I have been asked how I have been using Sweet Home 3D lately.
Well, it's mostly for my personal use.
I remember reading The Hobbit when I was around eleven years old.
It was the Danish translation from 1984, called "Hobbitten, eller Ud og Hjem igen" (The Hobbit, or There and Back Again), and it made a huge impact.
I’m not going to waste anyones time describing the contents of this novel, assuming that most of you have already read the book or seen the films.
If not: Buy yourself the perfect christmas present - either the book or the films – but preferably both.
And seen the films has also my stepdaughter done, which is why I’m writing this intro.
“Are Hobbits real?†was her question after watching the first film. When I answered “noâ€, her quite logical response was: “But dwarfs are real, right?â€, which of course was an undeniable fact.
And then what followed was a discussion about dwarfs and questions about why dwarfs were so often mentioned along with fantasy-figures like elves, goblins, gnomes, trolls and – in this case – Hobbits.
I had to admit that I really didn’t have any good answers to that, but I told her that dwarfs and midgets traditionally used to be be exhibited for public amusement in the older days - an answer that made her wrinkle her eyebrows in disbelief and ask if the same would have happened to hobbits with big hairy feet, if they had been real.
And our discussion went on, with questions about rights and wrongs, and about how we are slowly changing our views about people created differently from us.
As a result of this conversation, I started reading about dwarfs,in order to be better prepared and better qualified to continue our discussion. I read about German mythology and about dwarfism, and of course one ting lead to another as I was following digression after digression as I went along – and so we agreed it would be a nice thing to write a story about dwarfs - make it an after-school-project, for rainy days – in every meaning of the word.
Having lots of time on my hands, we started our after-school sessions with making an illustration.
I have always found it helpful to visualise the locations when writing stories.
Our first attempt turned out to be a not-so-sweet home:
“It’s not very nice. It’s too gloomy!†was her immediate response.
So we did another one, and started our story:
Should you come from the south, you might not pay any particular interest to the scenery. On the surface it looks more or less the same as the rest of the landscape you have been wandering across in order to get here.
Being half Norwegian, the old Norwegian children’s songs and rhymes naturally became an essential part of my upbringing, and while searching for inspiration I suddenly remembered a song written by one of Norway’s most celebrated poets, Henrik Wergeland , a song that was still “comme il faut†in my childhood.
Nisser og dverge bygger i berge;
men vi skal mine dem alle her ut.
Ti mens vi synger muntre i klynger,
sprenger vi berget i lufta med krutt.
A translation will go something like this (non-poetic):
The Gnomes and the Dwarves are nesting in our mountains,
but we shall mine every one of them out!
Backed by the cheerful singing of the hordes,
we’ll use gunpowder and blow their mountains to kingdom come.
So why did this celebrated and well respected writer come up with something like this?
I’m not going to give the answer here, but I will show some of the renderings that eventually will become illustrations to my story – a tiny book meant for my own children only – a book about how we used to regard people created differently from ourselves – and hopefully it will contribute to an understanding of why we shall not use our freedom of speech to abuse anyone, in neither words nor images, for their looks, their physical or mental challenges, their gender, colour of their skin, their religion or faith – a book about being “Ein Mensch†– a person of integrity and honour.
In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit…
– and in a caved out mountain there lived a dwarf and her daughter:
But should your eye by chance catch a ray of sunshine falling on a small, upright standing stone – and should you care to investigate it – not only will you find a monument, erected and inscribed as an enduring and memorable example of lost Norwegian poetry, you will also discover the home of Klara Haltenbanken and her daughter Hope.
In the old days they were called “midgetsâ€, since their appearance was quite proportional to normal people, but since it has been decided that “midget†is an offensive word, they are now being described as dwarfs, which for some reason is regarded as less discriminating.
And should you happen to come from the north, you will most likely discover the nicely-worked entrance from a distance.
And if you should happen to be a person with a normal amount of curiosity, chances are you might want to take a closer look.
And should you come by night…
… you might even feel tempted to pay a visit, or at least take a peak inside.
Renderings of the interior will follow...
Cecilia
[size=1 All images rendered in 2K with Q4 default settings – using enhanced external brightness.
