#but i'm super happy with how elurin's expression turned out

[arlenianchronicles]

Lately, I was inspired to return to my Silver Stars AU, with a depiction of Elurín’s inner conflict. I probably mentioned this before in another post, but while writing more Silver Star fanfics (now shelved), I noticed that I was nudging Elurín into some form of depression, borne out of clashing feelings with regard to his foster-family.

I feel like the reality of Elrond and Elros’ situation with the Fëanorians is often explored more realistically in fanfics than art XD So I thought to try and draw it for the silver stars since I’ve been having trouble with finishing my written works.

I ended up going on a ramble about my AU, so feel free to keep reading if you’re interested in my thoughts about this piece ^^;;;

For context: I’ve written Eluréd and Elurín to love Maedros as their foster-father, and the three of them have a close familial dynamic, but the same can be said for the twins and their birth parents. The twins’ trauma from the Kinslaying resulted in repressed memories for the twins; during their youth in Maedros’ care, they can’t remember anything about the event, but flashes of it appear in their dreams. As they grow older, they start to remember more and more of what happened, especially the duel between Dior and Celegorm that they witnessed.

Knowing all that Elurín does now, I believe there would be some inner conflict to come with that. He loves Maedros, but Maedros is a Kinslayer, and to consider himself Maedros’ son (even through fostering) feels like a betrayal to Dior’s memory.

And more on the Kinslayer part -- Elurín may love Maedros, but he also harbours a lot of anger towards him. Anger for leading the attack on Doriath and killing Elurín’s people, and for destroying Elurín’s family. But Elurín is also angry at himself for what he deems as a personal failure: he has thus far been content to live with the Fëanorians and consider them his family, and this feels like a betrayal to Doriath at large.

His love for Maedros is probably what hurts him most -- he wants to love Maedros freely, but feels guilty about it. Likewise, he feels guilty for being angry at / hating Maedros. He wishes that their relationship was something simple and formed under different circumstances. He believes that he should hate the Fëanorians more (and sometimes he does during his low points), and that to love them means not caring enough about their crimes.

In all of this, I think, he just wants Dior and Nimloth back, but he knows that he won’t see them again until he dies (and even then, he won’t see Dior because Dior was mortal and would’ve passed beyond the World by now).

So this whole internal conflict is what I wanted to portray here, a whole whirlwind of emotion that he wants to let out but can’t. I’m sure Eluréd has his own conflicted feelings as well; I just haven’t thought out how he’d deal with them in comparison to Elurín.

(Second version of the last panel because I like both, and it was tough to decide which version of eyes to go with):

#i've had this idea in mind for a while now #conveying his emotion while using my two current styles #i tried drawing it some time ago #but i couldn't get the third and fourth panels right #had to wait until i had more practice with realistic faces XDD #yaayy for portrait studies! #art #my art #tolkien #silmarillion #fanart #elurin #elves #sindar #silver stars au #feanorians #grief #i don't know if i'll be able to surpass this emotion in my art #but i'm super happy with how elurin's expression turned out #hopefully i'll be able to achieve the same results #if i ever try to draw these types of intense emotion again