HOME | DD
TurnerMohan — Morgoth Victorious
#melkor #morgoth #silmarillion #tolkien
Published: 2015-02-06 09:30:53 +0000 UTC; Views: 14721; Favourites: 151; Downloads: 84
Redirect to original
Description
Morgoth returns back undergound, following his "victory" over fingolfin.the duel with the elven king is a really bad day for morgoth. despite his unequaled power, he comes out to battle with fingolfin only very reluctantly, and fingolfin does more of a number on him than anyone, probably even morgoth hiding deep in his halls and fearing to come forth, would have guessed possible; wounding him seven times and even in his dying breath, crushed underfoot, managing to hobble him permanently. it is said that afterward morgoth broke the body of fingolfin and would have it cast to his wolves, i can imagine him in shame and fury, desperate to save face, shrieking the order at those of his creatures gathered in the doorway, only to have thorondor swoop down and maim him further before carrying off the body of fingolfin to where he can't mutilate it. left with nothing, wounded and utterly humiliated, he limps back through the doors of his kingdom, propping himself on the walls as he goes, the great hammer grond dragging in the dust behind him. it's small wonder the orcs make no boast of the day.
i try when possible to stay away from the by now well established john-howian aesthetic of bristling spikes and horns of stone and iron as the constant motif for evil in middle-earth, but it's just so damn appropriate for morgoth; violence and evil displayed in it's purest elemental form. i imagine this armor is not really an actual harness with buckles and rivets but something that he basically just willed into being on his way up to meet fingolfin's challenge, i was thinking of the passage where mogoth is remarked to "raise" the triple peaks of thangorodrim. as always with morgoth, it is a work of mindless, voracious excess, volcanic spires thrust outward and upward to ridiculous dimensions, black and bearing no device, signifying and invoking nothing but his own emptiness.
Related content
Comments: 31
Really interesting ideas. One of my favorite things about your art is the whole conceptual process behind it.
For whatever reason, I always imagined Morgoth as soft and squishy rather than iron-hard; probably to do with the fact that he gets repeatedly cut up and wounded. But there's also a fetid, polluting, creeping, passive quality to Morgoth's evil - we hear that he "marred" Arda by leaking his own essence into it. All of his lasting victories were won by passive, indirect contamination rather than "hard power". His evil is insidious and entropic.
I once read a theory that Morgoth is the personification of decay and entropy. His marring of Arda, then, was introducing entropy into the universe - the "fading of all things", as Tolkien called it. Things fall apart, nothing lasts forever, etc etc. It's pretty clear that Morgoth represents decay, disintegration, chaos, and annihilation (while Eru is the opposite - life, order, and existence); and, not surprisingly, he was himself victim to this process.
How to draw the Second Law of Thermodynamics personified? I dunno. Your depiction of spiky armor and a John Howe-ish look is just fine, although I'd personally draw him as a horrible stunted thing of cancer and slime, as if he's decaying from his own evil...
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
I'd considered, years ago, the idea of morgoth, when he comes out to battle with fingolfin, being this loose, kind of disgusting chimeral arrangement of poisonous bile and soft gummy flesh giving way in choice places to hard fang like structures - kind of like the giant leeches in king kong - this gnawing, corroding presence, but i dunno. number one that's a little miazaki for my taste, and also there's plenty of instances of morgoth as a builder working in the "hard" materials of middle-earth, in addition to destroying the works of the other valar he often raises mountains himself, and for a long stretch of time took the shape of one himself, and angband seems to be a place of hard iron and stone as much as it is a place of poisonous fumes (i think the notion that he is predominantly a poisoner comes from the kind of "morgoth's greatest hits" status of his destruction of the trees, but it's actually ungoliante, who of the two of them seems to be the real expert in rotting things, who does them in) plus coming out to a duel, you'd think he'd want to draw on that iron-hard monolythic side of himself rather than the insidious corrupting side (i'd figure you'd want to draw on that more for the way he worms himself into hurin's family's destiny) Furthermore i don't know that i agree with the theory that morgoth introduced decay and entropy, it seems like part of eru's plan from the start, for example, that Humans' physical bodies should wither and die (but then tolkien's theological musings on death and whether it's a good, natural thing or something caused by evil's influence upon the world are often confused and confusing)
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
Magnificent work, Master Mohan - I particularly admire the way you've made the 'John Howe Spikes' into a sort of organic carapace, an almost chitinous exoskeleton not quite steel or stone but having elements of both; he almost looks like the love-child of Mount Doom and Darth Vader which is a pretty petrifying mental image as I think we can all agree (no, I'm not sure who'd get to be Mother either …).
I must say that I would be very interested in hearing how you imagine Morgoth to be distinguished from his most persistently-dangerous servant Sauron, for while we have seen your rendition of The Lord of the Rings 'Fair Seeming' I do not believe that you have yet been inspired to illustrate Gorthaur in all his abominable glory - I suspect that the sight of this particular entity in his Pomp would be one to remember and quite possible shiver away from in stark terror as given life by your pencils, pens or paints!
I admit that my mental image of Morgoth Vis-a-vis Sauron is that the former is more 'used-up' looking, like a particularly anti-social Rock Star who squandered phenomenal gifts on vice and violence, but has been reaping the price to be paid for this lifestyle for just as long as he's been living it and quite frankly makes Keith Richards look like Cliff Richard as a result (he's wasted, more than a little childish and just plain UNCIVIL to boot).
Sauron, on the other hand, is pure snake-oil salesman with a side order of Bond Villain - or vice versa - and I have to admit that 'Feline' remains the description that most frequently pops into mind when I think of him; that odd blend of charisma, carelessness where others are concerned and a pronounced ability to land on his feet even when he takes a tumble.
Not to mention the claws that he keeps hidden until you doze off as he purrs you into a false sense of security then … well, I think you can guess the rest. Although it is true that he gets progressively less and less feline, as well as more Stalinesque as he goes through a long cycle of defeat and somewhat-Phyrric victories, to the point where he cries "---- STYLE, I'm going to start throwing NUMBERS at the opposition."
👍: 0 ⏩: 2
For that used-up rock star look, there is no better example than Lou Reed voicing this exemplar of cynical faded glory. Sort of the way Mick Jagger looks and acts anymore. 
www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDBomI…
Dinosaurs of Rock aside, the picture does have Morgoth's elemental nature down. He is able to alter just about everything he touches, so the armor should look like the very stuff of creation had been pulled together to guard him. Gothmog would be a very straightforward entropic force, much like that volcano in Iceland right now. Sauron is always the tricky one, due to his past habit of changing his shape to whichever one would work the best at the time.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
True; I admit that I'm fond of Master Mohan's EVIL MR UNIVERSE(!) depiction of a Balrog, although I suspect that old Gothmog in his Glory and Terror would be even MORE terrible to behold than that - although I fear that I just can't quite work out the precise manner in which he would prove himself to be still more intimidating than his own underlings (Durin's Bane amongst them).
Perhaps Gothmog could look like flesh-and-blood on the surface, but with cracks across his skin from which one can just glimpse fire and fume emerging? (revealing the elemental, inhuman core beneath that Humanoid seeming).
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
I have become quite fond of the FOTR movie balrog, which is a malevolent elemental force in the most delightful way. Sort of like a lava flow deliberately burning its way through a few thousand acres of pretty Hawaiian jungle on its way to the ocean. That's the wuss balrog that ran off from the War or Wrath, not Gothmog the Lord of Balrogs, who killed three elven heroes and a bunch of rankers too. Compared to the FOTR balrog, Gothmog ought to come across like Mount Vesuvius burying Pompeii & Herculaneum.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Very true; it remains intriguing to contemplate how one can best convey the sheer difference in potency between the High Captain of Morgoth's Horde and the still-formidible but significantly-junior Bane of Durin.
Perhaps Gothmog just looks SMART, with a brutal intelligence to go along with his elemental power? (It's quite easy to imagine him as a local equivalent to The Mountain that Rides - a power of elemental brutality made manifest and utterly savage to the point where mere 'cruelty' seems too weak a word for the havoc this individual wrecks wheresoever he goes in the land).
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
sauron's a lot more of a people person than morgoth; he's a compelling manipulator and his methods usually revolve around deceiving and enslaving others, even his greatest servants are enslaved ghosts of men basically. morgoth by comparison (atleast in the beginning) is a more traditional lucifer-figure; the great rebel angel with an army of incredibly powerful convertees behind him. that said the two aren't really comparable i think; morgoth is the whole reason why there's evil and strife in the world, in nature and humanity and even in the geology and weather patterns of the world itself, sauron cant really compete with that.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
No wonder he was a loyal lieutenant before he was ever Morgoth's Heir.
Bad Cess to both of them for their manifest and multiplying wickednesses!
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Well-made and spoken, as always, and I am ever envious of the immense thought you put in the descriptions.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
thanks my friend
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
I think this sketch of yours is truly inspired. It's incredibly difficult to depict, even imagining, Morgoth on his prime, the colossal black figure, crowned with silmarils and wielding Grond, as heavy as a mountain. That's a quality I always relate to Morgoth, that he's "like" a mountain, massive and heavy, tall and old, I imagine his armor like carved rock, almost shaped by his will (as you very well say), with iron spikes like the peaks of crags, and rifts, angles and intricate surfaces, like the sides of a volcano, but still fluid in its design, like molten rock. The bit I like most is the arm resting on the wall (?), the arm's armor looks like a dragon's body, organic but metallic at the same time, and adding those rags or silken cloth is a truly nice idea. The crown is perfect, worthy of bearing the jewels of Feanor, I must wonder how the front looks like? I imagine sort of a wicked Corinthian helmet, that however still has to be quite open (for Tharondor to strike, unless it broke the helmet), with eyes glittering like fire behind. I don't know if the back plate convinces me or not. Maybe without it the design would be more fluid and harmonic, perhaps it's a bit over the top... I would rather see a fluted, dragon-like design, maybe like those late gothic german armor, with the shoulder plates joined in the back. That coupled with a long mantle, heavy and withered, falling behind him as the slopes of a mountain...
Wait, let me try something. Here you have it, a "drawing-reply", I emphasized the lines and the strokes in the upper part, to explain my point; previously they were as loose as one can expect in a sketch:
Reply to Turner, Morgoth
👍: 0 ⏩: 3
Very fine work Master Oznerol, although I have to admit that I like the peculiar organic quality that Master Mohans rendition boasts; It makes sense to me that while the Armour of Sauron would have the look of something terrible to look upon, yet crafted with intricate care and skill, Morgoth would just grab the nearest portion of Creation and TWIST it into something intended to ward away all blows from his precious hide.
Which helps explain why his armour did a fairly lousy job of keeping his skin whole when pitted against Fingolfin the High King; not least because Fingolfin has had long practice in doing his own sword-work while Morgoth remains a behind-the-scenes COWARD (which might explain a part of his ire against Hurin, who basically epitomises quite a lot of what Morgoth will never be).
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
That's right, dear Libra, Morgoth armor must resemble his home at Thangorodim, the volcanoes crowning it, pure stone and iron twisted into a fearsome armor. Indeed, Sauron would, in the other hand, wear a magnificent armor by his own craft, intricate and a perfect in his evil nature.
The fading of Morgoth's power is surely one of the things that I find more interesting; how the all-mighty evil lost himself by inspiring his will into others, disipating his power. It's striking how terrified and worried must Morgoth have been; always fearing the intervention of his now more powerful siblings and ever thinking, worried about the events unfolding around him. And how lesser beings actually hurt and defy him! Certainly Tolkien's plume did a good job with him.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Very true indeed.
I have to admit that whenever I imagine Morgoth coming out to meet Filgolfin in single combat I tend to imagine him as rather dragging his feet, rather like a nasty little boy who is about to be obliged to explain his misconduct to a less-than-indulgent Father and who can doubtless expect nothing less than the thrashing he so richly deserves.
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
oh and btw, i failed to mention it but your response drawing is wonderful, all the moreso as you must have dreamed up the design and put it down in a pretty short amount of time, and i really like those inward sweeping pauldrons you gave him, which have the effect of embedding his head in this craggy fearsome volcano-like pinnacle, really good work, i my have to reconsider my own design in light of it.
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
now that's something you don't get every day, a reply-drawing. color me extremely flattered
thank you for your kind words and, as always, good insights my friend. you've got everything that I'd hoped to convey about the feel and composition of the armor itself; the valar are (for all intents and purposes) gods; as morgoth says (though speaking only of himself) they existed before the physical world and made it, so it's one thing if they choose to take the form of the children of illuvatar (albeit at an often tremendous scale, as i imagine them) but to limit something like morgoths armor to something like a traditional steel harness that he has to put on and take off seems ridiculous when this is the being that once took the form of a great angry moutain ringed about with ive and belching fire from it's top. I like the ide of this armor basically having grown out of him, like tortured formations of volcanic rock and molten iron ore, the "lames" of his armor more like the shaleing of stone into sharp edges and those falling bits of "cloak" on his sides almost a cloud about him, the slag runoff from those proud and bitter spires; i imagine he would come forth to battle in a great choking cloud of his own smouldering presence, somewhat like the balrogs (he tends to exist in my mind's eye as huge as well, like four or five times fingolfin's height maybe)
it was this idea that he is very much like the mountain of thangorodrim itself that inspired that triple-peaked array of rising spires from his back. they were sort of based on the silhouette given by those back mounted banners worn by samurai (or more specifically, the nightmarish exaggeration you see of them on the huge dream-samurai in the terry gilliam movie "brazil" lookpic.com/O/i2/1434/pq0u6aR.… ) also i liked how those narrow into that pinched fluting at the small of his back, that was based mostly on those really elaborate german gothic armors (actually looking at it now, it kind of looks like he's wearing the iron throne from game of thrones 
actually I think i probably could have gone farther with the back array, and even the "crowned" pauldrons; as you know i usually hate overblown, warcraft-looking pauldrons in fantasy art, but in morgoth's case (where as i mention above, 1, he's a god and 2, his armor isn't any armor that elves or men would wear but an expression of his roiling anger, pride and cruelty) it works to have him almost lost in this bristling, angry cacophony of horns and sharp edges. As with my earlier take on him with luthien (inwhich he is playing more the seductor, and by which point the spires of his crown seem to have grown even taller, or maybe he's just a bit shrunken from his continued exertion of his power) a heavy influence upon the way i portray morgoth is vincent d'onofrio in "the cell." I don't know if you've ever seen it, but it a really freaky (and incredibly well art-directed) movie inwhich the protagonist has to go into the subconcious of a catatonic serial killer, wherein he exists as this terrifying god-king, donning huge crowns and trailing hundreds of feet of cape and such. that seems like morgoth, just a devine, supremely powerful, utterly malevolent ego completely out of control.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Thanks, but you know how good your designs are conveying things like those I mentioned. Indeed, he is a god, a force of nature, thus would be weird if he had to put his armour on, thus I agree with you, he would, by the sheer force of his will, clad himself in a twisted armour of stone and iron. These rags I would imagine waver around him like moved by a strong wind, as you say. I tend to imagine him clad in his own, oppressive shadow, like a dark cloak, reminding me of Hades character in Clash of the Titans (bad movie, but good example), that as you say, it’s close to what a Balrog would do, wrap himself in shadows and flames. The presence of Morgoth must be obnoxious, oppressive, fearsome, and heavy, with part of his figure undistinguishable, concealed the clouds of ashes and shadow around, with the glittering simlarils on top, their light not extinguished by his dark aura. Tolkien states often how these Dark Lords wrap and conceal themselves with clouds and smoke, almost like a fuming volcano, maybe even the gaps in his armour would expel clouds of smoke and shadow. Maybe the back-plate it’s just my tastes, but your explanation seems fine to me, however I still prefer a heavy shadowy mantle falling to the ground and behind his back. Indeed, Morgoth can actually be over the top in fantasy terms as he is beyond human’s scale. There’s a thing I tend to imagine; that his armour while forged by his will is uncomfortable and even hurts his flesh with his twisted shape, causing him more pain, and rage, as every creation of evil can turn against its creator and cause its doom. Evil pays its tool on Morgoth, no doubt of that, such the armor and the crown should only get bigger, maybe even more oppressive, signifying his fear and anxiety of being injured. I even imagine him wearing a fearsome, terrible, mask, covering his face. I haven’t watched that movie, but certainly looks interesting, I’ll give it a try.
And thanks about the drawing, the design immediately inspired me, and those shapes amazed me; I just had to make a drawing trying to modify the original design to include my mental image of Morgoth, the pauldrons were inspired in the intricate armours made in Germany in the last decades of the XV century (as you mentioned already), while keeping the “organic” look of your armour, trying even to convey how oppressive is the armour, even trying to bite his flesh, while leading the viewers’ upwards, to the helm and the crown. Thanks, again, if you actually were inspired by my drawing that would be the greatest compliment possible.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
yes the idea of morgoth as some smoking volcano in roughly human shape is very much how i picture him here. in their duel fingolfin is described, memorably, as darting around beneath him like lightning under a storm cloud, which encourages a picture in my mind of morgoth as this figure in the center of his own choking ash, with fingolfin and his sword ringil this shining white presence about his feet. hades in COTT was well concieved in terms of his aural effects, and close to what i picture (as was sauron's reappearence in the hobbit movies, i thought that part was really well concieved visually)
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
Awesome! But promise me one thing. PLEASE DO NOT EVER DRAW UNGOLIANT, SHELOB, NOR ANY OTHER GIANT SPIDERS OF MIDDLE-EARTH!!!!!!! Otherwise I will NOT favourite!
👍: 0 ⏩: 2
yeah, like zeonista says, i sort of doubt that ones in the cards
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Whew....Thank God......-.-;
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
Small chance of that, he doesn't like spiders.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
*Sighs in Relief* Thank God............-_-
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Real lack of complaints on that absence!
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Yeah, I'm an arachnophobe too. The spiders of Mirkwood and Shelob by Ted Nasmith in particular make me want to crawl into a fetal position and writhe and scream! O_O
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
It's har not to be fascinated by Morgoth, he's probably one of the best villains!
Although he is a bit hard to visualize, that's probably what makes him great though. To me he is basically a dark shape adorned with a crown. But obviously the man must have an armour would look ridiculous, battling a super elf and have no armour!
How come you made Grond into a mace?
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
really by the time we meet morgoth (really meet him as a character I mean, after he's been released from mandos) he seems like pretty well a spent shell of his former self. i always got the impression he was at his strongest as an opponent of god during the ainulindale, before the world was made or any of the valar had physical bodies (maybe one day i'll do some nebula-inspired painting of the music of the ainur and the discord of Melkor, those nebulae are downright godly) by the time he comes to interact with elves and men in beleriand he's a comparatively pathetic figure; holed up in his lair, hoping the valar never come for him, picking on the children of illuvatar. even when it comes to those interactions, fingolfin, luthien and hurin all manage to put a stick in his eye (fingolfin and hurin both lose in the long run, as they almost have to since he's a god, though luthien doesnt). that tremendous, godly might but also patheticness and wilting strength is what i'd hoped to capture here
I dunno, alot of artists do, i guess it's just nicer to look at than a hammer
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
That whats make him interesting!
That painting sounds like something interesting
Yes i've noticed that too(Atleast in John Howes work). Being Scandinavian i guess i'm sort of programed to find warhammers awesome
👍: 0 ⏩: 0