn't earned him his safety, then what must he do to have this? it must be that he is due what he cannot have, because then it is only a matter of being denied, and righting a grievance. nothing fundamental has changed.)
all of this had a point and it was to explain the nature of idril's armor as small pieces fitted together as opposed to larger unmistakable pieces. small things are easier to make in small bursts and smaller amounts of time, smaller amounts of materials to squirrel away. harder to assemble in the mind as belonging to armor when they could more plausibly be used as pieces of adornment or anything at all. even if maeglin is not there to witness her at her work he is still present in the home of her father more often than she would like and if not his eyes, then other eyes will see her at work and might unthinkingly answer his questions when he asks after her. if their eyes see small works of little note then that is all they will speak of.
and she wants to believe nothing will come of being seen at the forge and of creating what she will, that she could just as well be doing all of this less carefully. that there were no need for it at all, but she can't shake the wrongness. though he hasn't said what it is he holds in his heart she knows that there is something off about maeglin in regards to her forgecraft. and even if she were looking too far into that, is she looking too much into how often he asks after her? how often she finds him close at hand? is she thinking too much of his presence in a home that is his? where he is welcomed and loved? is there something within her that creates such suspicion where there is nothing? does no one else share her fears, is she alone among those that love him as they ought, with her own love unfairly withheld?
behaving in this way treads the line of paranoia, which she knows is her inheritance from her father, but when she is so sure that things are not right and she has the means to act, she cannot stop herself from acting. if nothing comes of this then nothing comes of this, she carries out her actions in secret and none will know if nothing comes to pass, but how is she to sleep at night feeling with her entire body that something is wrong?
you find me crawling from the smoking wreckage of a train wreck (artistically speaking) (this is how it feels) (the twisted train metal is unbearably hot and the engine fire (its a steam train btw) is burning very high) (im sliding down the embankment now into the ditch with all the rocks and coal) (its fine though the rocks and coal are cool to the touch)
this is probably a little fun to see because with the exception of the painting (which i finished today for artfight) i dont think any of this will be finished or shared at a later date. anyways we have from top to bottom left to right
mengil and herimenel re-enacting my daily routine
artfight attack for azvhaalk
brainstorming for a different artfight attack for machinemantis
page from a comic ive thumbnailed 5 times now and am no closer to figuring out what im going to do with it. i keep getting drawn back to it because <3 aredhel but i fear its just not meant to be.
hello and welcome to gondolin. shining city on the hill? alike to the elven cities of old in valinor? it wont be if you dont pick up a shovel and dig more privies. get to work.
of note:
the aforementioned privies which are perhaps the first "structure" on site, if you could call pits structures.
the lovely quarry and single temporary house
the impractical but strategically chosen tower construction taking place. while not the most functional or necessary building, high morale and visible results are also necessary for a project of this scope. if it has the added benefit of being a monument to lordly authority and might, well that was by design.
the chosen valley is unfortunately rather devoid of trees, on account of the altitude and particular climate, but it is rich in stone, clay, and scrub. this issue was of course identified in initial visits to the valley and there are the plans for lumber orchards in the works. it is thought that the lowest lying part of the valley closest to the south has the greatest depth of soil thanks to the river deposits, and will provide a shaded causeway to the first (planned) gate.
there is also a fierce debate taking place over how best to manage the necessity of pasture and farmland with the overall footprint of the city itself. this is complicated by differing opinions of what "counts" as the valley and at what point construction and habitation should continue no further up the slopes.
elemmakil is not all alone up there, there are a good number of elves posted up on even more miserable peaks surrounding the valley. (though there is be some distance between him and his closest fellows.)
they plan to be living out of their travel dwellings for at the least a year, but likely several years more in most cases. as more foundations are laid and projects progress, the dwellings can be shifted as need be as placeholders for future more permanent structures. due to the size of the valley (and the wish to emulate tirion) it is expected that future dwellings will utilize as much vertical space as possible, with multiple families living in the same larger structure together. of course with the exception of the lords, who will all have their appointed estates.
(literal)house of the golden flower and associated outbuildings
freshly slathered in clay and not nearly as ornamented as it would later become as gondolin developed a taste for their large flowery frescoes.
luxurious use of wood for awnings and walkway of dubious safety
outbuildings include a tower (of course) which is officially in use as a nesting place for migratory bird populations. a most auspicious thing to have in this valley looked after by the eagles. following gondolin's engagement in the nirnaeth arnoediad the tower took on the unfortunate double use as a grave for the dead left behind.
other outbuildings include the kitchens and stewards residence, the latter with its adjoining garden. the path to the main house from the kitchens is miserable. so miserable in fact, subsequent remodelings delved a stair from the kitchens to the basement of the main residence.
gondolin has no particular interest in window glass or its production. the dry cold of the climate in the winter, as well as the sometimes unbearably hot summer necessitate some trial and error when it comes to maintaining optimal indoor temperature. high-set, small windows are an easy solution in smaller dwellings, but a lords house requires more natural light than a cave, thank you. the larger windows of the second floor maintain a pleasant coolness in the summer, but is a bit colder than is desirable in the winter, unless one wants to shutter them completely and live in the dark.
in later stages of remodeling and habitation the land on the hill is further developed (though the garden is fiercely maintained). the dubious wooden walkway attached to the kitchens is also done away with, and the wood is repurposed as shutters. (the cold won.)
by demand of (2) people i will disclose what happens when i wake up every day at 6 am to paint more elves.
the conceit of this whole post is as if painting elves is some kind of dark sorcery or crime. but i do live my life as though i am some kind of evil wizard in a tower casting evil spells so bear with me on this. (also i cant stop using quenya both on purpose and accident which casts my character into some amount of doubt.)
EVIL PROCESS IMAGES:
(i do not always take process images. in fact most of the time i don't. i forget and also i am always at maximum storage capacity on my phone so i have to be very judicious with the images i take and keep. i could solve the storage issue by not using my phone as an external hard drive for all of my 16,000 reference images but alas.)
the clearest breakdown of process i have is findekano and co. terrorizing glaurung. i think it also illustrates well why for 90% of my painting process i have to fight the despair of looking at my paper and saying oh my god this looks awful, and then the last 10% where it finally starts to come together and i say oh this isn't so bad.
i think it also illustrated pretty decently just how little detail i put into different elements of my paintings. like all the background guys are no better than the background painting stage but because they're in a blizzard this is fine. i think the most nerve wracking part of painting snow is the final layer where i'm just scrubbing gesso all over the almost finished painting trying to pay attention to where i want the snow and how to enhance the visual and where i want focus/contrast to be but also never being able to take any of it back. physical painting isn't always as scary as people make it seem. if you make mistakes you can just paint over it but sometimes it is that scary. sometimes i'm dripping sweat over my painting and it has nothing to do with my apartment being F 90 degrees indoors (it is at time of writing 89 F)
another painting i have some underpainting images of is the sauron one. the process for this was a little more ghostly and layered. i work in layers obviously but not usually so many layers as i did this one because i wanted him to glow and look weird. also this one had a much cleaner sketch than what i usually go for. i think i need to improve on the making cleaner sketches front but its hard for me to justify sometimes when the whole sketch is covered up within 30 minutes in paint, and i start disrespecting and ignoring its lines. bonus you can see some of my crazy desk in this and the idril process image below.
idril looked so crazy and horrible to me for so much of that painting i picked it up and started it again several times because i became just too discouraged. but i really really love this painting i'm going to hang her on my wall. idril <3 also note the children's scissors. i only have children's scissors.
another trend i would like to highlight is my excruciatingly unprofessional use of my paper. i use bad paper. i don't stretch it. i inadequately tape it down if i'm taping it at all. i take bad photos. all around horrible job from me here. i used to drive everyone that saw this absolutely mad when i would be painting in public or academic settings. i once had a teacher take me to an art store and buy me paper and beg me to use it. i think i still have a few sheets of that left because surprise... i kept using bad paper. there's probably some psychological element here of me devaluing my art and believing it not worth the paper, but its also expensive to buy and id much rather just use whatever i can find when i'm making stuff. i paint on trash a lot, i paint on paper discards from a print shop. i have been known to coat printer paper in so many layers of acrylic it turns into some kind of topographical map.
i'm including the finrod/bëor image because you can see 1: the horrible tape 2: that its taped to trash 3: its two pieces of uneven paper taped together 4: the bottom where i kept resting my arm on wet paint and smearing it everywhere. the second findaráto image because i became very sad painting him and appear to have taken a picture for moral support that i don't remember taking. also you can see cheburashka and assorted art supplies piled on my scary horrible desk, as well as my bent, untaped paper.
so a lot of things i don't share here are my mad scrawlings and visual/concept development stuff. all of this is from an as of yet unfinished and unshared orc based thing that i have far too many handwritten pages of illegible notes on. i try to type things up on my computer but i cannot shake the need for handwritten notes. i have binders and binders full of frantic writing that i often immediately forget about. i cant transport my paintings, so working on those keeps me at the apartment, but i have things like a regular job or a desire to leave it often. the almost compulsive need to keep drawing does not leave me however so this is where a lot of this comes from.
(the two orcs standing side by side in the middle top row are the employees of the month. one was in the way of a molten steel spill and the other blew herself up on accident while sealing up a bomb. despite this they continue to exceed quotas! shining beacons of hard work, industrious attitudes, and high yields for their peers to follow!)
i think recently i made reference to the fact that i only post a little more than half of my art. this is true, and a lot of it is like this, unused visual development for concepts that i am putting far too much thought and detail into and don't end up using most of it. i just need to think through and justify things, i need to logic my way through every element of something. i need to explore orc workplace culture and production lines. and city planning and centralized resource distribution and the practical uniformity of it all. and the wargskin tanning vats. who could forget the wargskin tanning vats.
this is pretty typical of my ideation process. i am daydreaming at work and/or reading the silmarillion in my head and scramble to the nearest pen and scrap paper to put something down. in this case i was close to the childrens craft area and had access to a crayon. very helpful. after finishing the sketch as quickly as possible i jam it into my back pocket and forget about it until i do my laundry.
the last thing i would like to highlight as integral to my process is when i completely lose the plot and start writing and translating lullabies. i present to you drafts 2-3~ of 6
"julij, this quenya looks completely busted" i hear you saying. yes that is because it is. when i was in grade school i "learned" and "memorized" a completely misunderstood and bastardized version of it because of my many intense interests, writing in other scripts and languages is one of them. not speaking, not learning in a holistic capacity, specifically writing. so this is how we get my home-made cursive tengwar script and profoundly bad quenya.
i included (part of. the most presentable pages) this example because it is shorter and easier to follow than the time i translated the entire album DOOPEE TIME into quenya for no reason at all.
LINE BREAK TO DISCUSS EVIL REFERENCES AND INSPIRATIONS
obviously i am inspired by the text itself and frequently include pertinent excerpts or my paraphrasing of them if i cannot find the page but recall the wording. but i also spend a lot of time with other books as well. namely children's picture books (this should be a shock to nobody). i check out anywhere from 6-15 in a week to take pictures of or just to read and internalize something about. apart from my library gathering i also have a modest collection of those mass-produced softcover 60s-80s soviet paperback picture books. the ones i have inherited are unfairly gorgeous and if i look at them too much sometimes i grow discouraged and hopeless about the state of my own art but oh well! they're beautiful and i look at them anyways.
what i look for in picture books is similar medias or uses of physical media i find compelling. every once and a great while i will take up a book i know to be at least finished in a digital program (if the artist did not start it on paper) but i am guilty of not being super compelled or drawn to wholly digital mediums. hybridization of physical and digital is super fun and is what i consider some of my work to be, but wholly digital is just not my thing i guess.
as many of you have picked up on i love clothing. i love drawing clothing i love embroidery i love obviously and painstakingly handmade clothing. i make much of my own clothing and have been making folk clothing for a few years now so there is a lot of overflow between my drawing and my sewing. if nothing else being familiar with the construction of the garments my elves are wearing helps me visualize and paint them very easily. i am one of those fools that check out the giant coffee table books on "peasant embroidery" and "historical costume" from my library over and over again.
i also have some vintage/historical examples of folk clothing or art passed from my family or just picked up here and there in my home and they are an invaluable resource to me.
Honorable but important mentions because i have rambled enough:
i have a very specific interest in central asian/eastern european pre-historic textile and material culture and often fall asleep reading research papers about anything in that wide area. from early human populations onward, if i see a metal horse i start jumping out of my seat for joy. i think its best to think of the visuals i produce with my elves as a combination of several very strong interests that i continually mash together as much as possible. the other example being religious studies which rears its head much more obviously when you look at my vivecposting but is not entirely absent in my silmarillion output (see finrod/balan elf/human comparative mythologies and philosophies)
concerning another pursuit, i have been constructing elf jewelry references out of aluminum cans. i tell myself this is somehow helpful for reference purposes but in reality i'm just making jewelry from aluminum cans because i can't help myself. i want to have clinking fish in my hair, i can make this a reality, why would i hesitate to execute this vision when it is so simple.
i am not sure what anyone will take away from this other than some kind of confirmation that i am autistic (in this, a glass house of silmarillion fans). also that my process is perhaps unprofessional. what the real takeaway should be though is that the library is an unmatched resource and you need to be using it for everything.
anyways! i can only hope this window into my process is what you wanted and also that everyone reads this and then forgets about it because i am actually a little bit embarrassed about sharing anything about myself. peace and love good bye for now.
Then Sauron shifted shape, from wolf to serpent, and from monster to his own accustomed form; but he could not elude the grip of huan without forsaking his body utterly.
no no, i wont make any more artfight characters this year i already added kisher the horse and my dumb silmarillion elfsonas i dont need to add any more.
dwemer artifact trafficking lesbians (and their dog):
