bunn: (Sunset hounds)

It's taken me a while to complete this: arrival of puppy proved timeconsuming.

After part 1...

Pan out from the quest for the Numenorean Prince Irimon to a wider scale:the great unknown lands in the East of Middle-earth, for there are many forces moving as Sauron's plans begin to fruit and grow, in Raku, across the great grassy Plains of Alcar, in the great Harad desert and as far south as Ibavi.  We moved to a Huge Map, where we could see the many forces moving.

Read more... )
bunn: (canoeing)

But the people in them come and go, and since this year was the fifth and final year of Akallabutts the Roleplaying Game, our part has now ended at last, and we have now fallen out of the tale.  So, with luck, this account of our journeyings should be shorter than the previous years... (she says, hope triumphing over experience again.  Though, it better had be because it's taken me ages to write it on this laptop because the screen keeps turning itself off.  Possibly this is a Hint.   If so, I'm not taking it.

All the photos below are clickable to expand, but I'm putting them in small because there are a shedload of them. )

Read more... )



That will do for now. There is more!  I knew this wouldn't be as short as I had hoped...

bunn: (Default)
Worldbuilding Exchange reveals happened, so I can now admit that I wrote Letters Home from the War for Narya, who had THE most amazing list of prompts, I could have written almost any of them.

She did not, however, ask for Finrod, who none the less turned up anyway, which is at least very in character.  I don't suppose Beor the Old asked for Finrod either. Or Sauron.  Nobody expects the unexpected Finrod...
bunn: (canoeing)

Yet again I attempt to paint Maglor, and this time, I feel I had some success. 
bunn: (Default)
Of the city of Tirion in Valinor.


I am weak and suggestible, so I made a map. (Well, I already had a very scribble sketchmap, this is my attempt at tidying it up.)

The Pelori mountains lie to the north (I don’t think the mountain directly north of Tirion is named individually) and Taniquetil to the south, with the gap of the Calacirya between, and Tirion on a green hill in the middle of the pass. (If you think there aren’t enough buildings in Tirion, feel free to assume that many of the squares are tall apartment-houses, and also that the hill itself has been dug into, as well as built on. There are many surrounding farms and villages outside the walls.

Manwë of course lives on top of the mountain Taniquetil, in his mansion of Ilmarin. I think the Strand of Ilmarin east of Tirion is called that because if you stand on the shore and look up, you could see Ilmarin right at the top of the mountain, though there’s no way up directly from Tirion to Ilmarin, except for Eagles. You have to go around via Valimar if you are travelling on foot.

The city is built to take advantage of the light from the Trees with the main entrance to the West, though there is also a steeper winding route that goes up into the city from the Eastgate.

Tirion is supplied with water from a reservoir in the foothills of the Pelori, via an aqueduct that runs to the great tower of the Mindon Eldaliéva, where Ingwë lived when he first came to Valinor. The large building with two wings next to it on the Great Square is the House of Finwë, built with Light-gardens to the West, and a Star-garden to the East.

When Finwë remarried, Fëanor moved out and got married himself. I think his house is one of the houses about halfway up the hill, conveniently located for access to the warehouses and workshops of the Fëanorian Quarter, clustered in the best light beside the gate.

In the Years of the Trees, the light in Tirion came from the West and slightly from the South, so that the lake of Luvailin, or Shadowmere, was always in the shadow of the hill, and the lights on the star-side of Tirion reflected in the water.

The excellent water pressure supplied by the aqueduct, among other things, powers the fountains and the water-wheels of Tirion, and the water drains through a tunnel down into the Shadowmere.

I’ve probably made the streams look too wide. I intended them to be minor watercourses, not large rivers. There are of course many bridges to allow easy access to Alqualondë, a little North and East right on the coast.

Maedhros

Feb. 8th, 2019 06:47 pm
bunn: (Default)



Practicing silk and colouring and a face.  Beginning to get near to my idea of what Maedhros might look like?  Maybe.

I still have this sodding cold.  I am sick of coughing and feeling exhausted.  Dragged self along to art class today, but kind of regretted it.  Still, I got this painting finished, and that's an achievement.

bunn: (9lurchersleaping)
I have reached the stage in the cold where everything feels like it is very steeply uphill.  But I did do some painting this weekend.


Angrod, Aegnor and a friend on the beach near Alqualondë.  

They were building sandcastles with Finrod and Turgon, but it all got a bit intense and competitive so Angrod and little Aegnor decided to go off and talk to a mermaid instead.

Gothmog kitten feels that photographing paintings is dull, and that I should be photographing HER. Read more... )
bunn: (canoeing)
Martial_quill has a long story with the premise 'Maglor is Tom Bombadil' and has somehow managed to make this strange idea oddly compelling.  We were chatting about this, and the idea of writing a story where Maglor and Goldberry get drunk together in the Second Age, and Martial_quill said, would be fun to do that, but I don't fancy writing drunken Maglor talking in verse.  So, I said, why don't I write drunken versifying Maglor, and you write Goldberry (called Neniel in this Second Age version) and we'll set it in this weird universe you have made. 

So this was all rather ridiculous from a certain point of view but we ended up with this  :

now let the song begin which contains among many other things, a poem about Maglor stealing honey from bees of which I am rather absurdly proud.  And they do make a weirdly sweet couple, and Martial_quill has put one hell of a lot of effort into Avari worldbuilding, no question.  
bunn: (Default)
That Cirdan, the ancient Elf who watches the coast should fall in love with Lalwen, sister of Fingolfin the High King of the Noldor.  These two characters may not ever have met and yet somehow and frankly, most uncharacteristically for me, I am convinced they are made for one another.

So I wrote this :  Use Well the Days.   Lalwen knows exactly what she wants. So does Círdan, really, though for him it's more complicated.
bunn: (9lurchersleaping)
From narya_flame‘s lovely story ‘The Ways of Paradox’  set in modern St Andrews, Scotland. It’s a gentle and delightful story where Maglor meets some really engaging original characters, beautifully written with a real feel for both the Scottish setting and also daily university student life.
This painting is of a scene from Ch13, and shows Maglor & Claire talking at dusk at the end of the pier.



I've never been to St Andrews (alas!  It looks gorgeous) so I had to paint this from a collection of reference images and description.
bunn: (Default)
Late is Better than Never
Anairë, wife of Fingolfin and mother of two High Kings, goes out at last to war.
1472 words. 

A chapter!

Dec. 13th, 2018 09:40 pm
bunn: (House of Fëanor)
I added a chapter to The Lands of Weeping and of War, which is my story  that follows the version of the Silmarillion from 1937, which is slightly different to the published Silmarillion in that Maglor does not vanish but hangs about with Elrond.
Elrond discovers that the defeat of Angband does not mean that Middle-earth is safe.
I thought it would be fun to throw a little peril into the pot, but it all got a little more serious than I had really intended.
bunn: (Paddle of Rebuke)
This was a tough idea to paint, because of the problem of trying to show alarm and trauma through stance and expression on a face smaller than a thumb, and I'm not sure I really made it work, but I gave it a brave try and probably learned some things.  I think I could have done this better on a large canvas, but I'm not sure I really want a picture of a full-frontal naked elf on a large canvas.  It's not the kind of thing you can just hang anywhere

This scene is from my story: The Eldar That Were Faithful and I'm going to put the scene as a snippet underneath the painting.

Read more... )
bunn: (House of Fëanor)
So, having saved Kibil-Tarag and won the victory for the Stiff-beard Dwarves, we spent some time asking around after Fankil, Demon of the North Wind and one of Morgoth's greatest servants, who was also, we think, responsible for the terrible White Blight, which was bringing famine to the Southern Lands, who we had been given the task of trying to defeat at the Council of Celeborn.

An ancient Stiff-beard king, King Horn son of Thulin had come up with a  way to bind Fankil for several Ages of the world using an ancient Dwarven Spell.  How exactly it worked, we didn't know, but there were some details. If they were right, we were hopeful we might get it to work with a bit of tinkering.

So, we set off by boat to the Whale's Graveyard, where somehow or other we had worked out we needed to contact Uin, King of Whales, for information. Possibly Angruin was absent at this point, or possibly he was failing to pay attention because Tinglin Redcap was playing the flute or something.

Anyway, we got there, after a brief encounter with menacing Nabkrok tribesmen in boats, and Sirithglor summoned Uin, who came... up.

He was a whale of considerable size.
Read more... )

And that was the end of the adventure for this year.
bunn: (House of Fëanor)
Previously...
We marched into the fort of Bosvik, a well-defended spot occupying the only pass through the mountains to the Stiff-beard capital. There were two sets of gates, and all traffic travelling through the pass must travel through both of them.
Here we are, just arrived at Bosvik.  You can just see the southern gate in the background, and the Dwarves who have come with us lined up in rows behind the tables in the main courtyard. The Northern gate is defended by the square tower and portcullis.
DSC09142.jpgRead more... )
.... and I still have a great deal more but this will have to do for now!
bunn: (House of Fëanor)
Previously...
So, after the Council of Celeborn, we set off to Mordor to find out if anything was going on there.  Erestor, who had been at the council as Elrond's representative, came with us to see the Tower Kings. That's him in the brown robes next to the very spotty horse.


The Tower Kings are local kings who were given impressive Numenorean towers along the borders of Mordor, to live in after the War of the Elves with Sauron, by Ciryatur.  This was so they could keep an eye on Mordor in cause Sauron came back to visit his own Tower, Barad Dur.

Read more... )
bunn: (House of Fëanor)
Previously... in our now 4-year roleplaying campaign set in the Second Age of Middle-earth, we were sent into the Mysterious East  by King Gil-galad to try to find Sauron.  There we met a lot of different Elves and Men,  set up a new Land populated by Elves, Men, Bear-men, and basically anyone not too evil to be invited, and in our last adventure, we managed to capture one of the Nine Rings, and were faced with what on earth to do with it next.

So, last week, we re-convened.  In the real world, a year and a half had passed, but in Middle-earth, fifteen years had flown by.  Also, we had some changes of player characters, so the Dramatis Personae for this week were as follows:

Read more... )
So, we convened after 15 years at Edhellond, at the Council of Celeborn, convened to discuss our findings and work out what to do with the Ninth Ring.  There were a lot of VIPs there apart from us and I ran out of energy drawing everyone, but here from left to right are Hidek, Thorofin, Glorfindel, Celeborn, Galadriel, Thrandin and Sirithglor.



Read more... )
bunn: (canoeing)
This was a standard exercise, using cloud, cliff and sea together to create a painting where the eye is drawn to the light in the middle distance, and a figure gives scale to the cliffs.  We all used different figures: obviously mine is Maglor.  This meant I had to explain Maglor to the art class.  They were a little puzzled, but seemed sympathetic! 
bunn: (House of Fëanor)
I seem to have failed on the posting things here front for a while -  when it comes to written things anyway, so here is a quick list.

Lands of the March : Maedhros, Amrod & Amras talking about who gets which lands and why.

Cool Water on a Hot Day : I'm quite proud of this one: Torhthelm, Feanor & Nerdanel meeting in Anglo-saxon Essex: a Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorhthelm's Son and Silmarillion fusion.  Because why not! :-D

Heroic Hearts ; Maedhros makes his first visit back to Hithlum after leaving for the March of Maedhros. Fingon offers a gift.

And then I added a chapter to: The Lands of Weeping and of War : which is my 1937 Silmarillion ending story, where Maglor hangs out with Elrond instead of wandering off along the shore alone.

And a chapter to A New Road or a Secret Gate, which is Elrohir adventuring around Beleriand Risen.  With Feanor, Amrod, Amras & tentacles.

Feel a bit guilty about those last two because normally I don't post stuff until I have an ending in mind, and those two I'm not at all sure where they are going.  Oh well! 
bunn: (canoeing)

I thought I'd try replicating the sunset light of the evening walk and the first stars coming out.  Still haven't quite got skies down.  I think I need to thin the paint more so it goes on more evenly, though I like the glowing effect.  It's still hot, so still walking late and early.  Well, fairly early.  Early in the 8am sense, not in the 4am sense!  And stopping at streams.  I must say it's much easier walking with a saluki-cross than it used to be with a greyhound, where I had to be so very careful to plan walks that included shade and water.  Most of the time Rosie isn't even panting.  She's outside in the sun right now, in her bed on the patio, and showing no signs of being too hot. Read more... )

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