Month: September 2017

“A question for the both of you really, because I enjoy our pleasant casual chats. Do you have any form of favorite form of torture? I must admit that the brazen bull can be quite amusing”

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The bull? No, too impersonal for me… As a form of ritual execution, perhaps, but not for torture. 

As to my favorite method, I suppose it depends on what my goal is. Is it a threat to others? A corrective punishment for willful thralls? A means of gaining information? Perhaps personal satisfaction? 

I am not a torturer by trade; it is a relatively new craft I’ve had to learn since joining Melkor, one I’ve come to appreciate– though if I am honest with myself, I may have had the aptitude for it long before I came to Angband; I simply never had cause or desire to exercise that potential while serving Aulë. It was only a small push, to think of living things as objects upon which I could exert my craft. Indeed, it did not take much creativity to turn the tools of my old trade into tools of the new. One can use a hammer, chisel, tongs, and hot iron for more than just metalwork.  

In many ways, I view it as an extension of my occupation as a smith, or rather, it’s reversal. It is a very intimate and somatic form of deconstruction.

 …I don’t wish to romanticize the practice too much; it’s a simple thing to hurt people, to use pain to force one’s will on another. But there are more and less artful ways of going about it; one must consider it a tool to achieve a particular end, and keep the desired result in mind while working towards it. It is essential to consider the particular weaknesses and values of one’s victim, to think of each as a unique project. Otherwise it is simple butchery, and nothing more.

The Quendi, now… I can say with certainty that I take a personal interest the Quendi. They pose a most engrossing challenge– they can endure much more, for far longer, than any other creature, and yet, their spirits can shake free of their body if the torment to their psyche is too great. One must be delicate. It takes time to create a masterpiece, the ones whose taming is so thorough they can be released back to into the world and yet remain yours, always returning to their cage. I appear to have gotten a taste for it over the centuries; I am embarrassed to admit, there are certain elves I would pay dearly to get on my table, that I’ve passed hours imagining how to disassemble most intimately. A few of my… earlier projects got away from me, and the desire to get them back still feels like a hot coal in my breast. 

I am getting carried away. As I said before, torture is not something I intend to hold aloft as a true art form– It is a practical tool with a practical purpose, and the fantasy of it is seldom its truth. But still. The power it gives you over creatures of flesh and blood is rather intoxicating, isn’t it? If that prospect held no allure for me, I would not be where I am today.

I am not proud of everything I have become since I left Aulë, but I suppose there’s no use in denying what I am. I’ve earned the names I’ve been given.   

stephescamora:

Happy Birthday Bilbo & Frodo Baggins🎂🍃
Not able to finish it at this time but here’s a sketch for Hobbit Day 2017!

Also WIP of the lineart for this sketch and my Hobbit Day art from 2015/2016🌱

Middle Earth will always hold a large place in my heart.🌌

On Twitter: (x)
– Do not use or repost my art (esp. on other sites) without my permission –

“How were the dragons created? What inspired their design and how did they go from Stumbling Giant Land Beast to Death From Above?”

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They’re my children, of course! 

The claim that I cannot create anything of my own is outrageous, and absolutely typical of the lies they tell about me… I have loins, don’t I? I have my own “flame imperishable” within my breast, and that may be propagated the way most life is propagated! Tsch. 

My kin and their pet elves will tell you I can only twist life in a mockery of Eru’s Children– that’s their clever way of phrasing things so they don’t have to admit or record the things they’re too squeamish to accept. They don’t like to think that maybe their ancestors, or the ancestors of Men, or indeed some of their favorite Ainur, might have copulated with the “great foe of the world”. 

Oh, what stories I could tell them, if they’d listen; I’ve some tales that would upset more than one marriage bed in Valinor.   

To answer your question: my dragons were not designed, they were born. I didn’t shape them out of clay. There was no progression from one to another, like gradually perfected recipe– hah! Since the beginning of Arda, was there ever a time I worked in such a tame, linear fashion? 

Each of my dragons came from a different mate, if you’re wondering why they are so different from each other. Glaurung was my first to hatch, and he did not have wings because, I suppose, wings were not among the traits supplied him by Nature. Given his parentage, I’m not surprised; he was clearly made for water… It’s a shame that we are so at odds with all the powers of the Sea. I would have liked to see my golden chick swim as he was meant to, a terror upon the coasts, churning the waves with his tail… 

From experience I can tell you that my own supply of inheritable characteristics is vast and unpredictable– for I am vast and unpredictable, am I not? I can be so many things… or, I could be, in the days when I could still change shape like mercury with barely a thought. So of course my children are variable and diverse. Some you’d barely recognize as being the same species as one another; some do not match even themselves from one side to the other! That is their beauty, their strength. They adapt, they are opportunistic, they can survive in any hostile, desolate, forgotten scrap of earth they dig their claws into. They do not fade from sorrow or wither for lack of beauty; they gain strength from their hurts, they take pride in their scars, their asymmetry. 

That is something my kin have never appreciated, and their pretty, boring elves will never tolerate. This is why I’ve had to kill so many of them– who doesn’t want a better, safer world for themselves and their children? 

tartapplesauce
replied to your post “Actually, CAN we talk about the black horse thing? Like, that is some…”

Re: the aesthetic, I am completely prepared to believe Melkor wanted the Silmarils because they were the only jewels that complemented his complexion 🙂

Would you say my complexion was… dazzling? Like the crystal of diamonds but more strong than adamant? Rejoicing in light and giving it back in hues more marvelous than before? Filling all with wonder and delight, whose radiance sets a gnawing fire in the hearts of those who desire it?

Because you don’t need to be shy about it, you can get poetic, I don’t mind. Please, talk about my skin more! You have very refined tastes, I can tell.  

archiemcphee:

prostheticknowledge:

Asinas II

Kinetic sculpture by Jennifer Townley is an iteration of a previous piece from 2015 yet still visually complex and mesmerizing:

‘Asinas
II’ is the successor of the original sculpture ‘Asinas’, showing the
same concept and overall appearance but a different shape for the white
“wing” parts.

The
various angles and curves of the individual parts create an
elaborated unity when joined together on the shaft. The two “wings”
formed by these seventy-seven parts are able to slide through each other
and rotate in opposite direction at a slightly different speed. This
results in a movement that appears to be far more complex, existing of
multiple layers, where repetitive shapes seem to be moving within
oneanother.

More Here

On Surreal Sunday the Department of Captivating Kinetic Art can’t take their eyes off Asinas II, this mesmerizing kinetic sculpture created by artist Jennifer Townley.

Source: jennifertownley.com

“Actually, CAN we talk about the black horse thing? Like, that is some crazy deep dedication to an aesthetic. You realize it is totally normal in every other army ever for the horses to be different colors, right?” -Lin

Lin, I’m the Dark Lord. Not the bay lord, not the dappled lord, not the dun lord, not the pinto lord. 

The unblazoned sable field was Melkor’s standard; it is a tradition, an homage, and a calling card. The lords of Rohan knew it was no petty horse thieves, but Mordor who claimed their stallions. I offered to buy; they refused to treat with me.  It was politics, as much as aesthetics, that made me choose the black, to send a message. 

And it was only enough to supply my Nazgul and lordly servants. Orcs do not ride horses; there was no need to furnish my entire army with steeds.

you could have gone with deep brown or really dark grey but noooooo they all had to be black horses look i know you want to be color coordinated and all but would a really dark brown been that much out of place

…You sound like the sort of person who would wear a black shirt with navy slacks in public.

A symphony of small clanks, thuds and groans followed the progress of four squat legs hauling a still-outsized body across the forge floor. A spade-like head appeared suddenly from under a large table, looking around to check that the legs it had found did indeed belong to Master’s favourite underling. The dragon attached to the head radiated smugness. “Your forge was defective. I fixed it.”

A giant, gold, spiny-scaled head suddenly appeared on Sauron’s lap, interrupting his sketching and bumping the table, spilling ink over his freshly drawn schematic. 

He held his breath for a count of five seconds, eyes shut as he made his peace with the destroyed work of the past hour, before parsing the looming, far more worrying disaster at hand. 

“What,” he swallowed, voice taught but steady, “Do you mean.” 

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