Eärendil the Mariner
Father of Elrond and Elros, Lord of Arvernien, Bearer of the Silmaril
Although Eärendil is usually considered to be an Edain of the Third House and therefore a Man, he is also the son of Idril Celebrindal, the daughter of Turgon, and thus as much a half-Elf as his sons (which Ulmo pointed out to the other Valar when they were trying to decide what to do with a mortal who had dared to set foot on the shores of Valinor, to plead for help for both Elves and Men during the wars with Morgoth in the First Age). So rather than start a new subsection for the Edain when I have only one Sim in that category, Eärendil will remain here with the Eldar, at least until I'm finished with Beren -- and possibly permanently. After all, when given the choice, he chose to be counted among the immortals, though he was sent off through the Doors of Night in his ship Vingilot with the Silmaril bound upon his brow, to become the Evening and Morning Star in the heavens.
The skirt portion of the tunic was made specifically for the Eärendil mesh, although I discovered it was handy for other uses. You'll find one on the Young Círdan page here among the Eldar; the other will show up some time in the future with Miscellaneous Skins. The head was what proved to be a bit of a puzzler. For one thing, I could find no description of Eärendil's hair and eye coloring, so I decided to be a bit different and give him brown hair and sea blue. The pulled-back hair was logical for a mariner; having it whipping in the wind while you're trying to work on shipboard is a romantic image, but highly imprudent. The original version had no bang, and looked bad, so I tried adding them in the skin, which didn't work, then tried five times using a mesh before I was satisfied with the result. Because all the longer hair is behind the head, it doesn't distort the thumbnails any worse than other meshes of the type. And no, he is NOT supposed to look like Val Kilmer (although the face shot at the top of the page does look a bit like him). It was purely accidental -- so accidental that I didn't even realize it until I was assembling this page.
