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TurnerMohan In reply to EcureuilMatrix [2017-01-20 21:57:07 +0000 UTC]

there is I believe a consistent (and surprisingly close) general consensus among readers and fan artists of tolkien's world as to what his characters should look and feel like. I chalk it up to his ability to convey a lot about a character's personality with very little actual modern-novelist-style psychological examination of them, especially in the more ancient saga/biblical writing style he affects in the Silmarillion. We're never given any extensive description of feanor's appearance (except that he is, in all likelihood tall and dark haired) but somehow everyone kind of knows what he should look and feel like. glad you think I struck near to the mark with this one

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EcureuilMatrix In reply to TurnerMohan [2017-01-21 05:33:51 +0000 UTC]

I agree! 

You're welcome.

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TurnerMohan In reply to Toraach [2016-06-19 15:03:50 +0000 UTC]

yep, he's pretty boss.

I think it's the contrast of good and evil, creative and destructive, being this celebrated and awed but also isolated and alone in his genius, that draws people to feanor. Tolkien writes him as basically the most important character that ever lived (at least among the children of illuvatar, though i suppose luthien is also a decent candidate, as much for her progeny as for herself) and everyone, the valar, melkor, his own people, seem to treat him as such, and even after he's killed speak of him as this great, terrible, brilliant figure.

it's funny because for all the celebrity status he enjoys and all the esteem he's held in, most of feanor's personal relationships are kind of a mess; he's a devoted son to finwe but is likely an entirely unpleasant and standoffish stepson to indis, is deeply threatened by and resentful toward his brother fingolfin (and generally dismissive of finarfin) and probably makes for a domineering, commanding father figure to his seven sons (especially the older ones; i often wondered if in part Meadhros, particularly after the kinslaying, the betrayal at losgar and his own long torment on thangorodrim - but possibly before as well, during the kinstrife in aman - in some ways would have rather been fingolfin's son, and brother to fingolfin's children, than having to be the heir of feanor and head of his house) I always wondered about feanor's relationship with nerdanel his wife (and have been meaning for a long time to do a painting which will convey some of my thoughts on the subject) she's remarked to be the only one he would take council from, but only for a while, and ofcourse she does not go with him or their seven sons. Their falling out is one of the areas of the silmarillion that is most frustrating to me in it's brevity (and that's mor or less how i feel about the whole silmarillion to start with)

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TurnerMohan In reply to peet [2015-11-20 12:10:09 +0000 UTC]

I guess the reason i'm drawn to the tightly slicked back long hair for feanor (other than the fact that it was so well established as the "elven" look by the jackson films that it's still hard to get away from ) it that it lends such an exposed, hardened purposefulness to the forehead, which seems appropriate to me for his driven character (it would work for his smith work, and at this point especially he's heartbroken, but also wrathful and kind of a striking snake, i like how the exposed hairline and trailing hair gives this serpentine, dangerous look, like he could drive that sharp sword of his into a kinsman with minimal provocation) that said i really appreciate seeing more varied hairstyles amoung the eldar, especially of the short, classical greek/roman variety (or banged hairstyles, i dont think we've seen enough of those on elves)

thanks my friend, glat you liked the eyes, i'd intended to finish them more, but just figured i should quit while i was ahead

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peet In reply to TurnerMohan [2015-11-21 11:10:53 +0000 UTC]

Ah yes, the standard slicked back 'military-issue' of Jackson-verse To be honest, this doesn't look like that. His hair seems more natural here, more Homeric, as if he just swipes it back with his hand if it flops over his eyes. I like it, and approve of your description of his purposeful forehead (which I probably share with you a bit in this one: Feanor's Betrayal at Losgar ). I've also gone with bangs (or a fringe as we call it in the UK) with this Avari Elf . I actually picture some of the Sindar to look like this, particularly Beleg (who I envisage with a similar, if not even slightly shorter, hairstyle). 

As to the eyes - yes I noted that you mentioned them as being unfinished. But I'd leave them as they are if I were you - I reckon you'd regret it if you went back to them

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TurnerMohan In reply to peet [2016-05-04 10:31:15 +0000 UTC]

yes I've seen that avarin elf of yours before, I really enjoy seeing those types of hairstyles represented in depictions of tolkien's elves. Jenny Dolfen also does alot of fringed/classical looking hairstyles on the princes of the noldor, i think it's a look that works for the elves in the days of their youth in middle-earth (and in aman). typically, though i don't consider this a set rule just an inclination, the older, more venerated, or more ferocious in nature an elven character is (like thingol, finwe, feanor, maedhros, caranthir ect) the more i'm inclined to the slicked back hair look, it just gives a character this dangerous, driven, or like i said, just very venerable feel (as with finwe or thingol, who i imagine spend alot of time just sitting enthroned in power like living statues) Actually that avarin elf (though i know you painted him long before) sort of reminds me of the appearance of kylo ren in the force awakens (a character that i think will have some influence among the tolkien-fan-art world in the years to come; I was not at all surprised to see Jenny Dolfen doing fan art of him, considering how closely reminiscent to her many depictions of feanor he is) one of my first thoughts was "man, this guy would make a great maeglin." I'm currently at work on a picture of aredhel and eol, the latter will almost surely owe some debt to adam driver (along with the Crow and a very particular shot of jim carrey from "eternal sunshine" which i think i must have imagined, as i've never been able to find it again in my many re-viewings of that film. weird when that happens)

i can see why so much thought from fan artists is put into elven hair; it's their physical attribute on which tolkien seems to spend the most words, and considering that all of them are tall and handsome (not to mention predominantly pale skinned and grey-eyed) the style and color of the elven characters' hair seems to be mainly what we have to go on to differentiate them (also hair - how it was worn, it's color, ect - was a very important thing to the ancient germanic people on whose cultural mores and mythos tolkien's world seems primarily based)

yeah i don't think I'll be tampering with the eyes, "happy accidents" as Bob Ross calls them are usually best left be.

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TurnerMohan In reply to Libra1010 [2014-05-25 15:53:05 +0000 UTC]

christopher lee was one of about a hundred people whose faces inspired this piece, along with daniel day lewis, michael fassbender, ralph fiennes, clint eastwood, thaddeus stevens, myself and many many many others, to the point where it isnt even really worth it (to me) to pick someone out and say that they "inspired" it. in general it's very rare for me that a single person will have inspired my conception of a tolkienien character; they exist in my mind as themselves, not as some actor who could feasibly play them, leave that for the movie-version where they have to be played by a real person with a real face, but as drawings/paintings, they can just be themselves without any compromise. take for example meneldil-elda's "turin," which in my mind is so good that I basically consider the book closed on the subject; i could probably name many people that drawing looks like or in some way evokes, or i could skip all that and say that he just is turin, more than any living person (much less any actor) could ever be, because he was designed to be. that's what i dont like about tolkien art that essentially functions as fan-casting wish fulfillment, i think to some degree it's missing out on what illustration really is.

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Libra1010 In reply to TurnerMohan [2014-05-25 17:08:31 +0000 UTC]

 I did not intend to imply that you were modelling this depiction of Feanor on any single actor - I was in fact referring to your previously-stated idea of casting Sir Christopher Lee in the role (an idea which I believe that you posted elsewhere, albeit I cannot recall exactly where).

 I would like to apologise for any offence given, as none was intended in the slightest nor was any inference (except that in his youth Sir Christopher Lee would have been an AWESOME casting choice for Elendil!).  

 On reflection I should have probably posted this in your Profile - I shall remember to do so in future. 

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TurnerMohan In reply to Artigas [2014-04-20 08:03:16 +0000 UTC]

burning holes in the viewer with his eyes seems like a baseline requirement for any even halfway decent feanor.

Thanks Bro!

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TurnerMohan In reply to Zireael07 [2014-03-04 21:41:26 +0000 UTC]

thank you!

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TurnerMohan In reply to Zeonista [2014-03-01 20:01:36 +0000 UTC]

yes feanor is one of my favorite "tragic heroes" and one of the characters in whom tolkien's gift for conveying everything we need to know about the character while keeping that distance from the character that you always see in ancient epics. we never see feanor in closeup like you would with a character in a modern novel (or even in alot of sophocles or shakespeare's work, tolkien's chosen aesthetic seems to have been more like the northern european sagas, which rarely give you any kind of intimate window into the characters' psychology) and it gives him that authentically ancient, mythological feel, and yet you really do feel like you know everything about his personality, which is larger than life.

Actually, I don't know if you've ever read any of her work, but I've often thought that feanor is almost a perfect Ayn Rand protagonist; he's a creative genius who (apart from a chosen few) couldn't give a damn about others, can't be persuaded or influenced away from the course he chooses, is often a complete asshole, creates things that benefit and enrich the world around him purely by serving his own desire, and when "the powers" come knocking, requiring the fruit of his labor, he flatly refuses, basically on the distinctly objectivist grounds that what is his (both his talent and energy, and his creative output) is his alone and no one else has the right to it. The big difference, I think, is that, unlike in Rand's world-view, in middle-earth God and legitimate "higher powers" do exist, and what is Feanor's is also theirs (both in that Illuvatar made feanor to be what he was, and quite pointedly in the case of the silmarils, as they were made from the light of the trees of Yavanna) I first read the Silmarillion and The Fountainhead at about the same time, and was struck by how similar Feanor and Howard Roark and their respective dillemmas were. I tend to side more with the way tolkien "takes" such a character; he is simpathetic to feanor, and readily acknowledges his greatness, but is also highly critical of him (unlike rand, whose strategy for dealing with such a nietzschian superman is to simply fall on one's face and worship him)

Yes I had had that part in the story (between the kinslaying and the burning at losgar) in mind for this piece, but really it is a portrait that exists "out of time" more meant to represent his state, from hearing of the death of his father to his own death at the hands of the balrogs. He seems to become more and more inflamed by his own acts; the renunciation of the valar, the oath, the turning away of manwe's herald, the killing of the teleri, the way he scoffs at mandos' doom of banishment, the betrayal of fingolfin, and the furious campaign towards angband. It's as if with each act he's psyching himself up for the next, burning all bridges to redemption, and sinking himself deeper in. "engulfed by fire" was a pretty natural choice, both in that he is the "spirit of fire" and in that tolkien had the genius to provide just such a scene (in his last version of the scene, tolkien had amras die by accident at the burning at losgar, which does not slow down feanor at all, and adds a whole new dimension to that "king lear"-like spiral into crazy) but I think he needs a whole lot more blood on his face, really washed in it like the "carrie" posters, or the blue clay on anthony hopkins on the cover of "titus" as if that blood is there, on his hands and the noldors', and will never go away.

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Zeonista In reply to TurnerMohan [2014-03-03 19:31:11 +0000 UTC]

Well, comparing Feanor & Howard Roark is a new concept for me. I have not personally read much of Ayn Rand at any impressionable age (no broadswords or spaceships ) but I have had many people who were willing to discuss her works in detail, and also to lampoon them, so I do understand the basics for your comparison. Tolkien really made Feanor a character who could be admired, despised, and pitied in repeating measures; he casts such a long shadow in the history of Middle-Earth that it's hard to imagine what would have happened without him. His virtues and vices are the same as ours though, simply writ larger because he is a larger figure, and so the legendary hero becomes easier to understand and identify with, as no doubt intended.  

The Norse & Celtic Heroes never got a fair shake from historical updating in a creative format. After Snorri wrote down the sagas, and Beowulf was moldering in a private collection, and the Stuart & Hanover dynasties suppressed Gaelic culture, the heroes of the Norse & Welsh-Irish stories faded away, dismissed as being nothing more than tales from the "Dark Age". No Shakespeare or Sophocles or Ibsen updated and expanded upon them for posterity, only the self-conscious and overly simplistic Wagner. (King Arthur got saved by Spenser & T. H. White, although I will leave it to the reader to determine if the Anglicization of Arthur is worth hearing Richard Burton rap onstage about Camelot.) The Doric-descended Greeks, in need of a similar cultural background and conscious of libel lawsuits, went to the tales of the Minoan-Mycenean past of "Achean" & "Attic" heroes, and wrote pages of poetic drama about late-Bronze Age kings & heroes & witches that were not too unlike the Gaelic & Norse heroic tales at their original core. Some of it survived to be hailed as the cradle of the Western civilization by European scholars, and the rest is pseudo-history!
 
 

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TurnerMohan In reply to Jakegothicsnake [2014-03-01 13:21:52 +0000 UTC]

"fey" was used to describe his mood at this point in the story, but I'm sure if "cray-cray" had existed at the time it would have been Tolkien's preferred choice.

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Jakegothicsnake In reply to TurnerMohan [2014-03-01 22:36:29 +0000 UTC]

XD

I remember reading The Silmarillion, and when it got to describing Feanor's mood as "fey", originally, I was a bit confused, until I learned that "fey" could also mean seriously raging. lol

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