Thursday, June 25, 2009

Hobbit tribute : Gandalf (detail)


Here's a detail of Gandalf, in progress.

As a kid I saw the old animated Hobbit and liked a lot of it. I don't think I liked Bilbo's design quite as much, but I did really like Gandalf. I'm sure in the back of my mind that was the inspiration.

What I enjoyed about the animated version was how faithful they tried to be to Tolkien's original illustrations. That's something that I wanted to be mindful of as well -- Tolkien's own illustrations for the Hobbit are beautiful and I love his line work. His drawings and watercolors owe something to Kay Nielsen, an artist I have immense respect for and have learned a great deal from.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

That is a a great Gandalf. Has a really nice Rackham vibe to it that serves the design well.