Sat down to sketch a quick pub sign and for some reason ended up with this. Gandalf found Valinor a bit on the quiet side for his liking, and so he decided to open an inn. Planning permission was a little difficult to come by and in the end he had to put the inn down the end of a lane in a remote corner. The only pubs Gandalf could remember were the Prancing Pony of Bree and of course the Green Dragon which he was banned from for reasons…
Read MoreTag: Tolkien
Mr Hobbit
I was playing around with digital pen and ink (on Painter 12) and started a sketch of J. R. R. Tolkien, it quickly developed into a tinted version with some text 😉 I think I may enjoy playing with digital ink & paints 🙂
Read MoreAn unexpected review
I’ll be honest, just over six years ago when Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh posted the letter online that their services would not be required by New Line I never really imagined that a film would be made in the end. It appeared at the time we’d see nothing but legal arguments and inter-studio-squabbling. It’s 2219 days since that letter appeared online, and during that time there have been strikes, director changes, and of course the two films becames three, in three dimension, with extra frames per second…. Yes, we’re…
Read MoreSo that’s how it should look
Many moons ago (okay, three decades maybe) I remember sitting at my desk trying to recreate Thror’s* Map, several hours later I’d created a crumpled piece of paper covered in ink which looked, if you squinted quite a bit something like a map. It was quickly filed in the relevant section of the waste paper basket. A few years later and I was at a different desk but my task was the same, to recreate the map so that it looked just as I imagined it to be when reading…
Read MoreApologia
I must start this post with a heartfelt and sincere apology. To all those who find the lighter side of fantasy art offensive you maybe should stop reading now, and to those who think you should never be over influenced by another illustration then you’re really not going to like this 😉 Okay, the explanation…. I was trying to come up with an idea for animals in armour as this is the theme over on John Howe’s website. So I sketched a few chickens in armour, and tried to think…
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