Saturday, April 23, 2011

For the Sake of Revenge





One million WIP shots of Tyr and Fenrir!

Hm...like always, I think I fell short of what I really wanted from this piece. I came close. I think it's pretty obvious I was going for a sumi kind of look.

To those who don't know the story, here it is (as I understand it): Fenrir was one of Loki's sons; a great wolf that grew in such size and strength that the other gods were fearful of his might. They decided that Fenrir had to be chained. The gods forged a chain and were able to wrap it around Fenrir by challenging his strength. Fenrir easily broke the chain and the gods, once again, made a chain. It was twice as big, twice as strong, twice as heavy. Fenrir, once again, broke the chain with ease.

The gods then turned to the dwarfs. The dwarfs fashioned a silky, thin ribbon.
The ribbon was fashioned of six strange elements: the footstep of a cat, the roots of a mountain, a woman's beard, the breath of fishes, the sinews of a bear, and a bird's spittle. It is said that none of these things exist because they were used to make the chain.

Once again, the gods challenged Fenrir's strength, but he was not eager to break such a weak-looking chain. However, the gods kept cajoling him and Fenrir finally agreed. Suspicious of this strange request, Fenrir insisted
that one of the gods place his hand in his between his jaws as a sign of faith. Only Tyr was brave enough to do so. Fenrir was chained, and when he realized that he could not break free from the thin ribbon, he bit off Try's right hand in revenge.

Fenrir was chained to a rock, gagged with a sword to keep him from biting, and sent one mile into the earth. He will remain there until Ragnarok; that day, he will kill Odin, but Odin's son
Vidar, will avenge his father by slaying Fenrir.

Cool story, man.

I wanted to depict Fenrir as more than just a wolf; usually, he's depicted as just a wolf or maybe an unusually large wolf, but beyond that? Nothing too godly. So, here he is as a chimera of sorts.

Take care.

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