Hobbit Art

The reason why Gandalf left the ring with Bilbo and then Frodo for so many years is because he wasn't really sure what it was. Yet, when Bilbo acted weird, he became suspicious, so he ended up travelling all the way to Minas Tirith to read about rings.

This is the place where Isildur ruled at one point, so it makes sense that knowledge of the ring resided there.

Note that it's roughly 1000 miles from Minas Tirith to the Shire, so that's a heck of a trip to visit the library!

Found this here, but am not sure who the author is.

This is my second favorite image of Éowyn's fight against the Witch King. (I just made another post with my favorite.) Again, her pose is full of action, although I'm not sure if the scared guy on the left is supposed to be her father or Merry. He's under the horse, so that implies it's Théoden, but he seems small, so I'd guess Merry. But, given the crazy perspective on the fell beast's head, it may just be that the horse is a little further away.

The head of the fell beast though is what this image is all about. Be afraid! At least until the head is lopped off in the next few seconds.

This one is by Piya Wannachaiwong.

Bard should really get moving. I suppose technically this image is more accurate to the book since I think the killing arrow came from a hand held bow in the book.

However, that's clearly the Bard from the movies, so he needs to get up that tower to that big ballista he used.

This image is everywhere. I can't figure out where it originally came from.

I looked through a bunch of depictions of Éowyn and the Witch King and I think this is the best. It has all the pieces on display. You can see King Théoden under his horse in the front. Minas Tirith and the rest of the battle happening in the background, and Merry is there ready to wound the Witch King so Éowyn can finish him off.

I love Éowyn's pose and the imposing size difference between the fell beast and Witch King and Éowyn .

The Witch King really should have been more fearful. Middle Earth is full of not-men (women, elves, orcs, dwarves, hobbits, Istari, giants, trolls, nameless creatures, even the fell beast itself).

This was created by Craig J. Spearing.

The scene of Gandalf's first death. I think this painting is pretty epic. Was the lightning sword thing in the books?

I'm fine with the wings. It requires a lot of digging to come to the conclusion that balrogs probably don't have wings unless the argument that it fell is sufficient (it is for some). Nothing wrong with artistic license anyway. Can't argue that they don't look cool.

Personally, the way that a flying Nazgul reminded Gimli (I think) of the Balrog kind of muddies the waters a lot though. And the reference elsewhere about the Balrog flying from someplace was also confusing, although Gandalf tells the fellowship to fly as well, so that's just a turn of phrase.

Really, it's hard for it to be more confusing. Anyway, this one was by Matt Ferguson.

Sometimes you just want a picture of a fantastic fellow doing a bit of gardening.

This is done by Brittany Reinstadtler.

https://www.inprnt.com/gallery/3rgoproxy/gandalf-vs-the-balrog-of-morgoth/

Gallery: inprnt, artstation

This is an oil painting on wood of Eowyn and Aragorn. The likenesses here are uncanny. I can only aspire to one day be able to do something approaching this sort of accurate portrayal of reality. I mean, just look at how accurate the faces are.

It's labelled as oil painting on wood (+ acrylic and watercolor) which is a bit confusing. Did they actually use oil, acrylic, and watercolor all in the same painting? Or is that just search optimization? Either way, it's really good.

This is by LizDouceFolie on deviant art.

This is a 3D rendered scene of Aragorn at the Black Gates where he's making a final stand to hopefully distract Sauron from Frodo's doings.

This image really has everything. You see the eye of Sauron blazing in the background (yes, that's only from the movie, but it does look cool, and it's in the spirit of the books if not exactly literally in the sense that Sauron truly is watching over everything), you see Mt. Doom in the process of erupting, you have Aragorn out front leading the charge against the host of orcs at the gate.

The crazy thing about the battle is how well-timed Aragorn's stand is. It causes the forces of Sauron to evacuate Mordor right at the moment when Frodo and Sam need that to happen so they can cross the open area of Mordor to get to Mt. Doom.

It was made by Etherium-Apex and was made over the course of 3 years.

The entire Hobbit as a single image montage using that stained glass style which I'm really liking. Is there a better word than montage for this? I thought maybe triptych, but I looked that up and found that was just for images laid out in 3 parts.

Found this one by breath-art on deviant art.

Found this on deviantart.

For a dragon, The Hobbit is a bit like Old Yeller.

Sadly, I couldn't figure out the artist for this one.

But, I feel like there's a lot going on here. It's a close up of the horse with the 4 black riders entering the Prancing Pony in the background. It really feels like the horse is angry and moving around. There's a sense of evil to the whole thing.

I can see Frodo dancing on the table back there. Maybe Strider is sitting at the table in the back left? That's probably correct since you can also see the same guy up top guarding the bed with 4 hobbits.

This appears to come from Jian Guo.

The faces on the tavern patrons are kind of creepy.

This one is by Timothy Ide.

The "dragon" is perched on some clouds rather than flying. And it looks more like a combination possum+lizard+bat. And the layers are a bit odd in that Bard seems to be in a 2D plane while Smaug is in 3D.

Nevertheless, after seeing these French versions of The Hobbit I kind of want to start collecting them. There's just such a variety of crazy insanity. I wasn't able to find a similar craziness in the LOTR covers for some reason.

Was Bilbo's home described as being under a single large tree? I can't recall that. Or, is this one of those artistic things that looks so good and just seems so right that every other artist takes it for granted and follows the pattern?

I needed a map of Middle Earth for my journey through middle earth video, but I wasn't satisfied with any of the maps I found. So, I found a high resolution map that was entirely black and white and then colored it all in and added the folded paper background.

Just look at all those rivers, the swamps, the trees, etc. It took a while, but I really love the way it turned out. It's my favorite Middle Earth map.

If anyone wants the full 32MB png file (which Lemmy didn't want to allow), let me know and I'll find a place to upload it to.

There's something poignant about the idea that from this point where he walks out that door, his entire life is turned on its head. All his comforts are gone for 13 months (April 27, 2941 to June 22, 2942, door to door). At this point, he has no idea about all the crazy things that are going to happen.

Fiction works often contain amazing feats of engineering, but how often do we meet the actual engineers? Like, in G.I.Joe, Destro is a totally evil guy, but he sure is an amazing engineer.

In the Discworld books, I always wished Terry Pratchett had made a book about Bloody Stupid Johnson. I want to meet the man behind the inventions!

On an unrelated note, these statues remind me of the giant creatures in the Shadow of the Collossus game. Particularly the last boss.

I started with tineye and eventually figured out where this was from. A print of this picture is available at the Courtney Meyers Art site for $85. I'm tempted, but I'm actually trying to learn to paint, so I'd kind of rather do the painting myself.

The woman in the picture is actually the artist. I initially assumed she was a model who helped sell the pictures, but she's on the About page of the site, so that's actually her, which I think is nice. Art isn't just pictures. It's an experience, so knowing the person who painted a thing kind of adds to the overall enjoyment of the art.

This is really nice though. The grass looks so detailed, with every blade individually drawn.

This one is by Andrew Read

I'm currently trying to learn to paint, but I'm still just following youtube tutorials for now. I've done 20 so far. I'd really like to level up and start painting Tolkien related stuff like this though. I love this picture.

I was trying to find as many book covers as possible for The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings books and OMG the French covers of The Hobbit are the most ridiculous.

I was tempted to mark this post NSFW.

I'm not affiliated with them at all but this appears to have come from morgenland-arts-crafts.

Sadly, I can't see anyplace on the site to get one anyway.

This is a pretty unique take on what Bilbo looks like... Is the thing on the right supposed to be a troll, an orc, or Beorne?