Hobbit Day 2015

We all went camping, and one night before bed my wife checked her phone to see what the weather would be like the next day. When she woke up, she couldn't find the phone. She was looking around the sleeping bag saying, 'Where is it? Where IS it?" so insistently that I imagined her following with, "Nasty theiving Hobbitses!"

So I drew the first draft of this cartoon in my sketchbook sitting around the campfire that morning.

It probably helped that the kids watched The Fellowship of the Ring in the car on the way to the campsite!

Happy Hobbit Day everyone!

Map of Midgard

Another illustration for The Making of Middle Earth - a map of the world as the Vikings saw it. The author wanted to show where Tolkien got the concept of "Middle Earth" as the name for the world.

This started out as just a sketch, that I kept building on until this point, and it ended up getting used in the book!

Coincidentally, there's been a lot of Norse mythology around the house lately - the kids saw the movie Thor and wanted to know more about him. I had to explain that this is based on a comic book and not actual mythology, so then they wanted to know the real stories. So for their bedtime stories I've told them about Tyr (or Tiu, that Tuesday is named after), and now we're in the middle of how Thor got his hammer from the dwarfs. The Midgard Serpent shows up in the Tyr story - now that I think about it, I should show them this map too, it might help them get it!

Meadhall

A reconstruction drawing for the book The Making of Middle Earth, about the sources Tolkien used to create The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.

This is a cutaway section of a meadhall, where feasting and drinking would take place, all with a big fire pit raging in the center of the floor. With wooden walls. And a thatched roof. You know, when I put it that way, that may be the reason why people need to draw what they used to look like, instead of taking a picture of any existing ones.

The Battle of the Five Armies - take 2

Here's another version of this one - some comments from people were that it was too bright and cheery for an epic battle. So I grimmed it up a bit, and added some details to the main figures' shield and axe.

As you can see, I've got all The Hobbit trailers on my mind, I keep going back to this book! Can't wait for December.

The Battle of the Five Armies

The Problem with U: 3 versions

Above is version 1 – what I had in mind when I designed the piece. Version 2 would be with more dimension and color (more on this in a bit). And then there's version 3:

Which throws off the first two versions entirely.

I'll go into the top one first. I'd pictured it as a stark image, running up cavern stairs. It's flat, because I'm aiming more for a mood than a representation – I'd even considered doing it just as a pure silhouette in just black or purple. So since it's what I had in mind, I could just leave it as is and call it finished.

However, I did show it to a friend, who said that the stairs could pop out from the background more, I could add more color to the figures, and so on. All valid critiques, I'll be the first to say, if I'm trying to represent it dimensionally.

Now on to version 3. While I was debating all this, I realized that the figures aren't necessarily supposed to be suspended in space, on a narrow stairway. It almost looks a little like the Bridge of Khazad-Dum from Tolkien. So I thought about how it would look if they are going up a labyrinth of stairs, and came up with drawing 2.

In some ways I like it better, especially with the other wanderers climbing the stairway along with them. It would mean starting again, of course, but it's worth it if it makes a better illustration. I'll have to figure out which direction to go here, but if anyone wants to chime in, I'd welcome people's opinions!