Weeks 6-7 of the Hobbit
The Endless Book project started by Natalie Ratkovski. Read about the project here and follow all artists here.
Almost done with the first chapter! Now I have figured out almost all of the dwarves - they all now have recognizable faces, dress and style. I'm only missing one (I think it is Nori... Or Oin...) Kili looks like Dostoyevsky :)
Left to right: Bombur, Bofur, Dori, Balin, Dwalin, Fili, Thorin and Kili.
I went back to the previous spread and removed Fili and Kili and replaced with Gloin balancing with Bilbo's plates:
You might have noticed that the dwarves clothes are strongly influenced by Russian and Ukrainian medieval costumes. There's a reason for that. I come from the Ural mountains in Russia, that are rich in gold and precious stones - a great place to build a dwarven kingdom! Therefore I wanted to bring some elements of Russian costume into the illustration.
I also had to do a lot of research on medieval musical instruments in the past two weeks. The fiddle, as we know it today, looked different in the Middle-ages. Here's an example of that fiddle - vielle:
The viols that Balin and Dwalin are playing are also inspired by medieval paintings. Here's a detail from the Isenheim altarpiece by Matthias Grünewald:
Almost done with the first chapter! Now I have figured out almost all of the dwarves - they all now have recognizable faces, dress and style. I'm only missing one (I think it is Nori... Or Oin...) Kili looks like Dostoyevsky :)
Left to right: Bombur, Bofur, Dori, Balin, Dwalin, Fili, Thorin and Kili.
I went back to the previous spread and removed Fili and Kili and replaced with Gloin balancing with Bilbo's plates:
You might have noticed that the dwarves clothes are strongly influenced by Russian and Ukrainian medieval costumes. There's a reason for that. I come from the Ural mountains in Russia, that are rich in gold and precious stones - a great place to build a dwarven kingdom! Therefore I wanted to bring some elements of Russian costume into the illustration.
I also had to do a lot of research on medieval musical instruments in the past two weeks. The fiddle, as we know it today, looked different in the Middle-ages. Here's an example of that fiddle - vielle:
The viols that Balin and Dwalin are playing are also inspired by medieval paintings. Here's a detail from the Isenheim altarpiece by Matthias Grünewald: