Visualizing LotR

[Anonymous No.10137406]

I'm almost finished with the Fellowship of the Ring and I realized, the movies (while I enjoy them) don't really do the best job at painting the imagery properly, but the problem is I'm having a hard time picturing what is going on in old school fantasy and lean more towards seeing it with the movies imagery due to seeing the movies first. Are there any good artists to look at to really get a good feel how middle-earth should look?

[Anonymous No.10137448]

Check Tolkien Gateway as opposed to the LOTRwiki. The former has tons of art from all different sources
http://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Thorin

[Anonymous No.10137478]

>>10137448
Awesome, thank you. That's definitely more of what I was looking for.

[Anonymous No.10137509]

Ted Nasmith

[Anonymous No.10138679]

>>10137509
Fuck me some of his stuff is awesome

[Anonymous No.10138747]

The most influential of the Middle-earth artists (not counting JRRT's own few illustrations) are Nasmith, John Howe and Alan Lee, the latter two of whom directly worked on the movies and the first of whom was a big influence on some scenes despite his lack of involvement. The other big name is the Brothers Hildebrandt, whose Tolkien-themed art I mostly dislike but who were pretty influential in shaping the perception of LotR back in their heyday (the 70s).

I'm just gonna dump some Tolkien art here for the next hour ish because hell, why not. Sorry if I fuck up any attributions.

"The Uruk-Hai", John Howe

[Anonymous No.10138751]

>>10137406
ALAN LEE

[Anonymous No.10138752]

"Faramir and Eowyn", Mike Kaluta

[Anonymous No.10138757]

might be concept art from the movies? no idea

[Anonymous No.10138768]

"The Company Approaches Caradhras", John Howe

[Anonymous No.10138776]

"The Balrog", Ted Nasmith

[Anonymous No.10138781]

"Barad-dur", Roger Garland

[Anonymous No.10138787]

"The Black Rider", John Howe

[Anonymous No.10138790]

"Gaffer and the Nazgul", Stephen Hickman

[Anonymous No.10138796]

"Bridge of Khazad-Dum", Roger Garland

[Anonymous No.10138798]

"Fingolfin's Challenge to Morgoth", John Howe

[Anonymous No.10138803]

"Cirith Ungol", Greg & Tim Hildebrandt

[Anonymous No.10138806]

"Earendil & Elwing", Roger Garland

[Anonymous No.10138814]

"Eowyn and the Witch-King of Angmar", Mike Kaluta

[Anonymous No.10138822]

"Eowyn", Erin Kelso

[Anonymous No.10138825]

"Eowyn Before the Gates of Meduseld", Mike Kaluta

[Anonymous No.10138835]

"Shelob About to Leap on Frodo", John Howe

[Anonymous No.10138839]

"Gandalf and Bilbo", Tim Kirk

[Anonymous No.10138842]

"Fire on Weathertop", Ted Nasmith

[Anonymous No.10138847]

"Hobbiton", Roger Garland

[Anonymous No.10138856]

"Battle of the Pelennor Fields", John Howe

Can't find this one without the stupid border, alas.

[Anonymous No.10138862]

"The Sea", Ted Nasmith

[Anonymous No.10138864]

"Gandalf Approaches the Guarded City", Ted Nasmith

[Anonymous No.10138867]

"At the Court of the Fountain", Ted Nasmith

[Anonymous No.10138873]

"War of the Ring", Judy King Rieniets

[Anonymous No.10138876]

"Zirakzigil", John Howe

[Anonymous No.10138879]

"The Road to Minas Tirith", Tim Kirk

[Anonymous No.10138886]

"The Nazgul", Lode Claes

[Anonymous No.10138889]

"At the Foot of Mount Doom", Ted Nasmith

[Anonymous No.10138893]

I read LotR last when I was a child, together with my dad

I'm in the mood again, which edition should I buy?
There was something about how you should buy one printed after some date or something, right?

>>10138814
The images are nice thank you for posting them

[Anonymous No.10138912]

some Alan Lee art from the one-volume LotR to wrap up, I gotta go to work. these don't have names afaik.

>>10138893
I'd recommend the hardback complete edition with the Alan Lee paintings if you can find it, it's a really nice book. Satisfying to hold. There are also cheaper, less weighty paperback versions with the same illustrations out there. Or the 50th anniversary edition is alright too.

[Anonymous No.10138920]

>>10138912

really though just about any version published since 1994 is fine, and since 2004 is pretty much great

[Anonymous No.10138922]

>>10138912
>>10138920
Thanks again Anon, I will look for it

[Anonymous No.10138925]

>>10137406
Gollum started off very hard to imagine for me. Over the years he became the most poignant character to me. Now I view the likes of Aragorn as deeply strange, he seems deeply unrealistic with his unfailing personal strength and rightness.

[Anonymous No.10138928]

>>10138922

no prob, glad you enjoyed the pics!

[Anonymous No.10138934]

>>10138796
T H I N
H
I
N

[Anonymous No.10138973]

>>10138925
Aragorn is indeed a really weird character. I think it gets harder to find him relatable as his character grows to a more superhuman stature throughout the story. When he starts out he is quite likable in that he is somewhat sarcastic, world-wise foil to the naïveté and relative incompetence of the hobbits, and he never totally loses that streak, but by the end he can match wills with an evil god and win, he is more like one of the mythic Fathers of Men of the Silmarillion than anyone you could sit down and smoke a pipe with. I think part of why it feels so strange is that the character's original role as the hobbits' Buddy from Bree on to Rivendell was not originally linked to the idea of the scion of Numenor, that all came later.

[Anonymous No.10138980]

>>10138973
Do you want to be fucked by Aragorn, anon?

[Anonymous No.10138989]

>>10138980
Aragorn is probably a really shitty lay

[Anonymous No.10138991]

>>10138973
>spends a week running non stop after Merry & Pippin then fights the battle of the Hornburg
>immediately challenges Sauron with the palantir after that
>doesn't sleep for a week as he rushes through the paths of the dead overmastering the horror of those under his command as he arrives on the Pelennor and rescues everyone
>repeatedly resists monstrous temptations of power
>makes the correct moral and strategical choices at every turn
Was he a Gary-sue?

[Anonymous No.10138996]

>>10138991
He's 87 and has never ever had sex

[Anonymous No.10139023]

You can also find images and pictures of Germanic mythology. Professor Tolkien's expertise was in that area, and he used or was at least inspired by their ideas and way of looking at the world. Pic related is of the Fenris wolf at Ragnarok, but it could easily be Carcharoch and Beren

[Anonymous No.10139059]

>>10137406
what? I thought the movies did an excellent job with bringing to life the world. What exactly were they missing?

[Anonymous No.10139076]

>>10139023
>Professor Tolkien

let's not

[Anonymous No.10139081]

If you don't mind how pretty everyone is, Jenny Dolfen has some very good works.

[Anonymous No.10139082]

>>10139059
It's not so much that they are missing anything as that their interpretation of the text is limited by the artists who mainly inspired their visual approach. To wit, John Howe, Alan Lee, and (in absentia) Ted Nasmith. Not even mentioning the many substantive changes to the plot, they choose to portray scenes and characters in their own way which is fine but can distort our own imaginings about the text.

[Anonymous No.10139092]

>>10139059
OP is not criticizing the movies, he is saying he does not like that having seen them they have taken over his imagination and he cannot picture LOTR without the movies imagery. He is robbed of the chance to create his own vision of Middle Earth.

>tfw

[Anonymous No.10139099]

>>10139092
Thank god they will never try to animate the Silmarillion. Maedhros, and Feanor, and Turin will always be true to what I knew them to be.

[Anonymous No.10139121]

>>10139099
>Thank god they will never try to animate the Silmarillion
They won't animate it. They'll just take bits from it and make a bastardized version of it that barely resembles the source material, and they will probably call it "The Lord of The Rings: The Silmarrilion" and half the main cast will be black.

[Anonymous No.10139157]

>>10139121
These sort of things are actual blessings in disguise. In the end I was deeply grateful for how bad the movie Troy was. It didn't affect my perception of The Iliad precisely because of how ludicrous Brad Pitt is as Achilles.

[Anonymous No.10139441]

[Anonymous No.10139497]

>>10139121
>main cast will be black.
I can see the problem with the other things, but there's nothing wrong with that...

[Anonymous No.10139509]

>>10139497

[Anonymous No.10139550]

>>10139509
Would you kindly explain why do you think it's a bait? Your post looks more trolling than mine.

[Donkey !HOTAY/zB0Y No.10139720]

>>10139550
Because casting a fictional work to fill a quota for IRL political dogma instead of ensuring the best cast to fit the work is obviously (hence the bait) going to produce bad art.

[Anonymous No.10139969]

>>10139720
This is not to fill a quota, you fucking moron, it's just to give more representation. I'm not even saying that "half of the main cast" should be black, just one or two character. What exactly would that interfere in the story? It would change literally nothing.

I'm totally against people who tries to shove blackness into every protagonist/antagonist/iconic character. But there's literally nothing wrong in having one or two black characters. It's hard to believe that anyone fighting against that is not a racist.

[Anonymous No.10139973]

>>10137406
I like anime

[Donkey !HOTAY/zB0Y No.10139982]

>>10139969
Yep, bait.

[Anonymous No.10140035]

>>10137406
Tolkien himself is the only and the best source there is. Subsequent artists are all too grand for their own good. Find the copy of The art of Tolkien somewhere and you're set to go.

[Anonymous No.10140044]

>>10140035
Some more shitty scans from the man himself.

[Anonymous No.10140051]

>>10137406
It's unfortunate you saw the movies first, but if you have difficulty imagining the descriptive style, how did you make it through over 1000 pages of Tolkien?

[Anonymous No.10140052]

>>10137406
>read the hobbit
>introduction or prologue or whatever the fuck clearly states that orcs and goblins are the same shit, and that goblins is the right term
>peter hackson's hobbit has orcs and goblins as separate creatures

[Anonymous No.10140055]

>>10140044

[Anonymous No.10140065]

>>10140055

[Anonymous No.10140069]

>>10140065

[Anonymous No.10140079]

>>10140069

[Anonymous No.10140090]

>>10139982
Except it's not...

[Anonymous No.10140092]

>>10140052
Hobbit films were huge dissapointment. In place of lighter, more magical story, you get darker and more chaotic piece.

[Anonymous No.10140095]

>>10140092

[Anonymous No.10140104]

>>10140095

[Anonymous No.10140117]

>>10140092
Also, Wyverin...

[Anonymous No.10140119]

>>10140092
The third film was pure trash. Tolkien would definitely puke if he saw that shit in the theater. Man, just remembering about all the shitty "MUH ACTION, MUH FIGHTS" they created out of nowhere to appeal to the teenage/manchild audience is terrible...

[Anonymous No.10140352]

>>10138814
>>10138822
>>10138825
Best girl

[Anonymous No.10140439]

>>10138847
giv new zeal and citizenship

[Anonymous No.10140525]

>>10140352
Indeed she is, my dear anon.

[Anonymous No.10140637]

>>10138790
That hobbit kinda looks like a dwarf

[Anonymous No.10140643]

>>10140637

Must be pure stylistic choice by the artist, since hobbits unequivocally have no beards.

[Anonymous No.10140652]

>>10138893
I read them without ilustrations and ejoyed the shit out of it. So i think it doesnt matter, just start from the hobbit.

[Anonymous No.10141077]

Melkor when he could tower over everything on the planet

[Anonymous No.10141229]

I tend to picture the setting as similar to a John Bauer painting.

[Anonymous No.10141239]

>>10141229
Kittelsen as well.

[Anonymous No.10141346]

I remember seeing LOTR illustrations by a Russian artist a long time ago, anyone know who this is? This thread reminded me.

[Anonymous No.10141913]

>>10141346
There was a Russian edition a number of years ago illustrated by Sergei Yukhimov in a style inspired by medieval art and icon painting. Very striking stuff.

[Anonymous No.10141919]

>>10141913

I will post a couple more since have found a good dump of them.

[Anonymous No.10141921]

>>10141919

First two should have been pretty obvious, this is Merry & Pippin & Grishnakh I assume

[Anonymous No.10141927]

>>10141921
Weathertop

[Anonymous No.10141929]

>>10141927
The scene in the barrow. I always think this is one of the most strikingly creepy and evocative scenes in the book, I've never understood why more artists haven't tackled it

[Anonymous No.10141933]

>>10141929
Farewell to Lorien

[Anonymous No.10141935]

>>10141933
Theoden et al arriving at Isengard

[Anonymous No.10141937]

>>10141935
Strider

[Anonymous No.10141939]

>>10141937
Parley at the Black Gate. I like the Mouth's uh, "horse"

[Anonymous No.10141940]

>>10137406
I've always been partial to the brothers Hildebrandt. Very golden age of illustration/old school /tg/ feel to it.

[Anonymous No.10141944]

>>10141939
The Morgul host

[Anonymous No.10141946]

>>10141944
council of Elrond

[Anonymous No.10141950]

>>10141946
Coronation of Elfstone

[Anonymous No.10141953]

>>10141950
shirriff fuckin shits!!

[Anonymous No.10141956]

>>10141953
THEODEN•REX•INTERFECTUS•EST

[Anonymous No.10141959]

>>10141956
Battle of the peak

[Anonymous No.10141963]

>>10141959
March of the (highly alarming) ents

[Anonymous No.10141967]

>>10141963
the way home

[Anonymous No.10141973]

>>10141967
dead marshes

[Anonymous No.10141975]

>>10141973
elves in the Woody End

[Anonymous No.10141979]

>>10139969
>This is not to fill a quota, you fucking moron, it's just to fill a quota
Even by /lit/ standards this is a low point in trolling.

[Anonymous No.10141980]

>>10141975
Henneth Annun

[Anonymous No.10141992]

>>10141980
Paths of the Dead, I think? Guy in the back looks like the Morgul-lord, but he is about to shank Gimli, so...

[Anonymous No.10141994]

>>10141992
Frodo's torment in Cirith Ungol

[Anonymous No.10141996]

>>10141994
Torech Ungol

[Anonymous No.10141998]

>>10141996

Eowyn & the Witch-king of Angmar

[Anonymous No.10142003]

These russian illustrations are great, thanks for posting them.

[Anonymous No.10142063]

>>10141998
Really enjoyed these

[Anonymous No.10142112]

Cheers for the dump man. Wish I could find better quality versions of these, has anyone else had more luck?

[Anonymous No.10142133]

>>10142112

Apparently you can pick up a used copy of the book on Amazon for like eighty bucks, maybe someone should buy it and scan

[Anonymous No.10142167]

>>10139092
That's his fault. I can still picture both movie and art pieces whenever I think back to them.

[Anonymous No.10142530]

So is there anything you would change about the story if you were in charge of adapting it?
The only thing I'd change is Gothmog would survive the fall into the fountain with Ecthelion and pursue the elves, and be the balrog Glorfindel fights.

[Anonymous No.10142571]

>>10142530

I'd finish the fucking Sil. The entire climax of the story is essentially unedited since like 1918! Tollers kept rehashing the start but never had time to go all the way through it. He started on a proper updated treatment of the Fall of Gondolin with the Tuor story from Unfinished Tales (which owns btw) but never got far. He never did an updated version of the Ruin of Doriath so the whole episode of the Nauglamir was kludged together by Chris Tolkien and Guy Kay to try and make it work disregarding the fact that in the intervening years since the story was written, Tolkien had decided that dwarves weren't innately evil. He straight up never even tried to rewrite the fucking Tale of Earendil which explains why there wasn't a giant primordial Spider of Night menacing the whole world forever, who the Sleeper in the Tower of Pearl was, or whether the problem with the Magic Sun ever got fixed. He never really did a modern retake on the War of Wrath and end of the First Age either, that's kludged together to so some random Maia who's Manwe's "herald" winds up doing everything when it was originally his fucking son and heir.

He also never found a really effective way of harmonizing the LotR portrayals of the senior Noldorin figures like Elrond, Galadriel, and Gil-galad with the first age myths. Witness all the wrangling over whose son Gil-galad was.

Instead he spent the last years of his life trying to rehash the entire mythos AGAIN to find a way in which the universe could be accurately portrayed as non-geocentric without ruining everything.

[Anonymous No.10142629]

>>10138814

This is top notch. Leonardo-like background blended with influence from those famous "Wagner's Ring" engravings

[Anonymous No.10142631]

>>10142629
Kaluta did a Tolkien calendar at some point, which I think that's from

[Anonymous No.10142900]

How do you guys visualize Melkor/Morgoth? When I think of Morgoth I actually picture the gargoyles from Minas Morgul. I don't think Morgoth would take on the form of a human/elf looking creature as he despises them. Instead he'd become something monstrous and powerful but over time as his powers withered so would his body, eventually ending up looking like this decrepit old balrog thing

[Anonymous No.10142909]

>>10142900
Melkor is an allegory to Lucifer, so I just think of the Devil really.

[Anonymous No.10142933]

>>10142900
Tolkien describes him as taking on a humanoid form, a giant and terrible king.

[Anonymous No.10142959]

>>10142933
Well it is humanoid. Just has a gnarly fucked up face.

[Anonymous No.10142976]

>>10142900
I don't think Morgoth is supposed to be so much ugly as awful, terrifying. Tolkien doesn't generally shy from a chance to describe the ugliness of evil things! But the way he describes Morgoth tends to highlight his darkness, his immensity, his dominating character, his moral ugliness rather than any physically repulsive characteristic -- even though it is right there in the text that his face was marred by Thorondor and his foot lanes by Fingolfin. I think of him as something like a gigantic man or elf (I imagine all the Ainur to take a shape like that, I don't like the bestial kind of image of Balrogs that seems to be common among fans), all pitch black, armored for battle, maybe literally a figure of black metal.

[Anonymous No.10142988]

>>10138835
Seems to me like the best way to capture the proportions of a hobbit would be to have children play them, and then use movie magic on the faces.

[Anonymous No.10143014]

>>10137406
Check out the 1978 LOTR animated film by Ralph Bakshi. A bit dated but gives a good feel for the books considering the technology of the time. He never made a part 3 though.

>>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AT18OJEPU9Q

[Anonymous No.10143073]

>>10141929
it's my favorite moment

[Anonymous No.10143115]

>>10139023
That is totally Insanity Wolf.

[Anonymous No.10143119]

>>10143115
KILL THE GODS
[fenris.jpg]
FEED THE WORLD TO A WORM

[Anonymous No.10143213]

>>10143073
>Cold be hand and heart and bone,
>and cold be sleep under stone:
>never more to wake on stony bed,
>never, till the Sun fails and the Moon is dead.
it was vivid and spooky

[Anonymous No.10143351]

>>10143213
So spooky that Hackson couldn't resist stealing it and jamming it into completely irrelevant context

[Anonymous No.10143484]

Amazing thread

[Anonymous No.10143563]

>>10139497

Because nobody in Beleriand was black. Not the Edain or the Elves. It would be a gross misunderstanding of Tolkien to make them black

[Anonymous No.10143715]

>>10139023
90% sure this picture is traced from a panel from Fables comic.

[Anonymous No.10143817]

>>10142900
Like Judge fear

[Anonymous No.10143835]

>>10138798
Fingolfin is the best character in the mythos.

[Anonymous No.10143931]

>>10143835
Fingolfin is that guy who spams chat with "1V1 ME BICTH" whenever his team loses

[Anonymous No.10143945]

Noldofinwë? More like half-Noldofinwë.

[Anonymous No.10143994]

>>10143835

Silmarils Ain't free. The trees of silver and gold gotta be litterd with the blood of Teleri. Aracáno aka "Fin Golfin" is not my hihg king. he is puppet of the gods and probably vanya as well :DD. ÞERINDË and Þilmarilli not Serindë and SILMARILS ok. curse morgoth.

[Anonymous No.10144007]

>>10143563
How do you know there wasn't a single black amonsgt them? Where is it specified that every single one of them were white?

What would change exactly in the story, the characters development, the plot-twist etc if one or two characters were black? I just don't understand...

[Anonymous No.10144025]

>>10143563
>taking the bait
moron

>>10143835
He's a usurper.