Hello, this is my first upload in 2020 and also my first fully hand sculpted design ever. I wanted to do something with my toolkit during the lockdown so I expanded finally a bit into sculpting and felt confident enough to try and deliver the design I had in mind for years.

Valkyries described on wikipedia: In Norse mythology, a valkyrie (/vlkri, -kari, vl-, vlkri/;[1] from Old Norse valkyrja "chooser of the slain") is one of a host of female figures who choose those who may die in battle and those who may live. Selecting among half of those who die in battle (the other half go to the goddess Freyja's afterlife field Flkvangr), the valkyries take their chosen to the afterlife hall of the slain, Valhalla, ruled over by the god Odin. There, the deceased warriors become einherjar (Old Norse "single (or once) fighters"[2]). When the einherjar are not preparing for the events of Ragnark, the valkyries bear them mead. Valkyries also appear as lovers of heroes and other mortals, where they are sometimes described as the daughters of royalty, sometimes accompanied by ravens and sometimes connected to swans or horses.

Valkyries are often portrayed as woman on flying horse and this is the part that I decided to show on my design. Initially I had in mind a bit of a longship design with how the head is aligned, but I decided to go to Valkyrie as it is pretty badass that they get to chose warriors fate on the battlefields.

Many of the motives on the gun are a mix of nordic and celtic bits, but it is very difficult to manouver between them and not cross the line at some point.

The runes on the front are a transliteration from english "Valkyrie" while on the back I have used a bit from Darraðarljóð which is one of the most popular nordic poems that mentions valkyrie. You can find the full poem here: http://www.vikinganswerlady.com/valkyrie.shtml while for transliteration I have used this page: https://www.nordicrunes.info/runeconverter.php

Huge shoutout to my friends who helped me with techinicalities and feedback through the skin development.

Hope you are liking this piece, it trully has consumed insane amount of time. If you would like to see more of my work I encourage you to follow my workshop and browse my other designs. :)