Bright Himring Morning by Lyra

[oloriel.livejournal.com]

B2MeM Prompt and Path: Green - "It was the possibility of darkness that made the day seem so bright." ~ Stephen King
Format: Fanart
Genre: Watercolour
Rating: Gen
Warnings: N/A
Characters: N/A
Pairings: N/A
Creator’s Notes (optional): N/A
Summary: During the Watchful Peace, all hell might break loose at any moment. Until that happens, the Noldor make the best of the spectacular vista. (A.k.a. view from Himring across the March of Maedhros clouds towards Thangorodrim.)




(A click on the pic will take you to a somewhat larger version at my dA account. With extra rambling, if that's your kind of thing.)

Comments

[kayleelupin.livejournal.com]

This is lovely!! (And I was given an excuse to sign into DA for the first time in forever to comment there..)

[oloriel.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

[zdenka]

Oh wow, that's gorgeous. I love all the little details on the windows. I thought your comments over on DA were interesting! It's cool that the roof is covered with copper -- now I'm imagining how brilliantly that must shine in the sun. (I'm also amused that the fortress is russandol as well as its master.)

[oloriel.livejournal.com]

Thank you very much! Glad you liked my comments. I always need to ramble about my pics but I figured I shouldn't do it twice over. Yes, the copper roof must be like a beacon in the sun, at least until verdigris takes hold. Then again, polishing the roof plates would probably be an accepted form of recreation among the Noldor. That, or some kind of discipline? "You give me that attitude again, recruit, and I'll send you up there to polish the roof!" :P

(Heh! I guess it's not a very original pun, but I'm still pleased that people caught on to it!)

[shirebound]

That's very pleasing. :)

[oloriel.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I wasn't sure whether a "pretty" Himring would work for people but I thought if you have to live up there, you'd want it to be as pleasant as possibe. :)

[heartofoshun.livejournal.com]

I like the idea of creating art of Himring that makes it beautiful. I have always in the past interpreted it has rather utilitarian in nature myself, although perhaps drawing it in word pictures as being a bit nicer on the inside. But I very much like what you said about it on Deviantart:

Wait, no, these are Noldor. They're, like, psychologically incapable of creating something that isn't beautiful. Even if they build a fortress on a windswept mountaintop, they would make it pretty.

It's a lovely, uplifting picture. The Silmarillion can always use one of those! And I also like the idea of it being visible in all its beauty from Thangorodhrim.

Lovely picture!

[oloriel.livejournal.com]

Yes, so far, I've pictured it more like one of these very pragmatic Highland places, all bleak and high walls.
But this:
it being visible in all its beauty from Thangorodhrim
is precisely what made me go for a pretty castle! It's like a constantly extended middle finger to Morgoth. Look what we built in your backyard! It might not be the smartest thing to provoke Morgoth, but it might be a constant distraction from whatever else the Noldor are doing.

Thank you!

[ysilme]

What she says. :)

[just-jenni.livejournal.com]

This is beautiful artwork! I just love the detailed architecture.

[oloriel.livejournal.com]

Thank you very much!

[hrymfaxe.livejournal.com]

Oooh I have no patience for details like that, so I am truly impressed. I can't believe how well you have made those window panes!

What size paper is the original?

[oloriel.livejournal.com]

Aw, thank you so much! The window panes had me exhausted, I tell you. I very much regretted the idea to give the damn place so many windows! But I'm thrilled that you think they're well done!

It's a standard watercolour pad (24 x 32 cm), and thus slightly too large for my A3 scanner, which I always keep forgetting (hence the fuzzy shadowy lines at the top and bottom. Thangorodrim actually had a proper shadow but I had to cut it out in order to preserve the signature). One day I will learn to keep that in mind but it was clearly not this day...
Anyway, thank you!

[ysilme]

I absolutely love this. Architecture geek that I am, I delight in the details and variation you've put in here, and without knowing it before this is just how "Noldor in Beleriand" would build their buildings in my eyes.

[oloriel.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much! Glad the architectural details work for you. I had no real mental image of just how the Noldor would be building before I went into this (aside from everything being rather more sturdy and a lot less dainty than in Movie Rivendell) but I'm quite pleased with this. :)

[silver-trails.livejournal.com]

Lovely!

[oloriel.livejournal.com]

Thank you very much!

[foxrafer.livejournal.com]

I absolutely love the architectural details in this. It's great.

[oloriel.livejournal.com]

Aw, thank you! :)

[ladybrooke]

This is gorgeous! I love the idea of the Noldor having pretty fortresses, and Maedhros having a copper roof makes me wonder what the rest of the family would have (and now I have images of Celebrimbor having a silver roof, no matter how impractical that would be). :D

[oloriel.livejournal.com]

I'm very glad the idea works for you! Hm. Curufin (and, by extension, Celebrimbor I guess) would probably use something that doesn't easily catch fire (or melt), so probably glazed tiles? (Celebrimbor could probably use some silver-ish pigment for the glaze?) Caranthir's fortress might have a slate roof, Thargelion has somehow always struck me as a shale and slate country. Celegorm might be OK with wood unless he's vain enough to go for gold-glazed tiles. Copper or wood for the Ambarussar, and Maglor might go against the grain and use turf in order to be unobtrusive down by the Gap. Am I overthinking things? Almost certainly!
Anyway, thank you!

[ladybrooke]

I like your overthinking though! I'm very fond of your idea of Maglor bucking what his siblings are doing and using turf to go unnoticed - that sort of cautiousness could explain why he was the last one alive ("Curufin! Flaming swords might be cool, but the Sindar have arrows. That they will use to shoot you. And a flaming sword is a giant "HERE I AM" sign. So no. Put it back.")
You're welcome!

[mithrial.livejournal.com]

Such a lovely design with the gothic windows and high lookout tower. So much detail it must have taken you a while, but then I can see you
have become involved in the creation. Those big gothic windows with the smaller circular windows at the top, and the brick design. Very elvish, but in a strong Noldor way.
I often find myself wondering about logistics and elvish plumming too.

[oloriel.livejournal.com]

Thank you very much! I actually took shortcuts on a lot of the detail, I have been known to become a lot more involved in finicky stuff. But shhh! ;) Happy you like the design. I definitely wanted it to be different from the dainty Elvish design of the movies (Himring is, in every respect, a lot more exposed than Rivendell - and this is a much earlier time after all), but I still wanted it to pass as Elvish (as opposed to Ancient Roman or the like). Glad it worked for you!

Yes! I want maps of where they grew what food and who imported what from where etc. etc.! And detailed plans of Elvish houses (yes, including the plumbing)!

[dawn_felagund]

I love this! The amount of detail is impressive; I find myself trying to imagine doing a piece of this high caliber in three days! :D

It's also an interesting idea to see Thangorodrim as an almost beautiful part of the landscape, and it is nicely symbolic to imagine the fortress of Maedhros and the triple mountains of Morgoth peering at each other across the cloud inversion, apart from the rest of Beleriand and with eyes only for each other.

[oloriel.livejournal.com]

Thank you very much! Three days are actually rather slow for me, but it's been a long time since I've been serious about painting so these days everything takes me twice as long. ;)

Yes! I think that from this distance, it would be, well, not pretty but not horrible either. I figure both mountains are high enough to glare at each other over the clouds (Thangorodrim must have been insanely high anyway, but since the top of Himring is still visible even after the rest of Beleriand has gone under, it can't have been just an ordinary hill, either?) much of the time. I figure Maedhros might actually relish the view; what better way to remind himself, every day, that he's here and not there? :D

[engarian.livejournal.com]

I love the elaborate windows and the buttresses. The plain must be quite vast since Thangorodrim was quite large, so I'm very impressed with your play on scale here. Love the colors - yeah. Very nice.

- Erulisse (one L)

[oloriel.livejournal.com]

The vastness of the plain is one reason why I went for the friendly cloud cover - MUCH easier to handle than trying to scale the March and the foot of the mountain! *shudders*
Thank you!

[lindahoyland.livejournal.com]

This is very atmospheric.

[oloriel.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

[hhimring]

Flags flying jauntily...
Very nice Gothic detail, it look quite habitable (and easier to heat than PJ's Rivendell)!
I enjoyed your comments over on DeviantArt!

[oloriel.livejournal.com]

Yes, it's very much an extended middle finger northwards. ;)
It should be habitable! No reason to be miserable up on a mountain (Maedhros: "Been there, done that"). And they should make it easy to heat, they'll need to do a lot of heating on Mount Ever-cold.
Thank you very much, I enjoyed yours too! :)

[dreamflower]

Oh, I love it! It has kind of a Mediterranean look to my eye. Very beautiful, and yet also strong.

[oloriel.livejournal.com]

It's probably the colour combination! Initially I wanted to make it look even more ancient Roman, but then I felt that it needed to be set apart as "Elvish", so I threw in all the Gothic elements.
Thank you!

[starbrow.livejournal.com]

This is great! I love the golden roof, the white limestone walls, contrasting with the black mountains, and the windows and the tower! I really love the tower, it's exactly how I imagined Himring's highest tower to look. (I imagine Maedhros standing on top of it, and yelling invectives at Morgoth, hah!)

[oloriel.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much! I'm glad you like my interpretation. And I'm particularly thrilled that the tower matches your imagination! (Hah! I can certainly see him standing there and looking across the clouds, or Marshes, towards Thangorodrim just because he's here and not there. :D)

[independence1776]

I love this: the details and the coloring!

[oloriel.livejournal.com]

Thank you! If anyone had asked me what colour scheme I envisioned for Himring, this would have been about the last thing I'd have expected (I would have thought more along the lines of sickly green and grey/ochre), so the process of colouring it was... surprising? Glad you like it!

[nialoke]

This is gorgous! I love the detail on the windows, and the flags. Also really like your reasoning behind it over on dA - the copper-top roof, the Noldor being "Let's at least go out with style, dammit!" and the bit about Maedhros not building his castle single-handedly... *inappropriate giggles*

[oloriel.livejournal.com]

Oh, thank you so much (especially for appreciating the detail on the windows, which was a pain to paint)! Glad that my inappropriate joke amused you, and that my unsorted ideas work for you. :)

[elleth]

Such a beautiful counterpoint to Angband in the distance! And do I spot some inspiration from Schloss Burg in the window designs, especially the ones in (presumably) the large hall? ^^