"Departure"

[wallace_trust]

This is not an attempt at 'illustrating the story' but rather a depiction of Frodo's departure as my heart sees it.  Frodo departs the world as Sam looks on.  Sam's skimpy clothing reflects the nakedness of the emotions he is feeling, as well as his absolute loss.  

*sighs*   


 

 

Comments

[shirebound]

Wow. That's very moving.

[wallace_trust]

Thank you. :)

The ending of the book owes so much to Malory, and of course it creates a situation that can be visualized in endless ways. If I had followed this idea to its end, I would have included elves reaching down from the ship (or the clouds) to pull Frodo upward, and hobbits reaching up from the Shire to pull Sam downward. Unfortunately, the human figure still presents huge difficulties for me even with computer assistance, so I stopped with these two! ^^;

[lavendertook]

Beautiful! The satin cloth on Frodo is just amazing.

[wallace_trust]

Thank you so much! :)

The satin cloth was done in several steps, and frankly there is no way I could have gotten the effect without the help of my trusty Alaska-surplus computer. (Whose name, BTW, is 'Sam.' ;)

First, using Carrara, I placed a draped cloth model with a watered silk shader over the nude Frodo model, and rendered the entire image. I then removed the cloth and rendered the image again. Then I moved the whole thing to GIMP, where I loaded the two images as layers, with the cloth on top. I then gradually reduced the opacity of that top layer until I got translucent cloth, with Frodo's body barely showing through. After this, I lightly painted over the entire image with small brushes at half opacity. Some hiccup in the paint software caused some of the ground pavers to warp, but fortunately it's not too noticeable! :)

[lbilover]

Frodo reminds me of an angel ascending to the heavens. And poor Sam. This really does capture the profoundness of his loss. Beautifully done.

[wallace_trust]

Thank you so very much, from one artist to another! :)

'Angelic Frodo' is, of course, just what I was trying to achieve. I was very tempted to add wings to the figure and it took considerable willpower for me to resist this cliche. Meanwhile, naked knees bruised by pavement felt like a pretty accurate way to represent Sam's pain... except knees heal much, much faster than the pain of loss. *sighs again*

[febobe]

How achingly wrenching. Thank you for sharing this lovely piece. <3

[wallace_trust]

And thank you so much for the wonderful compliment! :)

[claudia603]

I love the color of the sea behind them. It contributes to a magical quality of this artwork!

[wallace_trust]

Thank you so much! ^_^

The sea and sky color behind them is from a 3D lighting rig called 'Star of Love' which I worked up several years ago. I saved the file and I re-use it often for Frodo and Sam. 'On the Beach,' 'Remembrance' and 'Rendezvous with Vingilot' are three other images I have used it in, and more are forthcoming :)

The overall cream and blue color scheme of this artwork is a deliberate nod to the classic Hildebrandt 'Grey Havens' scene.

[peripety]

Lovely colors and the way they make the scene seem lit by the stars as Frodo and Sam must part. *sigh*

[wallace_trust]

Thank you so much for your kind words! :)