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Nenuial & Nerwen

How it all began...

I used to post LOTR-themed wallpapers at my personal site (nowadays called Naith). I noticed very soon that people tried to use some of my work as web page backgrounds which of course was a very bad situation for all the parties involved. So I decided to make smaller, blended, tile-free graphics for people to use. And it was only natural to start a separate site for them. I toyed with the idea for a couple of months and tried several navigations before publishing the site. I also wanted to give brief instructions on how to use backgrounds wisely.

What's in a name?

Nenuial, or lake Evendim, is located in Eriador, north from the Shire. The ancient city of Annúminas was on its shore. I chose the name for three reasons: 1) my favourite character, Galadriel, dwelt there for some time in the Second Age. 2) Nenuial is near the Shire and somewhat connected to it since the river Baranduin (Brandywine) begins from Nenuial and flows through the Shire. This is fitting, because I am one of the admins of the biggest Finnish Tolkien site called Kontu (the Shire). 3) I couldn't find any other sites named after Nenuial. ;-)

Nerwen is a name given to Galadriel by her mother. It translates as "manmaiden". I first used it over a decade ago in school when we needed to write something and were not allowed to use our own names. Galadriel is definitely my favourite character in Tolkien's books but unfortunately also a very popular one. I could have also chosen Artanis or Alatáriel but Nerwen sounds more like my real first name. Nowadays I'm so used to people calling me Nerwen (even in real life) that I don't even stop to think about it. Sometimes I also use the longer version, Nerwende.

The small "bf" in some of the wallpapers is my old signature that comes from my old nickname in the X-files fandom, "bigfoot". If you're interested, I have made also digital TXF art which can be found at beLIEve. (BTW, if you look very closely, you will also find a little Apple symbol in every wallpaper I've made. That's just how freaking obsessed I am. :D)

How do you do it?

All the graphics are made with Adobe Photoshop. The site was built with BBEdit. All the work was done on Macs.
I use my "own" stuff as much as possible in addition to movie stills and artwork. That means I scan flowers, random objects, use my own photos etc. For a complete list of my resources, please visit my links.

Disclaimer

I have no connection to any of the people related to the movies or the books. This is a hobby and the graphics are offered completely free for non-commercial use on personal webpages. That said, if any of the copyright owners contact me, I will of course take this site, or any offending material down.

Contact

I get a lot of "how do I...?" and "can you help me to build my site?" emails. Unfortunately, I do not have time to do that. Besides, you can have your answers more quickly by using a search engine. Just type in some keywords like "web tutorials" or "how to make web graphics" and start surfing. I used to take requests for graphics, but unfortunately I don't have time for those either. :(

Here's how to contact me. I get a lot of spam these days so please put a reasonable subject line to your emails. Mentioning Nenuial in the subject is a good idea. :)



Nenuial © 2003-2018 Nerwen