...gobsmacked, is what I am.

Absolutely gorgeous in all details, and as always, it must be SO much more gorgeous in person... The intricate colour blending in the leaves on the bodice... The foreground leaves themselves! the jewellery, the hair, the EVERYTHING.

Yeah, this is absolutely phenomenal. Wow. Lovely in all ways.

This is truly exquisite on so many levels. Beyond words.

Really digging the Elven architecture in the background. It's very subtle, but you'd notice if it wasn't there. Loving everything about this piece

Oh, I know what it's like to fall in love with an accessory :3 I recently comissioned a friend for a pic with a certain bikini! Gosh, it's just so beautiful!

So is Luthien mind you :3 It's so cool she is immortal! All that wisdom and practice with nature magic.

Beautifull in every way. Lovely work.

It's always lovely to see more art of Luthien, and this piece is simply gorgeous. I absolutely love her jewelry, and the green and gold theme really does look really pretty on her. Plus you've done an amazing job with all of the little delicate details both on the jewelry and on the roses in her hair. The whole thing is really beautifully done, and I really like the background with all the elegant latticework behind her.

this is beautiful!

Very beautiful

all the details mind boggling !

Ah wow, I love this. <3 I can't get over the detail in that jewelry. Wonderful an inspiring work, as always. :)

So beautiful it hurts.

I still drop by here occasionally - and what do I see? Another beautiful picture of luthien. Very nice. However, to me it seems a little as if those huge roses in her hair kinda draw the attention away from the lovely female wearing them. But that may be just my perception.

So essentially wood elves?

All Elves are wood-elves technically, since they all have a deep connection with nature. But from what I've read, some have an extra fondness for the sea, some are more closely aligned with the forest than others etc. There's more info about the Laiquendi elves on my submission here: http://www.furaffinity.net/view/8406300/

Further proof that I need to hunt down the additional material by Tolkien (I've only read the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings so far and I'm not even certain I want to try reading the Silmarillion concerning how archaically it's written).

The Silmarillion is a good read if you want to know some of the history, but yeah you do have to read very slowly, and give yourself time to digest everything. I'm in the process of reading through it again but I'll do one chapter and then leave it be for a couple weeks. lol Aside from that, there's tons of good books out there and lots of info on the internet as well, if you want to just look something up real fast. I recommend this site: http://www.glyphweb.com/arda/

Neat. I usually just used the Lord of the Rings Wikia.

Beautiful n.n

Just more beautiful than ever.

She's very pretty, I love her jewelry:)

I saw the jewelry and immediately recognized the style! My belly dancing troupe has been going nuts over the shoulder jewelry, wondering how it would hold up to dance. BEAUTIFUL rendition of it and I love the changes you made to it - better then the original. Those leaves are amazing as well. <3

Love your artwork :D

Stunning work :) I'd favourite your work but so much of your stuff is beautiful that I'd be faving it all day so I'll just comment haha.

I think the beads first. I love how they not only match into the dress and eye colors, but it's a step beyond that. The central color of the eye being green, as well as each major piece of the jewelry's center and even the beads of the smaller connecting pieces. The gold being an outer trim or connecting element of the jewelry just like the outer portion of the eyes. Actually, on top of that, the clothing plays into all this as well. It all keeps drawing me back to looking at her eyes every time.

I honestly have no way to know to what extent you planned it, but I think the roses have an important effect beyond beauty. I'm noticing they create a color barrier to the green, especially the vibrant left side background. Together they create a eye trap that helps keep me focused on her face. The last barriers I noticed are her own hair and the tree, the tree keeping me from ever trailing off the right side, and her hair helps make a barrier against the background. The only weakness is I've felt if I do give into the bright background, it pulls me away from viewing Luthien, this can really only happen about shoulder level. I don't know why I picked up on this effect so much in your art right now, it's the first time ever while looking to tag my first favorite or two for an artist I've watched, including your own art (granted I'm looking deeper into your art than before).

A last small thing, I like when you have some visual fur affect of some kind in areas other than tufts of fur or such, like the shoulders on this piece. A lot of fur bearing anthros that are not flat color seem rather smooth at times.

Thanks so much for taking the time to notice all that. Admittedly it was not planned that way but if it helps the piece then I'm glad it was the result. :3 And the jewels matching the eyes, I hadn't even thought about that - normally I make the metal parts of her jewelry silver but something told me gold would fit better this time. >u>

Whoops, was supposed to be a direct reply, oh well.

I'm not a practiced artist at all, but I was taught a few things about photography and how things lead the eye around, and your art with more complex backgrounds have triggered that. I'm busy making rounds to artists' pages, but later I do want to look at your other background containing art closer, and see what effect it has on my observing the piece. I'll continue to share what I see if you like, it just takes a while to do and I have a number of things I need to do to build up my own presence in the community. I'm just glad to do something other than gush about how beautiful it is, or say nothing more than I appreciate the effort I see. I want to at least tell artists how I felt about their art, at least one piece each this whole time I've kept closed off, but I feel it may be sounding off-putting from a non-artist ex-lurker. I feel like I've accidentally put my foot in my mouth a couple times already.

Eh, generally I don't mind as long as its good stuff. lol I do like knowing *why* a certain piece is liked, lets me know what I'm doing right so I can keep it up. I don't put too much thought into where the eye gets directed really, I just watch for general composition and balance and let the rest of the pieces fall where they may. So it would be interesting to get your point of view, since you're looking at it from a technical aspect. :3

If I recall when I swing back by a later date, I'll let you know what I see in the other art. But do what you do best, because honestly, I never noticed until I got analytical into what I liked beyond "it's pretty!" I doubt 99.9% are going to go as far as I did, and I'm just one guy. I'm probably sensitive to it because of the competition projects I was working on. One thing was how something in the photo could send your eyes not just around the photo, but across the poster board, whether it's still your own project or over to your competition's.

Sorry about earlier, I got a little unglued and mopey in your direction.

A lavish portrait of a beautiful character :)