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The Making of The Quest Fulfilled: Part 5
By  Anke Katrin Eissmann.
The creation of the picture
After doing the sketches for composition, characters etc.,
Anke draws an overall sketch on a sheet of paper and begins to paint with water-colours.
Concerning my technique, I paint mainly in the format
of A3. After a long time of searching and testing different types of paper,
I finally found the right one. It is a hot-pressed, soft paper with a very smooth
surface. The usual paper for water-colours has a rough structure.
This is the detailed sketch of the picture on the sheet
of paper I am painting on. It has a size of 40 x 22 cm (15.5 x 8.5 inch). Both
the facial features and the details of the clothes are outlined.
I first didn't know what clothes he was going to wear. They
should be more costly than those of the others, with an embroidered braid and
large clasps on the coat coloured completely in shades of grey. To me, Thingol
seemed always to be someone, who showed his wealth in a moderate way compared
to the princes of the Noldor (that's why I drew the crown). Concerning his suit
of armour, I thought that he as a king can't go hunting without any protection.
It is told in the Lay of Leithian, that he possessed "metal wrought like fishes
mail" in his treasure chambers. That's why he's wearing the plate-armour. Mablung
as the chief captain wears a ring-mail which might also be worn by Beleg below
his coat. But I left that uncertain in this scene.
I began with colouring in the drawing in the foreground,
with Huan. That's the way I do it almost every time since it is almost impossible
with water-colours to start with painting the background and paint the objects
in the foreground over it. Huan took me a long time, because I had to paint
his shaggy fur with separate brushstrokes. Afterwards I smeared it with blood.
After finishing Huan I turned to Beren and painted first his hair and his face
- which has been modified later, and finally his clothes. To paint his leather
clothes, I first put on a pale coat of paint to decide about how the folds would
run around the belt.
See the original tutorial at
FARP Article Guestbook
| Date | Name | Comment | | | 21 Oct 2003 |  Michael James Liljenberg | Thank you for letting us republish this article. | |
| 22 Oct 2003 |  Anna Tordai | Wow from the image it is obvious a lot of work went into it but now you can see just how much work. It's very nice to see an artists technique bit by bit. | |
| 25 Oct 2003 | Jonathan Mayer | Wow, I really admire your technique. I don't think I have ever spent that much preparation time and sketching on a painting. Beautiful work, keep it coming! | |
| 30 Oct 2003 |  Iris compiet | This has to be one of the best I've read in months. I myself try to do some watercolor but don't succeed very much. I seem to smudge and smear. Sometimes, occasionaly there is one which succeeds but the rest is crap. Now I know a different way of working I'll give it a try. Hope to show the result soon. Thanks for teaching. | |
| 31 Oct 2003 |  Rhodri McCormack | Yeah great article, best here easily. Was thinking of doing a water colour next, so this was good timeing for me. Thanks man. | |
| 20 Nov 2003 | Mike D | Thats an awesome picture!! | |
| 15 Dec 2003 |  Emilie ~*Nienna Vala*~ Dingler | It's seriously gorgeous, but I have a question.
In Mablung's hair and his broach, there are white lines, as detail...
How do you do those? Do you leave space blank? Or do you go over it in white? | |
| 15 Jul 2004 | Topaz Waters <etvermette@hot...com> | Oh wow. Wow wow wow. AMAZING pic-- and thank you for being so informative, I'm awful at watercolors and I'm trying to see if I can improve a bit. Great article! | |
| 5 Jun 2006 | Anonymous | This really is amazing! Not only because it is just a beautiful watercolor, because you showed us the sketched stages. Most tutorials start after the sketches are done, and I really like how we got to see the conceptual stages. So thank you very much. | |
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