The Great Goblin: Sketches

"We were on a journey to visit our relatives, our nephews and nieces, and first, second, third cousins and other descendants of our grandfathers, who live on the East side of these truly hospitable mountains," said Thorin, not quite knowing what to say all at once in a moment, when obviously the exact truth would not do at all.
"He is a liar, O truly tremendous one!" said one of the guards. "Several of our people were struck by lightning in the cave, when we invited these creatures to come below; and they are dead as stones. Also he has not explained this!" He held out the sword which Thorin had worn, Goblin-cleaver.
"Murderers and elf-friends!" The Great Goblin shouted. "Slash them! Bite them! Gnash them! Take them away to dark holes full of snakes, and never let them see the light again!"

Bilbo and the Trolls: Final Digital Treatment

"You're a fat fool, William," said Burt, "as I've said afor this evening.
"And you're a lout!" said William.
"And I won't take that from you, Bill Huggins!" and Burt put his fist in William's eye.

Next up: The Great Goblin!

The Hobbit: The Blood of Numenor

We take a break from your regularly scheduled hobbit posts to bring you another paper test. This time we are working on Rives BFK 400.  

Bilbo and the Trolls: Reference Hunting

This is the Alpine Lakes, in the Cascades region of Washington State. I spent a week here with friends in 2007. There was a particular stretch of trails that we were on that keep coming to mind when I imagine this scene from the Hobbit.

I am certain that trolls have met here.  North American trolls at that. 

Tolkien's story ends with the Trolls being turned to stone. It made sense to use rocks for the main reference for the trolls.

"And there they stand to this day, for trolls as you probably know, must be underground before dawn, or they go back to the stuff of the mountains they are made of and never move again."

I had considered making the trolls more organic, and more inspired by moss covered rocks. Moss-covered rocks are wonderful. They conjure the feelings of places that are either remote, and undisturbed by man or secluded and well-tended by man. In the end, adding the moss to the trolls stony skin seemed too tranquil a covering for a set of characters who are about to cook our hero and a dozen dwarves.
At some point I think I may go back and do a piece of the 3 trolls as the giant stones, from when Frodo and Sam camp amongst them. Alan Lee has done what could be considered the definitive version of this scene, and it is marvelous. But I would still like to illustrate it, with these trolls, covered in moss and sticks and over-run by woodland creatures.

Bilbo and the Trolls: Early Digital Process

Bilbo and the Trolls: Watercolor

Bilbo and the Trolls: Sketches

"What did i say?" said Bilbo, "and please dont cook me kind sirs! I'm a good cook, and i'll cook a perfectly beautiful breakfast for you if only you wont have me for supper!"
"Poor little blighter," said william. "Poor little blighter! Let him go!"

"Not till he says what he means by 'lots and none at all.' I don't want to have me throat cut in me sleep. Hold his toes in the fire, 'til he talks."

Bilbo and the Trolls: Burrahobbit Sketches

The Hobbit: Bilbo and the Trolls

"Blimey Burt. Look what I've caught," said William.

This is one of my favorite scenes in literature. 

The most enjoyable performance of this scene is from the 1974 Argo Records Vinyl LP audio version of The Hobbit, performed by Nicol Williamson.

The whole reading is wonderful and this scene is particularly excellent. Williamson's performance of the characters is perfect. If you get an audiobook version of The Hobbit, do not get any other version, especially any of those bungling, full-cast performance versions.
The 1974 Nicol Williamson reading is the definitive reading of The Hobbit. Sadly, it is almost impossible to find now. I have found that it occasionally pops up on Youtube. Look up "The Hobbit 1974 Argo Records"

"You can't expect people to stop here forever just to be et by you and Burt. You've had a village and a half between you since we came down from the mountains."

Bilbo should have gone back quietly and warned his friends, but he decided to do a bit of good, quick burglaring. He could not go straight back to Thorin and company empty handed. So at last he crept behind a tree just behind William, plucked up courage and put his little hand in William's enormous pocket. There was a purse in it, as big as a bag to Bilbo.
"Ah, This is a beginning!"
It was!
William turned round at once and grabbed Bilbo by the neck, before he could duck behind the tree.
"Blimey Burt, look what I've caught," said William.
"What is it?" said the others coming up.
"Lumey if I knows. What are ya?"

"Bilbo Baggins, a bur- ..uh hobbit."
"A burrahobbit?" said they, a bit startled.
"What's a burrahobbit got to do with my pockets anyway?" said William.
"And can ya cook em?" said Tom.

The Hobbit: Shade of Dunharrow

I depart for a moment from The Hobbit and steal a page from The Return of the King. I am testing out some Arches papers for use in the rest of the series.  This is on their Moulin Du Gue series.

The way is shut.

It was made by those who are Dead.

And the Dead keep it.

The way is shut.

A Map of the Mountain: Final Digital Steps

Next Up: Bilbo and the Three Trolls

A Map of the Mountain: Digital Process

Balin (with pint) and Bombur (with pipe). 

A Map of the Mountain: Watercolor

"It may have been secret once," said Thorin, "But how do we know that it is secret any longer? Old Smaug has lived there long enough now to find out anything there is to know about those caves."

Aside from the Hobbit series being awesome and such a great story to work on, I also wanted to do this project as a means to improve my technique. I've been wanting to get back into watercolors for some time now. I have never really had the patience for watercolors and I need to practice and find a method by which I can slow down and patiently, methodically finish a complete, full-size illustration in watercolor. The Hobbit story seems to lend itself to being rendered in a classic medium.
My parents are wonderful people who did their best to make sure that my sisters and I recieved excellent educations. I am forever grateful to them for their efforts. Sadly, I ignored the eductional systems they perscribed for the most part and was instead raised by video games. Video games promised me superior hand-eye coordination, problem-solving skills and quick reflexes. And (like television,) they also promised me vicarious adventures where I could pilot military aircraft and journey to space without ever having to worry about getting shot or losing limbs. School promised me hours of boredom, tedium and an occasional snow day.

So I chose video games, and among many other character deficits, it has left me with an inability to cope with the tedious drying times and baffling mixing qualities of watercolor. (I also blame video games for that car wreck I had 2 years ago, but that is another story.)
Nobody establishes to children WHY they are at school. Children are intellegent, they see through the smokescreens. They may play along, but their minds are sharp and they are seeing through the falacies and unless there is substance there they aren't REALLY going to buy in. For instance, had I been informed that if I excelled in english and literature at school, that years later I would be able to construct my thoughts in a way that would impress girls, that might have had currency. Had I been told that if I stayed dedicated to solving the problems in algebra, even though they were stubborn, obsitanant and went against all the fundamental logic of the universe, that I would later be better able to master classic mediums, I might have bought in. As it was, I was told that I needed to finish school so that I could go to more school later on. Like algebra, this type of logic didn't make any sense to me.

So now, in the uphill treck to correct at least some of my bad habits and life errors, I hope to improve my watercolor technique through practice with this great story.

A Map of the Mountain: Sketches

A Map of the Mountain: Sketches

On the table in the light of a big lamp witha red shade he spread a piece of parchment rather like a map.
"This was made by Thror, your grandfather, Thorin," he said in answer to the dwarves' excited questions. "It is a plan of the mountain."

The Hobbit: A Map of the Mountain

The First piece I am going to work on for this project is the scene where Gandalf lays out the map of the Lonely Mountain before Bilbo and the dwarves. This has always been one of my favorite scenes because every good adventure needs a planning stage where the team gathers conspiratorially around maps and charts and blueprints and hatches the plan.  And taking a mountain fortress full of gold from a fire-breathing dragon and hordes of wolf-riding goblins deserves of a bit of careful planning and thoughtful discussion. 

"Where are you going?" said Thorin in a tone that semed to show that he guessed both halves of the hobbit's mind.
"How about a little light?" said Bilbo apologetically.
"We like the dark," said all the dwarves, " Dark for dark busines!"

The Hobbit

I read The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings trilogy when I was in high school, a few years before Peter Jackson and New Line Cinema put together the films. Like many people, when I read J.R.R. Tolkien's series I had all kinds of visual ideas in my own mind of what the characters, monsters and places looked like. I remember having very clear notions of Shelob as a trap-door spider, that Isengard was more geometric and turned into a diamond at its top, that Sauron was seen as smoke and eyes and the illusion of oil-slick armor, that the orcs were meatier and more ape-like, with much longer arms, and knuckles that dragged the ground. The Balrog was only ever seen by the cracks in his flesh and his eyes and jaws. His skin would never really be seen for the smoke coming off it. The cracks in his skin would be like those in a lava flows seen at night, where some of it has cooled at the surface, but underneath it is still burning. And a  few hundred other odd, now-forgotten notions of Middle Earth. 
I had not seen, at this point, any of Alan Lee, Ted Nasmith's or John Howe's fantastic paintings, of which the film's art direction was to be largely based on. I had a lot of very crystalized ideas in my head about how everything looked.
And when the films were released I was jarred my first time seeing them. Things didn't look like they had in my head. At first it bothered me. They got it all wrong I thought. But as the Fellowship of the Ring began to make its way towards Rivendell I was surprised that I found that I really enjoyed it anyway. It was a different take than I had, but it was spectacular and I went back and watched them several times each in the theater.

Then something terrible happened. 

I found that I had lost my ideas. At first, they were only tainted by the films, but after a while I found that I had lost them altogether. And no matter how much I tried to see things differently, I still saw it the way Peter Jackson showed it. The Boromir I had imaged was gone and Sean Bean's character remained. The goblins were hunched and crooked green men without noses.

This has bothered me ever since, and now that The Hobbit films are on the schedule to be released next year I find that my ideas on The Hobbit are to be put in jeopardy as well.  

So, this time I have decided to put my own ideas down first, before Jackson and Del Toro and Weta and Howe and Lee can come together to blow my mind apart again with what is sure to be an awesome Hobbit film. This time, I hope to preserve my own notions of what Middle Earth might have looked like. 

So, with that in mind, I am going to take a few months and illustrate a few of the major scenes from The Hobbit. These pieces are not for any specific book or series, as I don't have the personal rights to make a book on the story. But I do intend on putting one of them in the empty space over my fireplace. And even if these images never make it to any type of publication, this story is wonderful and I think it will be great fun to work on it for a while.

ACM #2 Final Framed Piece

ACM #2 Final Render

ACM #2 Digital Process