úterý 18. března 2014

Walking the other lands

Long time no post, but clumsy chisel work that ended up with injured finger got me thinking and slow down a bit. so here is the blog about my non historical work.
In my work that draws from my creativity and not from my knowledge of historical styles i tend to create visual language that represents the culture i am creating or illustrating. I think that ad-hoc item, created just from thin air seldom work well.
Most of my fantasy work draws its inspiration from Tolkiens Middle Earth, so i will ilustrate on that.

Here is some work i did from the culture around the town of Dale


 

the knife above is in Dalian style, its based on germanic animal style but apparently its obsessed with dragon. I did used germanic influence because Tolkien made Dale very Norse like. The idea is that its the EARLIER version of germanic styles so its very simple and has a very linear character

 
 Another Dalian work, still in progress, this i imagine as later more joyful and colourful but still very coherrent


This is the first piece i made in the style and its not so developed in systematic way but you can already see some distinctive features - a bone inlay in wood, a linear depiction of dragon, engraved blade and sheet metal ferrules.

In the honour of Beorn


i had a hard time  inventing how to portray Beorning culture, until i saw work of scottish painter Jon Hodgson. Some details on his work gave me an idea to use stylised animals and spirals as an ornamental element. Now i am pretty much at home around Carrock

 
here above is what i named knife of Beorn, not only because of the symbols, but also because it was challenge to make cool scabbard without leather as i wanted to commemorate Beorns peculiar eating habits


One piece antler belt buckle from this culture, the strap end will have a bee on it


 and i will finish with a future project sketch. Beorning war knife.

To be continued with other cultures...

4 komentáře:

  1. Tento komentář byl odstraněn autorem.

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  2. I love all of those designs, of course, but a thought occured to me when you said that Dalian culture represented an earlier version of the Old Norse iconography. This was influenced by Irish and Scottish art especially in the Dublin Danelag, and earlier versions I remember as more geometrically inspired. I have the idea that Dale was preceding the ancient proto-Germanic tribes in the bronze age, which was a symptom of decay, as hinted by the great man himself in the Book Of Lost Tales. Then, if bronze age culture would be inspired by an older culture, and Old Norse iconography could be traced back to the Scythian animal styles (which is said to having had influenced the Irish and general Celtic art), the Quenya and Sindarin arts would either be the predecessor of Proto-Germanic or Proto-Celtic art, resulting in either curvacious or geometrically based designs, but with no knotwork panels. Or, it could be more floral, due to Elvish obsession with plants and trees. I imagine that the Elves (inspiring human cultures) used abstractions of the floral and animal world without knotwork. The Dalians, however would be heirs to the first men in middle-earth, born under the shadow, and, if they be influenced by Elves, that must have been the elven folk of the years of twilight..., which must have had a different style of arts. In any case, the style of abstraction and the grammar would differ from Old Norse arts in a way. I am not sure, how much...also, there´s this dwarf-kingdom, and I have always associated them with more harsh, geometrically designed artwork, even before Peter Jackson did injury to the world of my imagination.

    Please take note, this is not a criticism, but just some random thoughts you inspired me (again) to...and I hope to give something back...


    Have. To. Do. Some. Smithing.*ggg*

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    1. I love the Beorn theme to an abnormal degree...;-), and the Beorning war knife is a sight to behold... I want to see it made!!!!

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