Legolas Greenleaf, child-snatcher

Painted while I was looking for a style I wanted to use on the FWA badges. (They're almost done but I'm afraid I can't show you until after the con ) This was just a doodle that I painted up super quickly.

I'm not certain that I like how domesticated elves have become. As with sparkling vampires, elves are losing their edge and have become magazine models who pose in front of beautiful vistas. Mythological elves, even good elves, were not people you'd want to fuck with. They'd dance you to death, steal your children, or send you the plague if you looked at them funny. The Mirkwood elves supposedly contain some of this eerie wildness but that was not at all present in the films. Orlando Bloom is such a doughy boy-scout. He had no teeth.

Elves are graceful by nature and I imagine that for the elves of wild places this grace takes the form of that which belongs to untamed animals, tiger-like and dangerous; the sort that can jump from languid tranquility to violent action in the blink of an eye. Legolas might not technically be a wood elf by birth but he inhabits Mirkwood and I'd like to think some of that prowling, slightly sinister nature has rubbed off on him.

Edit: I keep repeating myself over and over in the comments so I may as well post here. I've somehow given the impression that I don't like Tolkien elves or that I want to limit other people's creativity. Noooooo that is not how I feel at all. I love all incarnations of elves. If someone edited the films and replaced Orlando Bloom with someone more edgy, I would be very upset. I'm glad this version exists. I just want other versions to exist, too.

What bothers me about Tolkien elves, Dungeons and Dragons elves, PJ elves, is that they're SO pervasive, nobody moves beyond them. It even gets to the point that people start to attack anyone who tries to do something different. It's the trend that I dislike, not the representation itself. There have been a lot of pre-modern versions that deserve research. (Same with vampires, kappa, werewolves, whatever.) I WANT there to be good elves, bad elves, boy scout elves, etc. I made this image *because* it's different from what is becoming 'standard'. I am not a purist. I find mythology fundamentalists who's self-appointed mission is to tell other people that their creative interpretations are wrong to be ridiculously tedious.