No Discernible Villain

If you already answered a question on this I apologize, I tried to search but the search function on this site is awful! I was wondering about Manwe's (on laptop so can't use the right e for him) third eye, I think it's a really interesting and cool detail! also I love all the little birds on him, your art is so good

-outofangband

Thanks for the kind question! No one's asked me about that before, but I draw Manwë with a third eye (and more)—partly because it's fun, and also to represent his insight, expansiveness, and vision. I'll use this opportunity to share some Manwë quotes I enjoy:

...Manwë is dearest to Ilúvatar and understands most clearly his purposes.

In Arda his delight is in the winds and the clouds, and in all the regions of the air, from the heights to the depths, from the utmost borders of the Veil of Arda to the breezes that blow in the grass.

When Manwë there ascends his throne and looks forth, if Varda is beside him, he sees further than all other eyes, through mist, and through darkness, and over the leagues of the sea.

I adore seeing all the different artistic interpretations of the Valar; I love how the text states that yes, they can resemble the Children of Ilúvatar, or they can go without physical form altogether—or they just dress however they feel. There's so much freedom when it comes to character design:

Now the Valar took to themselves shape and hue; and because they were drawn into the World by love of the Children of Ilúvatar, for whom they hoped, they took shape after that manner which they had beheld in the Vision of Ilúvatar, save only in majesty and splendour. Moreover their shape comes of their knowledge of the visible World, rather than of the World itself; and they need it not, save only as we use raiment, and yet we may be naked and suffer no loss of our being. Therefore the Valar may walk, if they will, unclad, and even the Eldar cannot clearly perceive them, though they be present.

But the shapes wherein the Great Ones array themselves are not at all times like to the shapes of the kings and queens of the Children of Ilúvatar; for at times they may clothe themselves in their own thought, made visible in forms of majesty and dread.

(I left out some great lines between those quotes; Ainulindalë and Account of the Valar and Maiar are two of my favorite parts of The Silmarillion.)

In conclusion, here's Manwë as an eagle. I imagine sometimes he wants to be a cool bird.