The ink drawing for this verse took about 10 hours to complete. Lots of figures in there! It felt important to give this verse some time. In it we see the first war, the war between the Aesir and the Vanir.

One interesting development is that as I searched for the right shapes for each figure I found myself repeating three previous character designs. This is not something I've done before. The Valkyrie mimics my painting "Liberty or Death," Frey is similar to how I portrayed him in "Freyr's Last Stand," and Thor matches his look from "The Binding of Loki."

I normally enjoy finding new ways to depict the characters from the lore, but something about this piece harkened back to my older work. While this is a new development for me, it also feels like a taste of things to come...

Voluspa - Norse Mythology Book - Verse 23

“On the host his spear did Othin hurl,

The in the world did war first come;

The wall that girdled the gods was broken,

And the field by the warlike Wanes was trodden.”

Bellows Translation