As promised, I’ve gone and compiled a short list of common questions of what exactly this project is all about!
It’s a side project I do in my free time to create a painted illustration to accompany every chapter in J.R.R. Tolkien’s Silmarillion, as well as provide supplementary illustrations to round out the characters and world in general. My motivation is to create a Middle-Earth visually unique from the style of the Peter Jackson films. I like the movies, but I miss the days when there was more diversity and interpretation to Tolkien illustrations.
A second motivation is to provide a greater representation of women and people of color in the narratives. While Tolkien made more than a few missteps regarding race and gender, the “everyone is white” trend in adaptations is a symptom of other people ignoring what’s in the texts. Additionally, all of Tolkien’s writings are presented as if they’re written from a limited and flawed historical perspective (LoTR and The Hobbit were “written” by Hobbits, etc). The position of my adaptation is to present what “actually” happened- the events upon which the flawed or biased history is based. Just like with real historians, the presence of women and people of color, and their achievements, are frequently ignored.
I’m never going to contradict what’s written, but I’m definitely going to use all of the tools at my disposal to emphasize the importance of those who don’t always get their rightful share of historical credit.
Hello, folks! This is the illustration I promised I was going to do a thousand
years ago, but it was been so long that I’m certain everyone but
myself forgot about it. I never forgot–all day, all night, “I
should definitely be working on that comic…”
So, I’ve been drawing all my life, but I’ve never done
anything with digital art before. I drew this with the cheapest
active stylus I could buy and my nook. Hence why it looks like a
toddler drew it! I promise I am capable of more than this.
Well, actually no, apparently I’m not. But! I hope you get some
enjoyment from this, even if it cannot possibly be as much as you’ll
get from the story that inspired it. To find that, please head over to https://archiveofourown.org/works/11358261/chapters/25422936 and give it all kinds of love.
I have to warn that I am discovering I am barely computer competent and it has been absurdly difficult to figure out how to post this. I am so sorry for any blunders, and also for the general state of the drawings. I did my best to translate to Sindarin and transliterate to tengwar but I am a nurse, not a linguist, so I can’t promise accuracy.
the phrase “a little bird told me” was invented because manwë is the biggest gossip in all of arda
an emu drifts into a study, knocking over a cuiviénen-era ceramic bowl on a pedestal: olórin my good bitch, you’re never gonna believe what i’m going to tell you,
This has actual canon backing! From Morgoth’s Ring p19-20:
“Spirits in the shape of hawks and eagles flew ever to and from his halls; and their eyes could see to the depths of the sea and could pierce the hidden caverns under the world, and their wings could bear them through the three regions of the firmament beyond the lights of heaven to the edge of Darkness. Thus they brought word to him of well nigh all that passed in Aman”
willowfoot 