Thursday, April 10, 2014

Brunhild

So I'm posting these as I am completing these now. This is a practice study for a book I'm planning. The calligraphy did not go as well as I'd hoped at all. Many errors can be found in there. I can understand why scribes and that went blind and crazy. I felt like a moth priest after doing that. I'll definitely just superimpose text for the real thing.
I'm not sure how well the more Victorian-looking plants go with the medieval book. I guess it works okay. I think the big "M" probably is blended into the background too much. It hardly can be seen at all. Also Brunhild is sort of crouched as if trying to fit into the squat frame I'd allowed for her. The pose looks natural enough though
This is a short excerpt from the Nibelungenlied, the part where it describes Brunhild putting on her battle gear. It's probably the best part of the story. I guess people might expect her to be in full plate armor, same with Sifried and Hagen but I dislike the look of plate armor. It just looks ugly. I do like chain mail though.
So artists in the Renaissance depicting ancient stories would often just make main characters inexplicably naked, I put them in chain mail. It's less weird because they are actually going to battle. Most warriors in the 12th century would have worn something like she is here, the plate mail would be too encumbering if not on horseback. So it's perfectly suited for her tournament battle indoors.
It may have given a description of what she actually looks like, importantly the color of her hair, possibly blond, earlier in the book when Gunter first lays eyes on her. But I couldn't be bothered to check.
I've depicted her on some sort of throne, getting up to kill some suitors. The reason why there's this dragon pattern on her over cloth is because during the tournament she was desiring Sigfried, the dragon slayer to win. So dragons strewn over her thigh and breast seemed fitting.

No comments:

Post a Comment