This is gorgeous! I've pretty much spent most of my day browsing through your beautiful art (I'm especially taken with the Aegnor/Andreth pieces- such gorgeous work!) and I was kind of wondering if you'd done Maedhros. He's absolutely my favorite Tolkien character- and part of the reason is that he endured so much in Angband and yet he emerged all the stronger from his ordeal. Someone once said that he went through the forge of Angband and came out a weapon and that's very much the truth.

If it weren't for that dreadful oath, I think he would have been one of the best in Middle-Earth. I won't justify what any of them did, but I am fond of the Feanorians.

He's so expressive in this picture. So determined and hardened to the world and yet not proud at all of what he has had to do because of that oath. It's interesting because the oath almost seemed to become it's own being in The Silmarillion. I think most of the sons of Feanor were decent people in times of peace- with perhaps the exception of Celegorm and Curufin- I think both of them were far too proud for their own good- but that oath just about possessed all of them. Such a powerful theme of what hatred can do once it takes ahold of you.

I would love to see more of this character from you. Maybe Fingon too? Or even the rescue of Maedhros from the Thangorodrim?