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alystraea — Glorfindel finds his grave
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Published: 2016-02-08 12:36:06 +0000 UTC; Views: 4795; Favourites: 61; Downloads: 25
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“The song of your battle with the balrog has a pretty ending," said Galadriel to Glorfindel. "Legend has it that Ulmo kept your grave above the waves of Alatairë, when Beleriand was drowned, and that golden celandines bloom on it still. Is it true?” And with that, Glorfindel is sent on a mission to 'find himself'... though he would ever so much prefer looking at the northern lights over the Forodwaith. Early Third Age. A spin-off from my other Glorfindel fanfic "The Golden and the Black": www.fanfiction.net/s/11777694/… ;I loosely based this painting on this photo: www.gettyimages.com/detail/pho…
The flowers were the killer in this one - used at least six different photos of celandine as references, including this: cdn4.naturettl.com/wp-content/… .
Done in MyPaint with the classic/coarsebulk1 brush for the hills and stones, the big airbrush for the sky, and a basic brush called deevad/digital for everything else. I erase most of the untidy layer of pencil sketch as I go along...
Trying to get a handle on painting backlighting because I love the effect so much!
Wish wish wish I had more time to draw and paint. Progress so very slow.
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Comments: 15
The picture is beautiful but it's impossible for him to ever find his grave.... it's not anymore on the surface of Arda, it is "drowned" after the war of wrath together with the rest of Beleriand... sadly
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Thank you so much for your comment! I'm so happy you think it is beautiful.
And yes, it is well known, as you say, that in The Silmarillion it says that flowers bloomed upon Glorfindel's grave "until the world was changed" (i.e. Beleriand was drowned). But the interesting thing is that in The Book of Lost Tales Part 2, after the survivors raised a cairn over Glorfindel's body, Tolkien adds: "and Thorondor has not yet let any harm come thereto, but yellow flowers have fared thither and blow ever now about that mound in those unkindly places". The present perfect tense certainly suggests that the grave might have survived the ruin of Beleriand and might still be above the waves. The two versions in the canon allow a reader to choose which end they like better, especially as Tolkien left so much unfinished.
Also, if you look at the maps, Tolkien left some bits of old Beleriand as islands above the sea - like Tol Fuin and Himling and Tol Morwen. I thought it would be interesting if there were many smaller islands not mapped that might have survived as well, and that Glorfindel's grave might be there. I left it uncertain in my story - even my Glorfindel is skeptical that his grave is to be found.
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Maybe that one part stayed above the sea? Or was raised in his honor?
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i like how you draw glorfindel, you make his hair something special. they are the sun of the picture, even when there is a lot of yellow, his hair is the most radiant. also his pose here look very natural and the flowers in the foreground are very good.
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Thanks so much! I'm happy you think the hair succeeded in being special - because it should be so for Glorfindel!
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This is so beautiful, you have big talent 
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I must say, I never really considered this, and yet it was such a popular tale among Elves that he must've heard about it at some point or another. Very interesting take.
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Tolkien had a few versions describing the Glorfindel's burial and his grave - in The Silmarillion, it sounds as though the grave was there until the War of Wrath, then it was destroyed in the drowning of Beleriand. In another version, it sounds as though the grave could still exist. So I have romantically decided to go for the latter!
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