*cough* Did I say only?
I really, really love how this one is turning out. And I'm happy that I used all my new greys so harmoniously here.
Listening to Bill Bryson's The Lost Continent - Travels in Small Town America as I paint, and for the first time understood that the song "Fifty Miles into the Main" by Ken Theriot is about the Lost Colony, and that the Kroa...
2019-03-27 17:48:45 +0000 UTC View Post
You're in for a treat. Or maybe lasting damage. Proceed with caution.
I love seeing how artists solve the "golden" problem, particularly with a disgusting creature like Glaurung. I decided to go the well-trodden path of greenish/ochre/brown with a few golden highlights, which is faithful to his name without being overly golden.
I didn't always have such qualms about bein...
2019-03-27 12:06:25 +0000 UTC View Post
This stage is where the tying together and groundwork ends, and the fun begins. There's an overall colour and value transition that'll allow Glaurung and Fingon to stand out from the rest, I can leave the background riders minimally coloured to keep a balance, and I can go bonkers with dull gold on Glaurung and white and blue on Fingon. <3
In other news, I contacted the pin manuf...
2019-03-27 10:37:18 +0000 UTC View Post
The colour scheme here owes itself to two things: first, the desire to do something pastelly/smoky/semi-opaque... and well, the fact that I just got myself a few pastelly, smoky, semi-opaque new paints from Daniel Smith. =D They've just released a range of new greys, and since I declared myself to be in my grey phase this winter, it was obvious I needed to give them a go!
The main p...
2019-03-25 19:04:14 +0000 UTC View PostWhoa! We got in 170 people who'll all get a shiny Maedhros pin in April! \o/
Patreon seems to have messed up in a big way; while I have 170 people showing in the right tier, Patreon only gives me 124 addresses. Could all of you in the celebration tier please check if your addresses are correct? 2019-03-25 16:48:17 +0000 UTC View Post
I wasn't happy with the Fëanor pin design - the lines were very blurry, and I didn't like the way you looked straight up his nose, hee. Now he's redone with neat Lazy Nezumi lines, and a better pose, methinks.
Did I tell you Ican'twaitforthepinstoarrivenyanyanyaaaaa
Fun conversation with my daughter again: "Mum, you know the last Fëanor was all like, 'Oh, ...
2019-03-24 19:39:31 +0000 UTC View Post
This rarely happens, but I can't seem to think of a (non-humorous) title. The original quote is too long and lacks short, snappy title material. Any ideas?
Welcome to new Patron Maria!
2019-03-23 15:43:57 +0000 UTC View Post
I love this piece already! So glad I got on it.
Remember the suggestion, by many, of doing a Celebrimbor? I've just been part of a great Twitter thread what I realised that Celebrimbor must have made the Elven rings as a conscious nod to the three Silmarils of his grandfather - air, fire, and water - and that making Vilya, Air, the most powerful of the three (and giving it to Gil-ga...
2019-03-23 10:11:11 +0000 UTC View Post
I just love drawing crazed-looking dragons. When I was younger, I always drew them like sleek and pretty snakes, and I couldn't imagine how to turn them into ugly brutes, until I looked closely at crocodiles and analysed why they scare me so much. ;)
And yay - welcome to 8 new Patrons! Welcome, Lauretha, Ale, Jana, Melanie 2019-03-22 17:51:50 +0000 UTC View Post
“Then Fingon prince of Hithlum rode against him with archers on horseback, and hemmed him round with a ring of swift riders; and Glaurung could not endure their darts, being not yet come to his full armoury.”
In case that, over all this pin madness, you've forgotten the Fingon and Maglor suggestion session: I didn't! This scene was suggested several times, and I r...
2019-03-20 17:50:13 +0000 UTC View Post
... But yes, well, it's more pin designs. ;)
I had a long day at school today and packed the wrong sketchbook - one that was full! So I ended up doodling these on the final page of it. It's the preliminary designs for Finrod, Lúthien, and Beren. (I'll still make those two interlock better.)
Today, I sent off the Kingfisher and open edition Maedhros to the second pin manufac...
I'm slowly getting the hang of this. Last night when I did the ship, the line weight was still all off.
What's next? Waiting! I hope I'll have the Maedhros pins in two weeks or less, for a first impression of the quality and, indeed, how these translate into actual metal! Once I have them, and the new ones, I'll decide with whom I'll do the next batch. ^^
In the meantime...
2019-03-18 17:47:09 +0000 UTC View Post
Here's the design for the first, and most intricate, Silmaril! I decided to give the pins a jewel-shape themselves and design them so they could be worn nested into each other. The other two will be slightly easier to do; with waves and fish on the left, and flames and lava on the right.
This morning, I sent off the designs for "open edition" Maedhros and the Kingfisher to a different pin...
2019-03-18 16:07:42 +0000 UTC View PostAs you already saw, the poll results leave me with a lot of choices still! Here are the top six results (I left out Maglor, as he's already in there with the sons of Fëanor):
The Silmarils
Finrod
Fingon
Set/Sons of Fëanor
Set/Lúthien and Beren
The Profe...
2019-03-17 12:50:20 +0000 UTC View Post
Here's the list! You can click more than one option, but it'd make it easier for me if you chose those you would actually consider buying. I had to make an off-site poll, as Patreon only allows 14 options. ;) The preview doesn't show all the suggestions!
A single pin will end up around 9-10€, ...
2019-03-16 22:32:44 +0000 UTC View Post
This one just sent my daughter into unintelligible transports of delight, haha. No nerdy talk from her this time.
This is the Team Jenny pin, so to speak. My favourite animal with, of course, a paintbrush in her beak!
I've always liked kingfishers, and I saw one once. I'd cycled out to the canal in the marshes, with the Lord of the Rings and a bottle of water, to sit and read...
I'm this short of switching allegiances. ;) All hail the Finarpin! I don't know if you can see it (I certainly can), but the lineart is much cleaner here - I downloaded the Photoshop plugin Lazy Nezumi this morning, which smoothens Photoshop lines. I can't believe how easy this one was to do. The next ones will go very smoothly indeed!
I'll be doing a poll on what other pins I'll do...
2019-03-16 11:41:08 +0000 UTC View Post
And some really cool news that I almost couldn't believe: The pin manufacturer got back to me to say that they can make different designs as if they were the same pins - meaning the price gets very affordable! That means I can make a heap of different designs, and have them manufactured without having to order 300 or so of each to make them affordable. 😍
Here's the top of the hea...
2019-03-15 19:18:33 +0000 UTC View Post
Silly me, posted without the text. Here goes. :)
So yes, I did the Fingolpin last night... and lay awake far too long with plans for the OTHER pins. XD
My idea is this: The Maedhros pin will remain exclusive! But gosh, I want more pins. So naturally, I'll also do a Team Fëanor pin and a Team Finarfin pin (aka Finarpin). Or if you have other ideas that fit in with this line of...
2019-03-14 06:51:08 +0000 UTC View Post
I've been on a roll today, yay!
A lot of my visuals for the Silmarillion comes from the early nineties. Fingolfin got the best visuals of all of them - the face of a young Daniel Day-Lewis with the hair of Bayer Leverkusen striker Heiko Herrlich (which translates to Heiko Fantastic). That is his actual name. And that was his actual hair. Like many others, before I read the History o...
2019-03-13 17:53:05 +0000 UTC View Post
tl;dr:
I've started to take little commissions again - Patrons only, and prompts-only. This one, obviously, was done in the style of my 2017 Inktober pieces, and Fingolfin is to follow.
Fun bit: While drawing, I listened to the 1981 BBC dramatization of the Lord of the Rings, and had to grin hugely as Galadriel heard Gimli's request for a strand of her hair, and exclaimed that none had eve...
2019-03-13 13:18:34 +0000 UTC View Post
I can't tell you how excruciating this is! It doesn't help that I've joined a couple of Facebook groups of people who do pins, and all they post is catastrophes. =O I do hope that one minor German peculiarity will save me from having chosen the wrong pin company - German pin companies are very adept at all sorts of hard enamel stuff, because there are so many "carnival companies" all over this ...
2019-03-13 11:01:38 +0000 UTC View Post
Look at what just happened to my Patreon earnings!
Thank you all so much, all you new Patrons, all you updating Patrons, all you long-time Patrons, and you who just did that very, very satisfying update. <3 <3 <3
2019-03-10 19:16:20 +0000 UTC View Post
After the last couple of years were a bit meagre in the con department, I'm booked for three events this year! Once every seven years, I even make it out of Germany, haha. Hope to see loads of you there!
Seven new Patrons! Welcome to Terra, Allison, Anelise, Holly, Nichole, Amy, and...
2019-03-09 17:34:41 +0000 UTC View Post
I don't know about you, but I couldn't quite imagine how large the pin was going to be, so I did the obvious: made a little paper cutout based on the manufacturer's file. XD
Here it is next to a US cent. Europeans: US cents are rather bigger than our Euro-cents. UK people: Okay, your pennies are HUGE. You don't count.
This whole mockup business is going to get more and more ri...
2019-03-07 13:15:57 +0000 UTC View Post
Watercolour on Bockingford cold-pressed paper, 36x26 cm.
Now, I'm glad I redid this! This was exactly what I wanted. Is it possible that there's a Napoleon painting with a very similar colour scheme? Every time I look at the thumbnail of this, I think, "Napoleon!" I'm sure Maglor is glad about this sort of attention.
For comparison, this was the ill-fated attempt on Aqua...
2019-03-06 17:17:35 +0000 UTC View PostHey guys, the question has come up a few times, so I thought I'd clarify this again. A lot of you have been pledging more than 5$ over the past months (yay!), and I've had several questions from people who want the pin, but want to keep pledging more than 5$.
Here's the mockup from the manufacturer. I'll give them green lights for production later today, so the pins should definitely be here by mid-April!
The pins close with a butterfly clasp at the back, but I'm just going to buy rubber fastenings and include them with every pin, so you can choose what works better for you.
Three important notes!
1. I looked thro...
2019-03-06 10:21:16 +0000 UTC View Post
I've put together a little tutorial video, in which I demonstrate my cloudy structures, give tips on how to work around cat hair, and struggle for the English word for "cloth".
XD
Welcome to five new Patrons: Chelsea, Jeremy, Sydney, Thomas, and Camryn! <3