Chapter Text
"'It's always dark now, and Elyo…Elyo is gone, and I cannot calm the little ones as he does, or - or cook for them like he does, and everyone is falling to pieces and I'm not Maitimo, I’m just useless, all I can do is sing, and that does not help anyone…'"
-Chapter 16: Interlude: Dissociation, Desolation, Dissonance
Here are some of the pictures/screenshots I took while I was working on this piece:
I'll comment on these point by point:
1: I decided to attempt two-point perspective (for the first time in years...) for this piece. I spent quite a while designing the layout of the room before I even started drawing, which you can see as the little thumbnail on the left. I referred to chapter 17 for the feel of the room, even if this scene is supposed to be from 16. I picture the armchair next to the bed to be the one Makalaurë is napping in when Elrond wakes up. He's got a cute little cushion for it!
2: I had a good idea of the composition pretty much as soon as I started thinking about drawing (many thanks to HonoraryDawn's writing, since it was akin to receiving a vision. A right sledgehammer to the face), so I knew I wanted the lantern to be the focal point of the art. I wanted Elrond's face to be obscured by the light, partially to milk the dramatic lighting to the fullest and partially so I can get away with not drawing his face. I reasoned that Fëanáro et al. would've liked to be able to see him wake up, hence the comically bright lantern. They probably untied Elrond's braids once it became clear he wasn't going to wake up anytime soon.
3. I tried getting a different hair texture on Makalaurë on this one. I pictured him to be roughly in the middle of his teens here, if slightly younger, so I gave him shorter hair than I would if he were fully grown. This phase was kind of a slog, but I liked it. Lots of clothing folds and even more on the bed!
4. The headboard was hard, y'all! I figured if anyone were to have a headboard that's solely one giant carving of a scene, it would be Fëanáro. I've never drawn wolves before. I also neglected to look up Oromë's appearance before I started drawing... alas. This is the final version of the sketch and the one I had going into the lineart and coloring, which I do digitally.
5. I didn't take any screenshots as I was doing the flat colors because they looked really bad, so now I have nothing to show between the finished sketch and the start of shading :( I was mostly fumbling my way through this phase.
6. It was after this step that my much more artistic friend kindly suggested that I crank down the saturation on the rest of the piece. To be honest, that solved a lot of my problems with this one. Here's also where I started my long journey in texturing! I found I really liked this crosshatching brush.
Finished piece: I gave Makalaurë's hair a nice purple shine for funsies :] Because Fëanáro's lanterns are fun magic, I decided that their light gives off some secondary pinks and purples too, and what are some sparkles on top of that?
I really enjoyed Laurë's little rant/confession to Elrond. Being the now-oldest has to be a jarring change for someone who's lived their entire life without that responsibility. He's trying his best to hold everyone together, but he's simply not the leader Maitimo is and feels inadequate because of it. When I first read that part, I got the image of him surreptitiously climbing onto the bed to talk to Elrond when everyone else is away, because Fëanáro is shut up in the forge and Makalaurë didn't want to burden his younger siblings with the knowledge that he was struggling. Poor kid! I hope he caught a break after Elrond woke up.