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"But of those unhappy ones who were ensnared by Melkor little is known of a certainty. For who of the living has descended into the pits of Utumno, or has explored the darkness of the counsels of Melkor? Yet this is held true by the wise of Eressea, that all those of the Quendi who came into the hands of Melkor, ere Utumno was broken, were put there in prison, and by slow arts of cruelty were corrupted and enslaved; and thus did Melkor breed the hideous race of the Orcs in envy and mockery of the Elves, of whom they were afterwards the bitterest foes. For the Orcs had life and multiplied after the manner of the Children of Iluvatar; and naught that had life of its own, nor the semblance of life, could ever Melkor make since his rebellion in the Ainulindale before the Beginning: so say the wise. And deep in their dark hearts the Orcs loathed the Master whom they served in fear, the maker only of their misery. This it may be was the vilest deed of Melkor, and the most hateful to Iluvatar."

--'The Silmarillion'

The above passage was not Tolkien's only proposed explanation for the origin of the orcs (and he never did really settle on one) but, appearing as it does in the published 'Silmarillion' (and being paraphrased in Jackson's films) it has largely become canon in the minds of fans.

How exactly do you get an orc out of an elf? what are the stages of such a transition? can it be done in one generation? It would help that elves do not naturally die, and an individual might be made to suffer until they do physically change. The poor soul pictured here is in what I expect would be the early/mid-phase; with the long years of torment beginning to do their work. I imagine the openness of their faces closing, as hope and empathy leave them, their eyes turn darting and angry, and they become cruel; toward each other and anything else they can hurt. It's a process that, I think, Maedhros and Gwindor get some taste of and - somewhat like the ring bearers of later ages - they can never fully come back from it.

the Elves, though not incapable of evil acts on their own, are presented as seeming to inherently understand the moral 'up and down' of the world better than we do. This huge genetic/spiritual schism that happened to them has no direct parallel for us; no 'orcs' are made from men. In mankind the influence of Evil is more insidious, and more shared. Anger, jealousy, cruelty, these are things all humans have a share in, they are the 'orcish side' of us - the Original Sin put into us by the Devil in our earliest days - which vies with the better angels of our nature and has often won out. It's hard to say which strategy for corrupting the Children of Illuvatar on Melkor's part was the more effective. As a likely fabricated (I discover, most disappointingly) quote by Tolkien goes "We were all orcs during the Great War."

Description
"But of those unhappy ones who were ensnared by Melkor little is known of a certainty. For who of the living has descended into the pits of Utumno, or has explored the darkness of the counsels of Melkor? Yet this is held true by the wise of Eressea, that all those of the Quendi who came into the hands of Melkor, ere Utumno was broken, were put there in prison, and by slow arts of cruelty were corrupted and enslaved; and thus did Melkor breed the hideous race of the Orcs in envy and mockery of the Elves, of whom they were afterwards the bitterest foes. For the Orcs had life and multiplied after the manner of the Children of Iluvatar; and naught that had life of its own, nor the semblance of life, could ever Melkor make since his rebellion in the Ainulindale before the Beginning: so say the wise. And deep in their dark hearts the Orcs loathed the Master whom they served in fear, the maker only of their misery. This it may be was the vilest deed of Melkor, and the most hateful to Iluvatar."

--'The Silmarillion'

The above passage was not Tolkien's only proposed explanation for the origin of the orcs (and he never did really settle on one) but, appearing as it does in the published 'Silmarillion' (and being paraphrased in Jackson's films) it has largely become canon in the minds of fans.

How exactly do you get an orc out of an elf? what are the stages of such a transition? can it be done in one generation? It would help that elves do not naturally die, and an individual might be made to suffer until they do physically change. The poor soul pictured here is in what I expect would be the early/mid-phase; with the long years of torment beginning to do their work. I imagine the openness of their faces closing, as hope and empathy leave them, their eyes turn darting and angry, and they become cruel; toward each other and anything else they can hurt. It's a process that, I think, Maedhros and Gwindor get some taste of and - somewhat like the ring bearers of later ages - they can never fully come back from it.

the Elves, though not incapable of evil acts on their own, are presented as seeming to inherently understand the moral 'up and down' of the world better than we do. This huge genetic/spiritual schism that happened to them has no direct parallel for us; no 'orcs' are made from men. In mankind the influence of Evil is more insidious, and more shared. Anger, jealousy, cruelty, these are things all humans have a share in, they are the 'orcish side' of us - the Original Sin put into us by the Devil in our earliest days - which vies with the better angels of our nature and has often won out. It's hard to say which strategy for corrupting the Children of Illuvatar on Melkor's part was the more effective. As a likely fabricated (I discover, most disappointingly) quote by Tolkien goes "We were all orcs during the Great War."