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TurnerMohan β Finrod Felagund
#noldor #elves #silmarillion #tolkienfanart #finrodfelagund #tolkiensilmarillion
Published: 2014-12-31 08:33:01 +0000 UTC; Views: 12156; Favourites: 153; Downloads: 99
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there's really nothing but good that can be said about Finrod son of Finarfin, the golden boy of the house of Finwe; wise, kind, brave, adventurous, open to new people and experiences, loved by all who meet him. If there were more like him middle-earth would be a better place.I imagine him here wandering the speckle-lit forests of beleriand, in their first spring bloom under the light of the new sun, enraptured by the beauty and majesty of Eru's creation.
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Comments: 41
he is one of my favourite characters!! i love this drawing of him! its perfect!
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Manly and comely, with a face almost too perfect to be human, this sir is a real elf. I love the expression and the light effect! Another great and complex character that you just pinned down gracefully.
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thank you my friend! looking at him now i think i actually could have Klaus Kinski'd him up a bit, but oh well
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I think he received a significant amount of Vanyarin blood into his heritage. He acts like one for a lot of times - he pretty much stayed loyal to the Valar to the end, and was rewarded for it.
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alot of the time in tolkien's world a person's "blood" or genetic heritage will determine a lot about their character. the fact that finrod is both a quarter vanyarian and half telerin seems to make him more considered and cool headed than his pure-noldorian cousins in feanor's line, i don't know if i'd say he stayed loyal to the valar, as "loyalty to the valar" isn't really something that comes into play once they get to middle earth, and probably the most "loyal" thing he could have done toward them would have been to turn around and go back to tirion like his father, but he was certainly a good guy through to the end
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It's a good portrait of Finrod Felagund, king, general, hero against the Shadow, Atani-friend, and elder brother to Galadriel. All of those facets seem to come out in a simple but evocative image here.
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well i'm sure glad you think so, i spent most of the time drawing it just desparately hoping i wouldnt make the nose just a little too high or the eyes just a little too close together or something and make him look totally hideous (drawing "perfect" faces is so much harder than frumpy old dwarves or orcs, it's alot easier to get the proportions just sightly wrong and ruin the image, which is why i usually leave them to my betters among the tolkien fan art commuity 
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"At least his elf guys look a little like guys, and not like girls." - Attr. Zeonista's friend observing his Middle-Earth gallery.
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love your Finrod!! Β so serene, he looks exactly like incarnation of all that epithet, which you gave here! Β and that flecks of sunlight are magnificent( thats so complicate to make this effect in graphite) Β
Amazing portrait of him!Β
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thank you! i'm glad you think i managed to capture something of the character, and your technical compliment is very much appreciated
all the best to you my friend
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Β I must admit that I remain a little fascinated by the curious fact that the role of Finrod Felagund was taken by Celegorm in earlier drafts of The Silmarillion; it has occurred to me that it might be intriguing to depict the two characters as foils to one another even in the Present Incarnation of the Legendarium - both amongst the most charismatic and blessed members of their Houses, both with potential to achieve the highest levels of leadership, but Finrod inarguably the better Elf and as it turns out the Greater Hero to boot.Β
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Β I must say that while your Elf-centred works of art are rare, Master Mohan, they are always well-received on my part!Β Β
Β I must also agree that it is very difficult to say anything but Good about old Wisdom (unless one is of the revisionist school of thought and therefore prepared to effectively re-imagine Middle Earth to do so); still, it is oddly reassuring to know that he isn't PERFECT.
Β If memory serves he WAS (1) Almost as eager for Adventure and a Realm of his own in Middle-Earth as was his sister the Lady Galadriel, not necessarily a Good Thing (2) The King of Bling, having brought along quite a lot of the sparkly treasures to Beleriand, then extremely happy to seek out even more - which is oddly amusing to me, given how superfluous such ornaments would be on such a handsome fellow! (3) Arguably a better friend than a King - admirable as his loyalty to the Oath of Felagund is, being fully-prepared to lead your ENTIRE KINGDOM into trouble as you quest for the Silmaril is β¦ well, more bold than wise (4) from what we can gather not entirely enamoured of his brothers relationship with the Lady Andreth.
Β Not a single one of them is a damning flaw (and admittedly drawn from material that lies outside The Silmarillion proper, on the whole), but they do help to make him even more attractive a personality than he already is, since they make him imperfect and therefore a lot easier to like without resentment!Β Β
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Love the shadow effects on his face. So sublte.
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Man, I really need to get back to reading the Silm. Unfortunately though, I must postpone due to my allergy-induced sneezing distracts me from processing much info. I only just started reading Valaquenta this afternoon: how the heck am I supposed to picture Varda, Tolkien?! On the plus side I did post my drawing of Manwe this morning!
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yeah good luck with the valar. they're a tough one for me. i saw your image of manwe, it definitely captures something about the character, though i'm always surprised how many people draw him clean shaven (as this prototypical "sky-father" in the vein of zeus or odin, i always pictured him with a big white beard)
glad to hear you're plowing through the silm, enjoy
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Thanks! Well the time period I had in my mind when drawing Manwe was during the shaping of Arda, (you know, before Melkor decided to act like an immature cheater and wreck everything) so I made him look young, choosing to take on the appearance of the Firstborn. Also I was actually avoiding making him look like Zeus!
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Amazing art for Finrod! Especially with the mixed feels of sadness, forlornness and anxiety in his eyes!
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yeah well finrod is "fated" as the ancient anglo-saxons might have put it; he's going to die before his time (which in his case i guess any time is "before his time") and rather gruesomely, and he seems to have some sense of it. i think part of him would carry that with him at all times.
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"If there were more like him middle-earth would be a better place" -> If there were more like him middle-earth would be a boring place.
Very nice drawing though. Now the brothers (Aegnor armed for war) !
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yes i agree. we need characters like feanor and his sons, monstrous as they are sometimes, for the same reason that the world needs evil in it; that's what makes it the world, not heaven, and heaven is just boring. tolkien seems to obliquely point to this need for tumult and how the flawed, compromised world is in many ways better than a perfect one would have been, and this is remarked to be so from the elemental level - melkor's boiling anger and cold heart are the reason we have clouds and winter snow - to the level of individuals - if finwe had givn all his energy to raising feanor instead of finding a new wife and having more sons feanor might have turned out better, but then we wouldnt have fingolfin and finarfin and their children, and as tolkien remarks, the history of the noldor would have been diminished without them. even before the creation of the world, illuvatar tells melkor that no matter what he does or however much he "rebels" against him, he'll only do what is in illuvatar's plan (which kinda makes you wonder about what's up with illuvatar 
what i like about tolkien is that, unlike alot of other authors who just get infatuated with the mire of human imperfection (ahem george rr) he'll give us characters like finrod or elrond or aragorn, who basically are perfect, and yeah they're a little boring because of it, compared to figures like turin or maglor or gollum, but they're kind of like Belle in beauty and the beast, more a perfect role model than a flawed character.
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Β As far as I can determine 'tis not that Eru WANTS a pain-filled, imperfect World it's more that he's willing to accept it and do his best to make lemonade out of lemons rather than go to the trouble of re-writing Creation so that he can re-invent the fruit tree; quite frankly I suspect this is his way of paying back Morgoth "You want me to throw away Creation and discard all my other Children as garbage just so you can play the Prima-donna again? No fear my little First-Principal wannabe, we'll make the best of what we have and the best will be far more glorious than you will EVER be."
Β After all, what better and more painful punishment can there be for a Prima-donna than to be PERMANENTLY upstaged?
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I completely share your views on this matter!
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Β Thank you very kindly for the moral support.Β
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You're very welcome! I view Iluvatar as an artist or writer, who has come up with a perfect masterpiece, and will not give up on it no matter how many times that brat Melkor tries to mess it up!
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Β Very true; I myself see Morgoth as the INCARNATION of every Self-Destructive Rockstar Jerk trying to punch up his very own profile at the expense of everyone else, "A fully functioning Homicidal Artist" as opposed to Sauron (whom I tend to see as more functionalist - albeit with more than a little Feline style thrown in - why try breeding wonder-weapons when you can drown them in Orcs and undermine them from the Shadows until they start killing one another?).
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'Self destructive rock star jerk' I bet that's what Manwe and the majority of the Ainur thought of him from the moment he challenged Iluvatar's theme with his discord.
Well, time to get back to Valaquenta! (I stopped for a bit as I challenged myself to draw Varda, which resulted in my new piece Manwe and Varda). That's all for now folks! Later!
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Β I hope that you have Fun!
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Thanks! I really have to sleep now. I only slept for only five hours last night and now again it's past midnight here in my country. Later!
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Β Sleep well and enjoy your dreams!
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Finrod is my favorite elven Lord from the First Age! You captureed his likeness brilliantly, and teh atmosphear is very nicely done. The way he is depicted, almost ethereal, almost divine and his blessed appareance are top-notch. His features, as always, are worth of a Greek sculptor in Olympia. I always imagined Finrod with a hint of melancholy and sadness, something I think you added in your portrayal skillfully.
Very nice indeed. Added to favs.
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thank you my friend. I'm glad you like it. i don't do elves all that often (even though i have strong opinions about their appearance) mostly because it's just harder to draw beautiful perfect faces and bodies than it is to draw things like orcs or dwarves. elves are these basically superhuman beings, physically their features should look like those of a human, but done just right.
as i've probably mentioned to you before, with the elves i usually try to take the bodily ideals established by the ancient greek and roman sculptors, and then stretch them out to longer, more classically "nordic" skeletal proportions, especially with the first age residents of beleriand, which i see as this proto-nordic fairy tale world, not even english yet really, like they come from the myths of the germanic/nordic people who would one day become the anglo-saxon english. Tolkien seems to have been shooting for something like this i think; the silmarillion owes alot to the norse sagas and the finnish kalaevala, it doesnt feel as distinctly english as the hobbit or the lord of the rings, so when i picture the elves of the first age, i usually think of them as these really intense, pale-eyed nordic looking types (when i read the silmarillion, even the character's voices don't play as having english accents in my head, but closer to german or nordic accents) in finrod's case i took some inspiration from klaus kinski, especially as he appears in "aguirre, the wrath of god," (although hopefully leaving out most of the kinski-scare-factor) also the nazi state statuary of arno breker, which depicted the "nordic type" in the style of classical greek ideals rendered in marble. lastly (and this may be responsible for some of the melancholy) a little bit of kurt cobain forund his way into him, as i can sort of see fingon as occupying this cobain-like place in the minds of the noldor; this beautiful, sensetive enigmatic blonde man, cut down too early in life and leaving a lasting legacy in the mind of the culture as this kind of lost youth, lost to us but forever young and inspiring, almost a peter pan-type figure (incedentally the 90's grunge aesthetic of long hair and short t-shirts worn over long ones cuts an almost perfect silhouette for the viking-inspired dress of the elves as i see them)
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Indeed, Elves being perfect are incredibly tough to draw, for the reasons you mention, they embody a physical perfection, a beauty without parallel, more so for those who witnessed the light of Valinor, who I always depicted in my mind with an inner calmness and peace, a certain light in the eyes. Greeks pretty much established the canon of male beauty in Europe, so hardly you could use a different source than theirs, but using a German/Nordic influences seem right to me! Even if most of the Noldor are dark-haired! But of course, these cold beauty, detached, works well with Elves, so using Breker's statuary seems to be a fitting choice, those proud, muscular and almost perfect men would be nice models to use as reference for any First Born. I agree with you with the Cobain-esque quality, perhaps Tolkien thought in a Mozart-esque reference. Finrod is by far my favorite elven Lord, the one who fought Sauron and maintained his oath of helping Barahir and his kin, sympathetic with Edain, skilled in arms and sing! I prefer him over the usually-favored Maglor&Maedhros.
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I always liked him, such a nice bloke. But among the powerful stream of ambiguous charisma of The Silmarillion's cast he was never able to stood among my very favourites. Not that he lacks charisma, he truly is a cool character (but I'd probably say that of most if not all of Tolkien's, I'm pretty biased) but seemed almost flat in the mid of more flawed and controversial ones.
The sang duel with Sauron is his best moment and one of the best of all The Silmarillion, by the way, I even made an original short comic shamelessly inspired to that concept years ago. My second favourite is probably the first encounter with men.
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yeah well it's not hard to see why more flawed characters like the sons of Feanor are great fan favorites; they are caught in the friction of wanting to do good but being compelled to evil, they know it, and it tortures them. they are complex and tragic, and next to them (or to strong-willed, stubborn characters like aredhel, turin or thingol) finrod comes off a bit boring. he seems more like a role model, an example of what people should be, than a more realistic, flawed character. he was really a best-case-scenario for mankind's first encounter with the high elves.
do you have that comic posted? i'd like to see it, I'll check your gallery. the singing duel between him and sauron is a great scene (purposely homaged, i believe, with his sister galadriel in the battle of five armies)
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The comic is in my gallery but it's written in italian and therefore useless for foreigners, but thanks for the interest. It's also completely unrelated to Tolkien, I mentioned it just because it's inspired by that part of The Silmarillion. It's about a clash of songs that represent the opposite cultural and philosophical positions of two fantasy people I invented... the very same concept. The pages would be probably better in color but I never found the will to complete them, not that I don't like the comic and its characters but it was done mainly as an axercise and I never gave it much importance.
I didn't knew about such a scene in the latest Jackson movie, as a great fan of Galadriel I hope to be able to check it sooner of later, at least out of curiosity. She's perfectly casted but I always found her depiction in the movies quite lacking, it should have been more effective and powerful while it results pretty tepid, more creepy than anything else.
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