Generic preteen Gondor soldier
Next we have a hobbit with boots: I forgot they don’t wear them. It’s Pippin, in Gondor. But since I had boots on him I crossed that out and wrote Soldier of Gondor underneath. Nice helmet, neh? This is the last of the hobbits, since I don’t remember my original versions of the others.
Dour son of Gondor, but a good person at heart…
Aha! We have Boromir! Actually, he looks a lot like Sean Bean, except with black hair and no beard. And different clothes.
Noble-maiden
This is Arwen, whom I still believe to be more lovely than Liv Tyler. I saw some wierd pictures of Arwen on Rolozo Tolkien.net, a website of official (or not) Tolkien fan-art, so I said: this can’t be right. None of those Arwens are remotely beautiful enough. Well, mine mightn’t be either, but I think it’s better.
Uh… a very hairy hobbit. Needs a shave.
This odd picture is my memory of my very first vision of Bilbo in The Hobbit. He was a hairy little monkey-like creature with cargo shorts and a green cloak. I guess I took Tolkien’s direction that hobbits had lots of hair on their toes a little too seriously.
The long and the short of it: a Balrog and a Wizard
This is a Balrog. Shadow and Flame: this is one of my coolest pictures so far. The Balrog is just perfect. And, you know, I hadn’t seen the movie yet. I wasn’t planning to. I was planning not to. Ever. So, what do you think? Is this just like the movie, or what?
I guess movie makers can sometimes get things right. ^_^7
Two big chess pieces sitting on a riverbank
I began drawing pictures of the Lord of the Rings when I saw the movie poster for The Fellowship in the mall. I panicked, because I knew that if I watched a movie, I wouldn’t be able to remember MY version of things. So, since this was the movie poster I saw, I started with that.
The Pillars of the Argonath I always imagined to be identical statues, worn much more than the movie portrayed, and rather like to those Viking chess pieces much toted as one of the first instances of strategic games in the north or something.
I still love this picture, except for those boats. You can still see where I tried to draw people in them and changed my mind. Heh.
Rahr! Eee!
Today’s picture is of a dragon. She seems to be designed based on a Lego dragon, and I think she looks pretty cool. She was a scatterbrained minor character while we were ‘roleplaying’ – we didn’t call it that, but that’s what we were doing. I drew an extra tail design for her. She’s also a green dragon, which brings the Lego element even more into the picture, although now I call them emeralds, along with scarlet, gold, silver, and marine dragons… those last would be blue, but I can’t think of a ‘better’ name for them. Anyway, that was just brainstormed a couple of days ago. Zela’s dragon-friend is silver, I know that.
Monster mash
Today, we have something different! This is a drawing of a sperm whale fighting a giant squid. I remember I had the weird idea that I was going to paint – paint – a whole series of these things and then sell them for a lot of money! Weird me… Anyway, I think that this picture is good, even now. Even the water turned out nice. I think I had help from a ‘how to draw’ book, though. I think that squid is going to lose at least one tentacle, anyway. I wonder if the skinniness of the whale’s tail is realistic, or if it’s too skinny… I like this picture still.
Zela’s first look
This is my first picture of Zela, my first really original character. It’s so old, it’s on scrap paper without a date and I almost couldn’t find it again in my folder of ‘really old elf stuff’. This was drawn somewhere around 2001, I think. I did remember that it existed, and I wanted it to be the first here. She’s evolved a lot since then! Still, this is the first picture of her, so it’s special. I still try to get the tall slim look I achieved here, even if I’m much more advanced everywhere else (it’s the leaning tower of Zela!). I draw short legs unless they’re hidden by a long skirt, so that is my problem.