Nirnaeth Arnoediad: ‘Utúlie’n aurë!’

“Then when Fingon heard afar the great trumpet of Turgon his brother, the shadow passed and his heart was uplifted, and he shouted aloud: ‘Utúlie’n aurë! Aiya Eldalië ar Atanatari, utúlie’n aurë! The day has come! Behold, people of the Eldar and Fathers of Men, the day has come!’ And all those who heard his great voice echo in the hills answered crying: ‘Auta i lómë! The night is passing!’ ”

- J. R. R. Tolkien: The Silmarillion, Chapter 20, Of the Fifth Battle: Nirnaeth Arnoediad

Fingon the Valiant, son of Fingolfin; High King of the Ñoldor in Exile, ready to ride into the battle of Unnumbered Tears.. and to his death.

This drawing had several starting points: 1) I wanted to have another go at drawing a horse.. this time I did my homework and looked at many horse pictures for reference; 2) I wanted to further develop my design for elven armour.. now I can scrap that helmet study; 3) This scene was on my to-do list.. I'm planning several Nirnaeth illustrations; 4) After those more sketchy pencil-style illustrations I wanted to try a more clean inked lineart style; 5) I wanted to draw Fingon; 6) I did not want to write like I was supposed to..

Throw all those together and this came out.. I quite like it myself. Drawn in Photoshop with a Wacom tablet, about 5 hours total. I started this yesterday and was going to leave it as WIP to wait for a later time.. but I just couldn't resist finishing it up this morning.. I'll have to do something to keep myself concentrated with actual work! I think I'll need to lock up my tablet (I knew I should've waited until I'm all done with work before buying one! ), so this will definitely be my last submission for some time.. Enjoy.

EDIT: I edited the horse's hooves, they're bigger now. Some minor tweaks and slight changes to the size to make it work as a print