Eowyn and the Nazgul

Last month Jon Schindehette and the guys at the Muddy Colors blog put together a challenge. The topic was Eowyn and the Nazgul, from the Lord of the Rings. It wasn't until I was waiting at the airport, trying to fly to the Austin Kotei, that I found the approach I wanted to take.

There's been a lot of focus on the end fight, but I decided to look at what lead up to that. I settled on when the Witch-king takes to the field of the battle. Eowyn's horse Windfola panicked, and she and Merry were thrown (and since there's no specific reference to when her helmet came off, I decided it would be a fine time for that, too). I stretched things a bit having her bumped by the fell beast, but I wanted to show her resisting them. The Witch-king and fell beast, however, are cropped out of the picture to show they don't regard her at all.

Here are some of the steps I went through. The last is a photo of the painting as it stood last night. It's oil on paper on panel, about 15" x 21".

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