Noldorin Character Sketches

Ok.. The usual suspects: mug shots from the archives of the Police of Valinor !

I'll post this as a "thank-you-for-500-hits pic" even if this sketch is still an ongoing process that isn't quite finished yet. But since I scanned it yesterday I might as well show it.. and it's become such an important piece for me during all this time I've been working on it -- even if it is just a sketch.

The picture is quite self-explanatory; anyone can see it's Finwë and his three sons in the top row, the seven sons of Fëanor on the left and the children of Fingolfin and Finarfin on the right. I made this sketch already a while ago to act as a reference sheet for myself when drawing these characters in my illustrations, but I've been revising and tweaking and polishing it all the time, because I'm still not happy with the looks of all of them.. especially not with Maglor and Angrod, I'll have to work on them still.. and Maedhros and Aegnor seem to be begging for some minor tweaking as well. The only ones I'm sufficiently pleased with as to not touch them any more are Turgon, Finrod and Orodreth. I think Fingon and Fëanor are almost there as well and the rest look basically like I envision them but each of those has some things (that I can't quite place) just slightly off about them, which makes me not completely satisfied with their looks.

I have no idea how much time I've put into this during the past month or so.. An hour every now and then which sums up into.. quite a lot. I've completely erased and redrawn all of these characters several times.. some of them as many as 5 times. The poor piece of paper has seen so much eraser that soon it'll be worn through! Some more is still needed, though.. and I will update this when I'm finally happy with all of them.


EDIT: I'm working on a new version here. When that's finished, I'll move this one to scraps.