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Nandor Elves studies

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Some concept sketches of the Green Elves of Ossiriand. While the high elves in Tolkien's world, like the mighty Alfir of norse mythology, are presented as these great, wise, superhuman beings whose friendship and knowledge is given to (and greatly benefits) the people of other races they encounter, the dark elves of middle-earth seem to me more in keeping with the (perhaps somewhat more celtic) conception of the elves as elusive nature spirits; alluring and mysterious, but ultimately inaccessible to humans (the sindar, it seems, are somewhere in between)

all these studies grew out of a desire to take a stab at Denethor son of Lenwe, king of the nandor elves, the least lofty and "enlightened" branch of the eldar we get to know much about (and probably a good representative for what the various tribes of Avari who never made it over the blue mountains are like) it's fun to envision elves that are more savage and primitive than they're usually presented ("less wise and more dangerous" as it is remarked of the woodelves in 'the hobbit'); fairies dancing lithely through the dense, old growth canopies of tree-covered middle-earth dressed in nothing but leaves and skins, their king this great, ancient guardian of the forest bedecked in giant elk antlers as if, through countless centuries of confused retellings by men, he would one day find his way into ancient celtic mythology as the prototypical "antlered god" figure. actually my first attempt at that antler crown was the much more conservative design on the bottom right side, closer in keeping with the typical Tolkienian circlet, but those big ones, warcraft-y as they are, have really grown on me; they're just so much more wild, the kind of onamentation a "savage king" would have (it helped my perspective on the character to learn that "denethor" was not his name at all but a title and a sindarisation of "Ndani-tauro" meaning "savior of the dani," a much better sounding name for a more feral character, I think)
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