"The Mallorn"

[wallace_trust]

This is from the final chapter of LOTR, which I personally try my best to avoid.  I don't know why I have done so many pics from that last chapter.  Most likely just because even though it's not my favorite Tolkien, it's still Tolkien.  ^^;

Anyway, for whatever reason I couldn't resist doing a scene with Sam's mallorn tree.  The difficulty was lighting these models.  I must have tried thirty different lighting rigs and never could get it right.  I made over fifty renders before I finally settled on this image as the best I could do.  Maybe someday I'll come back to it when I've learned enough to improve on it.  :)  

I tried here to make Sam look young and robust, but Frodo needed to look a bit older and somewhat frail, which I achieved to my satisfaction by giving him a stylish walking stick, smaller feet and thin eyebrows  :)   

I catch more than a whiff of the old pagan fertility and sacrificial gods in Sam and Frodo...  Sam was born in spring and is all about life and fertility, while Frodo was born in fall and is all about sacrifice and loss.  They are complementary opposites.  I see something like the old Green Man and Corn King hinted at in these two.  

The neat gate model is called "Shire Portal" from Daz3D.  :)  

ETA:  Corrected yet another artifact and re-uploaded.  :P  

Comments

[shirebound]

That's lovely. I can't remember seeing many depictions of Sam's mallorn in artwork. What a lovely memory this scene would be for Frodo, in the years to come.

Sam was born in spring and is all about life and fertility, while Frodo was born in fall and is all about sacrifice and loss.

I never thought of that before. How interesting!

[wallace_trust]

Thank you so much! It's reassuring to know someone else likes this. I have stared at it so much looking for rendering errors that I wasn't too sure of my judgement. :)

I believe I've seen only one professional depiction of Sam's mallorn, but there are several fanart versions.

I only spotted the 'pagan' aspects of Sam and Frodo because I'm a huge Robin Hood fan, and a lot of ancient symbolism also made its way into the RH canon.

Tolkien was very subtle with these two, and included lot of detail which is easily missed. This is part of my fascination with them. The meanings of their everyday names still give me a chuckle! (Frodo = 'wise' while Samwise = 'halfwit.' Not necessarily true in either case, but again highlighting that they are opposites)

I have been exploring a possible link between 'Iorhael'-- one of Frodo's elvish names-- and the apocryphal angel 'Uriel,' who is always seen carrying a book. This theory seems 'out there,' but I have learned to never underestimate the cleverness of the Professor! :D

[febobe]

Awwwww! :)

[wallace_trust]

:)

[lizbennefeld]

A beautiful picture. I am especially taken with the greens and the choices of the flower colors.

[wallace_trust]

Thank you so much! ^_^

DAZ Studio tends to render some very vivid greens, and since I'm not using gamma correction it almost jumps out too much, but I'm so glad you like it!

I just spotted another render artifact-- too much reflected green on Frodo's left forearm. I'll have to retouch that eventually and re-post the image. Thanks for mentioning the colors, it's how I saw that artifact :)

[lbilover]

Beautiful! I love your version of the mallorn. Interesting observation about when Sam and Frodo were born and the possible parallels. I never thought of that! The crocuses are so very vivid. Makes me realize spring is not all that far away!

[wallace_trust]

Thank you so very much! :)

The mallorn is a kitbash made of a generic birch tree model with resurfaced leaves. I then tore apart a water lily model, assigned it new colors and just pasted six instances of the flower into the branches ^^;

The crocuses are by Lisa's Botanicals. She makes the most outstanding plant models! I wish I was more into the model-building as a respectable income ($4000/month or more) can be made by those who are very good at it; but I find it exceedingly difficult and time-consuming work. I'm more of an end-user, I'm afraid. :P

I've been considering writing some kind of a book about my meditations on Sam and Frodo. I've made so many observations about them over the years, and have used them to enrich my life in so many ways. :)