Jenny Dolfen

An all too easy victory

 “Then Fingon prince of Hithlum rode against him with archers on horseback, and hemmed him round with a ring of swift riders; and Glaurung could not endure their darts, being not yet come to his full armoury.” 

In case that, over all this pin madness, you've forgotten the Fingon and Maglor suggestion session: I didn't! This scene was suggested several times, and I really wanted to (re)draw it (the last time, I think, was in 1995). 

I ws really scared of...

Okay, look, it's on paper! *points*

... But yes, well, it's more pin designs. ;) 

I had a long day at school today and packed the wrong sketchbook - one that was full! So I ended up doodling these on the final page of it. It's the preliminary designs for Finrod, Lúthien, and Beren. (I'll still make those two interlock better.)

Today, I sent off the Kingfisher and open edition Maedhros to the second pin manufacturer. And am biting my nails waiting for the shipping confirmation of the first batch. I am also wa...

The Silmarils - all three pins

I'm slowly getting the hang of this. Last night when I did the ship, the line weight was still all off. 

What's next? Waiting! I hope I'll have the Maedhros pins in two weeks or less, for a first impression of the quality and, indeed, how these translate into actual metal! Once I have them, and the new ones, I'll decide with whom I'll do the next batch. ^^ 

In the meantime, I promised you something on paper, and I hope to do that before I design any further pins. ;) ...

Silmarils 1/3

Here's the design for the first, and most intricate, Silmaril! I decided to give the pins a jewel-shape themselves and design them so they could be worn nested into each other. The other two will be slightly easier to do; with waves and fish on the left, and flames and lava on the right.

This morning, I sent off the designs for "open edition" Maedhros and the Kingfisher to a different pin maker. The idea is to see which one has the better quality. The first one I have has better communi...

Poll results - well, that was hard! ;)

As you already saw, the poll results leave me with a lot of choices still! Here are the top six results (I left out Maglor, as he's already in there with the sons of  Fëanor): 

The Silmarils

Finrod

Fingon

Set/Sons of Fëanor

Set/Lúthien and Beren

The Professor

I have to say, I love that choice. Almost all of these I would have d...

Poll: What's next?

Here's the list! You can click more than one option, but it'd make it easier for me if you chose those you would actually consider buying. I had to make an off-site poll, as Patreon only allows 14 options. ;) The preview doesn't show all the suggestions!

A single pin will end up around 9-10€, with steep discounts for more than one pin (3 for 25, 6 for 40, for example, but that may change sli...

Kingpin...fisher

This one just sent my daughter into unintelligible transports of delight, haha. No nerdy talk from her this time. 

This is the Team Jenny pin, so to speak. My favourite animal with, of course, a paintbrush in her beak!

I've always liked kingfishers, and I saw one once. I'd cycled out to the canal in the marshes, with the Lord of the Rings and a bottle of water, to sit and read. As I sat, I heard a splash and saw this glittering orange and turquoise jewel fly away. I couldn't...

#Team Finarfin

I'm this short of switching allegiances. ;) All hail the Finarpin! I don't know if you can see it (I certainly can), but the lineart is much cleaner here - I downloaded the Photoshop plugin Lazy Nezumi this morning, which smoothens Photoshop lines. I can't believe how easy this one was to do. The next ones will go very smoothly indeed! 

I'll be doing a poll on what other pins I'll do next in a day or so! Post your ideas here, and I'll take up as many as I can. Please note that I'll...

#Team Fëanor!

And some really cool news that I almost couldn't believe: The pin manufacturer got back to me to say that they can make different designs as if they were the same pins - meaning the price gets very affordable! That means I can make a heap of different designs, and have them manufactured without having to order 300 or so of each to make them affordable. 😍 

Here's the top of the heap, so to speak. He wouldn't want to be any less. 

And Eru help me, I had two non-Silmaril...

Fingolfin Pin... Fingolpin... Pingolfin... and plans for the year!

Silly me, posted without the text. Here goes. :) 

So yes, I did the Fingolpin last night... and lay awake far too long with plans for the OTHER pins. XD

My idea is this: The Maedhros pin will remain exclusive! But gosh, I want more pins. So naturally, I'll also do a Team Fëanor pin and a Team Finarfin pin (aka Finarpin). Or if you have other ideas that fit in with this line of thought, let me know!

I'll wait how the Maedhros pins turn out, and then I'll be back with op...

Fingolfin, also for Anja.

I've been on a roll today, yay! 

A lot of my visuals for the Silmarillion comes from the early nineties. Fingolfin got the best visuals of all of them - the face of a young Daniel Day-Lewis with the hair of Bayer Leverkusen striker Heiko Herrlich (which translates to Heiko Fantastic). That is his actual name. And that was his actual hair. Like many others, before I read the History of Middle-earth, I mistook "Fin-gol-fin" to mean "hair-mantle-hair", so this mane sort of figured. Of...

Commission info!

tl;dr: 

• For Patrons only! Only in the form of a prompt at this point, no long descriptions or original characters.
• Payment can be split (usually half up front, half after the lineart is finished).  Other payment plans can be worked out.
• You let me run with it: only minor changes during the sketching stage, none after the lineart. 
• Rights: I can sell prints. You can't monetize the image but post it anywhere you want. :) 

2019-03-13 15:59:55 +0000 UTC View Post

Fëanor for Anja

I've started to take little commissions again - Patrons only, and prompts-only. This one, obviously, was done in the style of my 2017 Inktober pieces, and Fingolfin is to follow. 

Fun bit: While drawing, I listened to the 1981 BBC dramatization of the Lord of the Rings, and had to grin hugely as Galadriel heard Gimli's request for a strand of her hair, and exclaimed that none had ever asked such a thing so bold, and yet in so courteous a manner. Bold, perhaps. Courteous, not so muc...

Waiting for the pins.

I can't tell you how excruciating this is! It doesn't help that I've joined a couple of Facebook groups of people who do pins, and all they post is catastrophes. =O I do hope that one minor German peculiarity will save me from having chosen the wrong pin company - German pin companies are very adept at all sorts of hard enamel stuff, because there are so many "carnival companies" all over this country (particularly where I am!), who have to produce new "carnival medals" for their members ever...

Woo-hoo!

Look at what just happened to my Patreon earnings! 

Thank you all so much, all you new Patrons, all you updating Patrons, all you long-time Patrons, and you who just did that very, very satisfying update. <3 <3 <3 

Convention season is nigh!

After the last couple of years were a bit meagre in the con department, I'm booked for three events this year! Once every seven years, I even make it out of Germany, haha. Hope to see loads of you there! 

Seven new Patrons! Welcome to Terra, Allison, Anelise, Holly, Nichole, Amy, and Victoria! \o/

Also, Patreon changes its layout once every four years, and I ...

Mockups getting more ingenious...

I don't know about you, but I couldn't quite imagine how large the pin was going to be, so I did the obvious: made a little paper cutout based on the manufacturer's file. XD

Here it is next to a US cent. Europeans: US cents are rather bigger than our Euro-cents. UK people: Okay, your pennies are HUGE. You don't count. 

This whole mockup business is going to get more and more ridiculous, I suppose. The reason is I was facing a problem timing all of this. The manufacturer doesn...

For Maglor slew Uldor the Accursed

Watercolour on Bockingford cold-pressed paper, 36x26 cm. 

Now, I'm glad I redid this! This was exactly what I wanted. Is it possible that there's a Napoleon painting with a very similar colour scheme? Every time I look at the thumbnail of this, I think, "Napoleon!" I'm sure Maglor is glad about this sort of attention. 

For comparison, this was the ill-fated attempt on Aquabord, left unfinished toward the bottom as I realised I was muddying things more and more. It wasn't...

Tutorial: signing up for the pin with a higher amount than 5$ :)

Hey guys, the question has come up a few times, so I thought I'd clarify this again. A lot of you have been pledging more than 5$ over the past months (yay!), and I've had several questions from people who want the pin, but want to keep pledging more than 5$. 

• Click the "join this tier" button under the Celebration Tier, or just click here (same thing). 
2019-03-06 12:00:22 +0000 UTC View Post

PINS - Things are getting exciting!

Here's the mockup from the manufacturer. I'll give them green lights for production later today, so the pins should definitely be here by mid-April! 

The pins close with a butterfly clasp at the back, but I'm just going to buy rubber fastenings and include them with every pin, so you can choose what works better for you. 

Three important notes! 

1. I looked through the Patreon database this morning. Some sixty-something of you signed up for the new tier yester...

Video: Cloudy structures

I've put together a little tutorial video, in which I demonstrate my cloudy structures, give tips on how to work around cat hair, and struggle for the English word for "cloth". 

XD

Welcome to five new Patrons: Chelsea, Jeremy, Sydney, Thomas, and Camryn! <3