Numenorean Armor 3

and rounding it out I thought I'd try some archaic numenorean armor; I imagine this as solidly First Millennium S.A. when the dunedain were more interested in exploring their own beautiful island and the surrounding seas than looking to Middle-earth. I wanted a very earthy, sylvan pallette for this one, as opposed to the polished bronze and bright colors of the "golden age" or the heavy steel and deep blue/blacks of the "imperial age"
and, as with my earlier endeavors to build a convincing transition between those two pieces, I wanted this armor to look like it could evolve into the golden age variety without much difficulty. the leather/lamellar look was intended to catch some of the flavor of those way-pre-classical greek, mycenean armors, as seen in Eric Shandower's wonderful "age of bronze" comics (and, um, in history) while at the same time looking like it could have evolved from viking-style lamellar armors, possibly something played around with by the late-first age edain (I figure upon hitting warm, comfortable numenor, with no foes in sight, they dropped the chainmail and spangenhelms, and over the next few hundred years a more leasurely, greek style emerged, emphasizing - as the greeks did in their sleeveless armors- athleticism and mobility over heavy protection)

Really this whole piece started from a desire on my part to take yet another stab at the Karma, and one that took Tolkien completely at his word (or rather, his drawing) including making it of red and green leather scales (the rest of the armor was largely an attempt to make something that felt like it would be of a piece with that) I am sure the importance and prominence of the karma in numenorean dress and armament is overstated in my mind (and in the minds of most other fan artists) mostly on account of it being the only piece of middle-earth costumery for which Tolkien offered us an actual illustration, but also because it's just so damn... numenorean. It hits all the right notes; evoking those classical corinthian helmets worn back on the head, or those weird thracian nobbed caps, while looking like some giant mollusk shell and giving the wearer this elegant but bizarre, alien-like silhouette (I wouldnt say that Tolkien is under appreciated as an artist - I think he's plenty appreciated within the right circles - but he did have some shockingly good instincts for design)

oh and this one's got a shield, thank you Zeonista for keeping me on my toes

Part of the Weekly Tolkien Sketchblog