Maps of Beleriand

[Sirielle]

Hello! This is my first map, done at first in Painter, then finished in Photoshop. It is not an original fictional land, but a map of Beleriand from The Silmarillion by J.R.R. Tolkien, based on official maps: by J.R.R. Tolkien published in the History of Middle-earth, by Christopher Tolkien in The Silmarillion & by Karen Wynn Fonstad in The Atlas of Middle-earth. There are also details found in texts by Ominus and myself, which are not present on the official maps. Some objects/places are just a guess based on texts, as is the distance between Thangorodrim in the North and the lands of the Elves. Ominous also drew representation of Thangorodrim and the compass rose on the color map, and has made the tengwar frame*. The map is published on-line with Ominous's permission. If you know the books, you are aware there is no Thangorodrim/Angabnd on the official map in The Silmarillion, which always bothered me. It is only present on the atlas map and in the old map in HoME, which not everyone possesses. So I drew my own map which shows the placement of the fortress of evil, though only after friends encouraged me to it and did research for me while I was drawing.

*If you cannot read it - I cannot - it says the map has been done by myself, and the Thangorodrim, tengwar frame and compass rose by him. In a few languages

There are two variants of the map - the b&w map of the realms, which I colored and redrew into the main map:

beleriand___realms_by_sirielle-d6sbdtk.jpg
The Realms of the Noldor and the Sindar in Beleriand in the beginning of the I Age of Sun and during the Siege of Angband.

beleriand_and_realms_of_the_north_by_sirielle-d6u0ecg.jpg
Beleriand and Realms of The North

[- JO -]

A lot of work for these two maps, and they are beautiful.
You have been able to magnificently draw the mountains and cliffs.
I love the idea of ​​making vignettes with enlarged details of the map in color: the cities and fortresses are really beautiful!
Congratulations !

[Robulous]

Wow. Yes the original maps in the Silmarillion bothered me too as being incomplete, and also odd they didn't bear much relation to the later Middle Earth geography.

I prefer the b&w map. On the colour map your white stroke effect on the text is a bit too much, it actually makes much of the text harder to read. Try experimenting with the contrast on it.

[Sirielle]

A lot of work for these two maps, and they are beautiful.
You have been able to magnificently draw the mountains and cliffs.
I love the idea of ​​making vignettes with enlarged details of the map in color: the cities and fortresses are really beautiful!
Congratulations !

Thank you! The details are actually elements in the original size, the rest of the map is downsized. The final version of the map without borders is 6000 pixels high.
I like my mountains, but still feel urge to redraw them. Actually to upscale the map and color it anew or/and add battles and events to the existing map. I even started adding some events, but scrapped that (WIPs in attachment).
But I am one of those people who rarely finish stuff because they refine it over and over again Here my friends stopped me

Wow. Yes the original maps in the Silmarillion bothered me too as being incomplete, and also odd they didn't bear much relation to the later Middle Earth geography.

They do, just the continent was destroyed in the War of Wrath by the forces of Morgoth and the Valar, so most of Beleriand is underwater. Some mountain tops survived and should be visible as islands on the LotR maps. Himling in northern-west corner of the map is a remnant of the Himring mountain top and there are remnants of the Ered Luin (Ered Lindon) on the western shore, which were eastern border of Beleriand in the I Age:
http://lotrproject.com/map/#zoom=3&l...&layers=BTTTTT
There are a few fanmade maps trying to show the sank land together with the Middle-earth map, like this one:
http://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/File:...or_collage.png
But more mountain tops should be visible as islands, Valar couldn't sank them all. I guess it didn't matter on the LotR maps, so it's not there.

I prefer the b&w map. On the colour map your white stroke effect on the text is a bit too much, it actually makes much of the text harder to read. Try experimenting with the contrast on it.

It was my problem to make it visible in a small size. It is also one of reasons I prepared that big map for internet, so people could actually read the names. I will experiments with it in the future.


The map without labels and frame, but still with Thangorodrim drawn by Ominous. I see I don't have a version with my Thangorodrim, apart some early stages - and the b&w map. Plus scrapped WIPs of a map with events added on.

Beleriand-map27-lvls.jpg
Beleriand-map-fantasy1.jpg
Beleriand-map-fantasy2.jpg

[Creativetides]

Wow love it I always loved middle earth and its great to see other guilders bring it alive , REP

[Ilanthar]

Very fine map ! I particularly love the different icons for major places.

[Matthew VE]

Fantastic! I love tolkien and have read most of his books, so I will definitely be bookmarking this for future reference. In fact, I'm just reading through the new book Beren and Luthien. This is an amazing rendition and I'm actually very excited that there is such a nice version now!

[FrancescaBaerald]

Great job!!

[mapmage]

Simply amazing. Congrats!

[Galendae]

The 2nd one, the colored one, with the locations enhanced in the margins....AWESOME!
Too few good maps of Beleriand exist. Placement of some locations in Beleriand is challenging, as there were two maps made by Christopher Tolkien and as you pointed out Angband is not on either of them.

The pictures/close ups, in the margins, I noticed the Star of Feanor on all the locations associated with the Feanorians, nice touch. I can't make out the symbol for Finrod.

Sirielle, didn't you do a map of Gondolin City too? You should post that here, the detail was phenomenal.
I loved your depiction of Gar Ainion.

Fantastic work!