As we move closer to the exhibit, we're able to get more and more sneak peeks from our talented artists! Here is the latest contribution from the talented Allen Douglas . Educated at Syracuse University, Allen has been freelancing for the last 18 years for editorial and book publishing clients ranging from Random House, Scholastic, to Wizards of the Coast and Realms of Fantasy.
This piece, entitled "Flies on Spiders" came from a very specific passage in The Hobbit story. Maybe some of you remember...
"Somehow the killing of the giant spider, all alone by himself in the dark without the help of the wizard or the dwarves or of anyone else, made a great difference to Mr. Baggins. He felt a different person, and much fiercer and bolder in spite of an empty stomach, as he wiped his sword on the grass and put it back into its sheath.
'I will give you a name,' he said to it, 'and I shall call you Sting.' " - J.R.R. Tolkien
Thank you Max Temescu for submitting this beautifully illustrated portrayal of the Witch King.
Here's what he had to say about his inspiration behind this piece:
1) How long have you been a LOTR or Hobbit fan?
I've been a fan for about 10 years. I think I first saw some sort of play about The Hobbit when I was about 9. If memory serves I hated it. But the book was required reading when I was 12, so I gave it another shot. It was much better than the play and I immediately read LOTR. The movies were coming out at the same time, so the movies did a lot to shape the way I read the second half of the books. I had never experienced anything like the books before; they were so thoroughly well built and engaged my imagination deeply. I usually like that.
2) What does your artwork depict?
The Witch King of Angmar
3) Why did you choose this particular character?
I wanted to make something that felt specific to LOTR. Dwarves and elves are great, but they feel more ubiquitous than Ents or Nazgul. Once I decided how I wanted to draw the piece, the Witch King fit well with the mood of what I wanted to make. The character is great because he's so mysterious and monolithic.
A delightfully insightful and unique interpretation of two key characters in Tolkien's universe, created by comic book artist João M. P. Lemos.
1) How long have you been a LOTR or Hobbit fan?
Since my pre-teens, when a few friends, who were hard-core Tolkien fans, introduced me to the books. I was already an avid reader of folklore and I loved to find how Tolkien echoed and reshaped a lot of mythological themes.
2) What does your artwork depict?
(For the first piece) I went for the Witch-King of Angmar, and some of the other Nâzgul in the background, all riding Fell Beasts in saddleless fashioned plunge.
(For the second piece) This is a take on Radagast, the Brown, one of the ecology-driven characters in Tolkien's work. He's one of the Five Wizards, like Gandalf or Saruman, but one first and foremost bound to the protection of the local fauna and flora. Radagast is described as being of shifting shapes and colors which, in my mind, makes him even more indistinguishable from and linked to the soil and the woods.
3) Why did you choose this particular character?
(First piece) For Tolkien it was paramount to keep a notion of free 'applicability' to the metaphorical potential of his creation. For example, while some people in the UK identified his work as a specific retelling of both World Wars, a lot of the American youth of the 60's embraced Middle-Earth as an ecological saga, and that's the personal way he wanted it to be read. For me, the Nâzgul, in particular, echoes the threat of any established, yet hollow, terror. They are not, by any means, among the strongest creatures of Tolkien's world but they conquer through their ability to create an overwhelming state of fear. The Witch-King strikes me as a rather abysmal illusion (including to himself) that the enlightened and fluid action of Eowin, loftier than the grip the Nazgûl held on men's hearts, is able to dispel.
(Second piece) Tolkien is famous for his exhaustive, bordering on real world encyclopedic, charming descriptions of his world but I keep in mind a wonderful passage where he mentions these distant, eldritch sounds coming from unknown patches of Middle-Earth. Regardless of how interesting a sort of reverential take on his most famous characters and places can be, it is always exciting to depict something that, by absence of locked references, frees you to depict it however you want to. Besides that, I like the potential of an earthier, simpler, almost primitive take on the wizard stereotype and archetype.
A first look at one of our "Out of the Shire" artist, Jeremy Wilson's, awesome contribution! This is still a rough sketch but the solemnness in this Rohan warrior's expression is flawlessly depicted. Can you imagine what he might be thinking about in these last few minutes before going to battle?
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