Sorry, no progress shots for this one. I painted it in a sort of delirium. I used to do this all the time when I was younger – sitting down with a bottle of coke and my paints, and emerging four to eight hours later with a finished painting that I couldn’t remember even thinking about.
Yesterday; I sat down with a bottle of coke and my paints and just painted… got myself a new bottle around midnight – came back to my desk with it and actually flinched at what I found there somehow, and couldn’t quite explain how it had got there.
I should do this more often.
The light-through-bars lighting got lost in the process. I debated putting it in, and tried around with what it would look like digitally, but there were two reasons to get rid of it: Firstly, it somehow looked like a ray of hope – which I did not want there, and secondly, the paper wouldn’t have taken another layer of paint across the entire pic. It would have destroyed much of the detail work. So, one interesting lighting situation lost to painting delirium.
Jenny Dolfen Art 
Beautiful, in a horrible sort of way. Poor Maedhros.
The ripped out chunks of flesh make me think of the movie The Passion of the Christ (I think they had a similar whip thing in that movie). Just in time for Good Friday too…
I was looking at “It Ends in Flame” and clicked back over to the main page not expecting to see this and nearly jumped out of my skin.
Yes, and now imagine finding this lying on your desk and realising you must have somehow painted this over the last few hours! :D
I am slightly worried about posting this one on Good Friday. O_o
If I could paint all that in a few hours… The only Tolkien art I’ve ever done (or half-done) was an acrylic painting of Earendil in Vingilot fighting Ancalagon that I started for an art class where the teacher unwisely gave me the option of painting a scene from my favorite book. I literally got kicked out of the class for working too slowly. lol. I’ve never gotten around to working on it since… :( All your beautiful Tolkien art makes me want to finish it, shame I have so little time these days.
Anyway, I’m glad you’re much better about finishing what you start than I am. :D
I’ve always painted (and drawn) really, really fast, to the endless envy and frustration of those sitting around me – whether in art class at school, or in artists’ alleys at conventions :D
Hello there :)
It’s the first time, since a looong time following your work, that i dare posting a comment, and well, it will be short :)
It’s an fantastic work and i love the way Maedhros seems to have been thrown in that jail and not moved since then.
Please, never stop delighting our eyes and our fantasy, it’s a rare pleasure by these days :)
Aw, thank you!
This is beautiful and dark!!! Once again I am in awe of your skills.
Thank you! :)
A part of me wants to take those pants or loincloth or whatever away. I’d have him like that just not so banged up. If you get my meaning. ;)
XD
First thought: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
Second thought: He darn well knows why. And with his tendency to take responsibility, he probably thinks he deserves this. Ai, Maitimo…
*cries furious tears*
Horribly beautiful and beautifully horrible
Saving that ‘ray of hope’ lighting for another occasion? (*hint, hint*)
Any specific occasion you’re thinking of? I’m always happy for new Maedhros suggestions… :D
Be careful what you wish for…
(Un)fortunately I can’t draw, but I have truckloads of ideas, ready to be dumped at unsuspecting artists’ doorsteps ;-)
Well, I’ve been thinking… You keep drawing Maedhros in moments of complete surrender. But he’s a fighter, Feanaro’s eldest. Show us that Feanorean spark that kept him alive, sane and unbroken through years of torment. Draw him defiant: bloodied, bruised and battered, but still able to look Morgoth in the eye, with the light of the Silmarills from the iron crown falling on his face, and say ‘no’, knowing what it will cost him. Or looking straight into this light through the bars, just as shadowy figures in the background are getting ready to torture him again, with desperate longing/grim determination/deep sadness/dark desperation/ Feanorean fury/ bitter regret/all of these/some of these – take your pick
After what you’ve been doing to him, you owe him this – a single spark, a ray of light in complete darkness. A small victory, however costly. And don’t you think you can get away with sun-kissed greenery (even if it ‘is’ some darn serious ivy).
Hmmmmm. I rarely illustrate two scenes so close together (within five years, at least.) ;) But those are great ideas… I’ll think about them!
One. Spark.
please…
He definitely deserves one. :) I did promise some people to give them a break from Maedhros… but *cough* I didn’t say when…
Please please, NO breaks from Maedhros! I can’t get enough of him–I never have been able to.
Yyy….? Who’d want a break from Maedhros? People are strange…
Since a few years have passed, have you started thinking of these again? Because I’m sure several of your fans do not need a break from Maedhros….
Ich weiß, was du meinst. Wenn ich schreibe, gehts mir manchmal genau so. Die Leute nehmen ihre Geschichte selbst in die Hand und wenn ich fertig bin, denke ich mir: “Hab ich das geschrieben?” Muss ein bisschen ein Schock gewesen sein, bei so einem Bild ;-)
Ein tolles Bild, aber armer Maedhros! Wie hoffnungslos er sich gefühlt haben muss. Da will man Melkor doch so richtig eine reinhauen (obwohl ich ein bisschen Melkor-Fan bin. Da hab ich einen etwas… schrägen Blickwinkel.)
Ja, echt! Ich weiß, das klingt unglaubwürdig, aber das hab ich manchmal, wenn ich so vertieft bin, dass ich das BIld gar nicht mehr wirklich sehe. Und dann kommste mit ner Flasche Cola aus der Küche und HUCH.
Hi Jenny!
I like your decision of not adding the light through the bars. As you say, he looks like completely hopeless this way. Like if he is forever laying in a hidden place, blind to the stars and the moon, and never to be thought about. His past and his future deprived from him, out of pure twistedness and malice.
I’m glad you like it! It was a tough decision. :) But accentuates this utter hopelessness.
Your drawings and paintings are amazing, and you’re clearly inspired by…a book? Pardon my ignorance, but I’m a newcomer to your site. What serves as your inspiration? And where did you get your artistic training?
I’m in awe.
Hi Suzy, I’m a self-trained artist, and the illustrations I’ve been posting here recently are from J. R. R. Tolkien’s Silmarillion. :) Thank you for the kind words!
Morgoth’s flunkies seem to have worked Maedhros over very thoroughly here – and at this point Maedhros seems to be beyond caring.
*sniffles*
:(
“Maedhros did deeds of surpassing valour, and the Orcs fled before his face; for since his torment upon Thangorodrim his spirit burned like a white fire within, and he was as one that returns from the dead.”
Hee hee hee, the Orcs get their comeuppance in the end. Though I suppose it probably wasn’t any of the same Orcs, since the Dagor Bragolach wasn’t till 500 years later and I don’t think Orcs live that long. Shame, I would have liked them to rue the day they ever dared take a “cat’s paw” to Maedhros Son of Feanor.
Now *that* makes me wonder whether Maedhros saw some old “friends” during the Dagor Aglareb. Which is very well possible.
*fierce grin*
Yay.
Muahahahahaha! Run little Orcses run
If the chain is spiked, are the fetters around his hands also spiked? If they’re spiked on the outside, they’ll press into his back at least occasionally; if they’re spiked on the inside, well…
Your deviantart gallery has revived my love for Maedhros after nearly a year without thinking about him. He’s always been my favorite of the sons of Feanor (with Maglor as a close second)–such a well-drawn character, and all the bits left to the imagination just serve to make him more intriguing. The way you chose to fill in some of those gaps is absolutely phenomenal, and this one in particular wrenches the heart. How I’d love to be there for him, even if all I could do was cover him with a cloak, give him a drink of cool water, and try to sing him softly to sleep.
(Also, I love how in “Most of Me” you can see the same cat’s paw scars on his shoulder. There is a rare and wonderful continuity to your work.)
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