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TurnerMohan β Silmarillion Cover Concept
#silmarillion #tolkien #berenluthien
Published: 2015-02-15 09:38:57 +0000 UTC; Views: 5923; Favourites: 56; Downloads: 34
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Description
Quick preliminary sketch for a painting I'm currently in the opening planning stages of, featuring the scene where the sons of feanor attack beren and luthien in the woods. I figure I'll really plan this one out beforehand and probably use models (something i don't usually do). for some reason i cant help but see this one as a cover for the silmarllion.Β the relationship between men and the eldar was probably the closest part of his whole mythos to tolkien's heart (and in no instance closer than the love between beren and luthien, whose names are inscribed on his and his wife's tombs) and i've always loved this particular scene; it fits so well into that classic trope where love blooms between a man and a woman from across racial, economic, social (or in this case specieal) lines, and the girl's kinsmen/suitor(s) set upon the invading male in this fury of jealousy and outrage. you see it all the time; romeo and juliet, titanic, the karate kid, pocahontas, avatar, the list of iterations goes on and on.
I've been doing a a good bit of concept related preliminary work for this piece, and I'll probably do a lot more, so expect to see some more of that.
oh and for anyone attempting to read the side notes, the last line (which got cut off in the scan) reads "beren is a ragged looking caveman by comparrison"
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Comments: 13
Just curious, are you planning on doing further work on this one? I love the scene you've set up.
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yes, infact i've just added this one to the queue of digital paintings i'm currently working on, might be a while and several lesser digital pieces before this one gets finished, as i'm very attached to the concept and want to do it justice. thanks for your continued interest
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I absolutely love this concept as the cover for the Silmarillion, and you have the most wonderful developmental sketches. I'm so excited to see more of this!
I also highly appreciate your Karate Kid note on the side, it's fantastic.
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thanks! and yeah karate kid's one of the many, many movies that presents that classic sruffy-boy-from-the-wrong-side-of-the-tracks-meets-princess-and-is-promptly-attacked-by-jealous-douchebags-from-"her-world" archetype that i think is just perfect for this scene (plus karate kid does it really well 
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It's a good cover concept. The core themes of the work get brought forward, and the casual buyer will want to know why the handsome guys are trying to run down the couple on a date in the forest. And all the douchebag comic book store critics will say it's crap because you didn't include the dog. 
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Β I can hardly wait to see the finished piece, Master Mohan, for it promises to be a thoroughly splendid one (although I keep imagining the expression on Thingol King's face were he to hear The Sons of Feanor described as his Kinsmen and collapsing into a fit of laughter!).Β
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a very impressive scene you chose for the cover. it's not only this typical image like you discribe it (the kinsman of the girl trying to "protect" her against her own will from the "invading" male) but also it is a great metaphor for the sons of feanor and how they lost the "good" path how i would call it. this scene is so impressive and shows how thick the bond between men and elves can be (of course luthien and beren are a special example) and in my opinion how the great eru depicted it to be, his sons helping and encouraging each other (even if he didn't meant them to mix up that way
in my opinion very well chosen scene and like always based on deep thoughts, something apart from your drawing and painting skills i really love about your art. can't wait to see the finished work!
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i'm right there with you on the "fated" aspect of beren and luthien; huan (though excluded from this piece) is like a divine supervisor to the whole event (and really the whole quest to see thingol's demanded dowery fulfilled) beren, though greatly outmatched, wins the day because, in addition to his own personal grit and bravery (and, i sense, far more importantly than that) Fate is on his side; on some level the power that drives the world wants this union to happen. the relationship between men and the elves was so close to tolkien's heart, especially beren and luthien. there's is the first time (i sense this was an all-important moment to tolkien) where a strain of the elves (and even the divine powers) enters humanity, the race that, despite it's failings, will inherit the earth (and the one to which both tolkien and we his audience belong) and the attack of these entitled elven douchebags to try to prevent it, aside from being the beren's only time to shine in the whole quest for the silmaril, is so romantic, it's like something you'd see in a 19th century opera. seems a perfect cover shot for the silm to me
now i just have to make it
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i thought about the elven blood entering the human race thing too and it seems to me that this somehow is a very typical image/idea of the romanticism. i don't know if you ever read a lot about romaticism, but i guess so. in this era of art the very art itself was seen as something godly given to the human, something that stands in a very strong contrast to the age of enlightenment in which the rational understanding was put in first place and things like fairy tails and myth became something unimportant and were put aside as nonsense (kind of what saruman does in the last years of the third age). for me the elves embody this godly understanding of art, being the observers of the world and especially the nature, able to create things of surpassing beauty. on top of that they seem to be an inseparable part of nature and its beauty itself (which being created by eru and the valar is godly too). so the mix of this, if you want so, superior race and the human race enables and explains the love for nature and the use of art in our own race.
i know tolkien didn't want anyone to interpret his work in a allegoric way, but i think this is more of a way he saw the world (and also arda) than an allegoric interpretation of his masterpiece with a message for our world or something.
i hope you can understand the things i'm trying to express/explain. it's very difficult for me not being a native speaker.
anyway i am sure you will do an incredible job on this cover, like always. can't wait to see it!
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I like the concept! Has a "farmer's boy being caught with the maiden by the noble brother" feel, but then double with the grandness of Tolkien's world.
Perhaps a bit more violent than your usual Tolkien depictions? Awesome
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that sexual jealousy of men over women "of their own kind" being "invaded," seduced or taken by outsiders is a constant running theme in humanity ("raping a white woman" was probably the most common charge, whether ever true or not, for which black men were lynched in the jim crow-era south) and one of the things i really want this piece to convey, when finished, is that ferocious racial/cutural/class-based outrage (totally hypocritical on Celegorm and Curufin's part to boot, as the sons of feanor seem to be pretty open in their contempt of thingol and his people as their racial inferiors but DAMN thingol's daughter is really something 
also (and this is one of the things i love about the sons of feanor) a bad elven prince (to say nothing of two together on great horses armed to the teeth) is a pretty fucking formidable opponent for a man. they're like super-empowered medieval barons or something; physically perfect, bold, keen eyed, really good fighters and horsemen, and vicious.
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I see you really have thought this scene through! I'm looking forward
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