Faramir Fiction Archive

Oh goodness, thank you both for the lovely comments!! There’s already so much I want to change/re-do/touch-up, and I’m not even going to digress into the customary rant about how my scanner ruined everything and my camera did little better xD So yeah, thanks very much, your support is very inspiriting!

To your point, Raven — haha, hm, I too admire Photoshop people boundlessly, for I don’t count myself as one of their number, haha, no. Being on the whole a rather backward-made person, I’ll confess I look upon technology with a mixture of awe and mistrust. I don’t own a single piece of iStuff (there was an iPod once, but it drownded, which is maybe for the best…), and while riding in a saddle is to me more comfortable than walking, the arcane art of driving an engine-operated vehicle remains far beyond the beginnings of my petrified grasp. (You know, when they were screening the first film ever with the arriving train and people ran away screaming, I was there among the audience) Likewise, the first time I was attempting to make meringues under the tutelage of my mother, I remember myself proudly declaring that electric mixers are for sissies and probably the work of the Devil anyway, and I am going to beat my whites by hand, to which my mother was like, you do that, knock yourself out. So, yeah, I’ve still got this suspicion that Photoshop is actually powered by the energy of the screaming souls of the Great Artists of the past, for how else could certain awesome people make such inexplicable, mind-blowing art with it? Oh well, at some point I was seduced by the evidently infinite possibilities of the programme, but my interaction with it typically follows this monkey-in-the-zoo scenario of, hey, I wonder what’ll happen if I do this? — ooooh, neat! — wait, how did I do that again, where did that button just go? And the results of these random encounters with Ps are never remotely alike to what I had initially envisaged, even if in their own way not too bad. So, yeah, it totally humbles me that you might allow I actually did this in Ps. The answer is no, this is indeed pencil on paper, moreover, this is plain school-supplies pencil on plain photocopying paper, because I haven’t brought any of my art supplies to NZ and for the recent lack of need haven’t yet been to the local art store — and yesterday I was overcome with this sudden need to draw (for which I blame you ;p ) that was as insuppressible as when you have to pee after three pots of green tea, so yeah, I had to make do with what was there. And on this laptop I don’t even have Ps, so the contrast and brightness adjustment as well as the colour filter were done in the Windows Picture Manager thingie. I know, Sam would’ve said perhaps that it’s like drawing with your foot, but what are you gonna do…

More towards your point about Faramir (sorry, this reply is already long enough to roll up into a tube, but how can I possibly not pay homage to your wonderful commentary?). Indeed it always felt to me he should be to some extent thin and sensitive of face as you put it, although of course evidently manly and willful at the same time, because such is his character, is it not? These are qualities I find very hard to combine though, tricky, you could say, challenging. I love C.K. Chmiel’s depictions of him, I think she portrays intelligence and gentleness of bearing perfectly while still giving him this rugged ranger allure. I, alas, tend to gravitate more towards the former if anything, but perhaps enough practice will eventually overcome this :)

Oh, thanks darling, for writing me yet more compliments! Now I’ll have to try and make more stuff, to at least partially justify all the trust you put in me ;)

Indeed, I too have this typical digital-age nostalgia for the haptic life-style, when for every task and chore one had to undergo intense physical interaction with the world out there. I still remember how my grandma told me how once she bought a live chicken at a village market and then realised she 1. has no guts to kill it, 2. had no frigging idea how much time and effort it would be to pluck the feathers (not to mention the mess that gutting makes)
xD

Quite probably, a week of such life – scrubbing pots with sand, doing the laundry by hand in the local river, carrying water home in buckets – would have me seriously reconsider my views. But for now I can gladly indulge them, and draw myself out with the pencil :)