Feanor's burning of the Boats, scene from the Silmarilion by J.R.R. Tolkien. Digital art by Monica Marier 2019.
Original sketch in red pencil, 2018. As you can see I was mostly happy with the staging and placement and even had some ideas about the lighting.
Final characters inked in. I tried to use Tolkien's houses coat of arms where appropriate. The sword is highly stylized, but I thought it was a good "first sword" design that relied more on aesthetics than practicality, a hallmark of Feanor.
Here are the flat colors. In the end I opted against different layers for these lights and shadow and opted for one painterly layer to get all the subtle nuances of light and shade.
Here are the advanced colors. I've added reflections in and from the water, purplish shadows for the protean Middle Earth nights, and ash particles from the boats in the background.
A sketch of the swan boats. I didn't focus too much on the details because I knew these would be little more than shadows on a sea of fire.
These are the shapes before the final shadows were put on. The fire bloom was achieved a color burn filter on an old parchment texture.
Sketches and early light trial on the foreground characters.
Final colors for the foreground, with many color variations
Final version again. Thank you.
