The Hobbit endless book project: Weeks 12-17
It's been a while since I posted about my "endless" Hobbit illustration, but I have not been idle. Although I did stall a little, I made it an effort to draw every week and now I got to page 17 - and to the beginning of "Over Hill and Under Hill."
Scroll through the book:
The "Endless book project" is created by Natalie Ratkovski conjure. Follow the project on Flickr | LiveJournal | or view the project's website (Russian)
Page 12 - finally, we see a close up of Bilbo. He just found a knife that will soon be named Sting. And page 13 - the jolly fair folk laughing at the company:
Pages 14-15 - a Short Rest:
There is not much said about the company's time in Rivendell, but I wanted to stay there a little longer. So this spread became a very complicated 3D fold out, with cut-out doors and windows:
Below is an animated gif of the foldout - please give it some time to load :)
About a year and a half ago Dasha and I went to Iowa to see Alphonse Mucha's exhibition. There, for the first time, I saw his works on art nouveau design:
I thought then, that art nouveau would be perfect for elven architecture, as it is inspired by nature and if very graceful and flowing - just like I imagine elven design. So, when I started drawing Rivendell, I got myself a copy of Mucha's "Documents Decorafifs" and tried to draw art-nouveau-inspired interiors. I think I'm very happy with the outcome.
Pages 16-17. Here we see the dwarves and the hobbit climb the mountains and enter the goblin cave (although they don't know about the goblins at the moment :) However, the most challenging element for me here were the stone giants. I know Tolkien only describes them in a sentence or two and they don't appear anywhere else, but Gandalf speaks about them as of real danger, so I saw them as real creatures - one of many wonderful races inhabiting Middle-earth. Although they are usually depicted as made of stone, I wanted to show them more like forces of nature - primeval, ancient: someone who's been part of the land since the times before elves…
Their appearance was inspired by estonian animated short "Suur Tõll (Töll the Great)". (Be careful if you decide to watch it - it is really creepy! :))
Scroll through the book:
The "Endless book project" is created by Natalie Ratkovski conjure. Follow the project on Flickr | LiveJournal | or view the project's website (Russian)
Page 12 - finally, we see a close up of Bilbo. He just found a knife that will soon be named Sting. And page 13 - the jolly fair folk laughing at the company:
Pages 14-15 - a Short Rest:
There is not much said about the company's time in Rivendell, but I wanted to stay there a little longer. So this spread became a very complicated 3D fold out, with cut-out doors and windows:
Below is an animated gif of the foldout - please give it some time to load :)
About a year and a half ago Dasha and I went to Iowa to see Alphonse Mucha's exhibition. There, for the first time, I saw his works on art nouveau design:
I thought then, that art nouveau would be perfect for elven architecture, as it is inspired by nature and if very graceful and flowing - just like I imagine elven design. So, when I started drawing Rivendell, I got myself a copy of Mucha's "Documents Decorafifs" and tried to draw art-nouveau-inspired interiors. I think I'm very happy with the outcome.
Pages 16-17. Here we see the dwarves and the hobbit climb the mountains and enter the goblin cave (although they don't know about the goblins at the moment :) However, the most challenging element for me here were the stone giants. I know Tolkien only describes them in a sentence or two and they don't appear anywhere else, but Gandalf speaks about them as of real danger, so I saw them as real creatures - one of many wonderful races inhabiting Middle-earth. Although they are usually depicted as made of stone, I wanted to show them more like forces of nature - primeval, ancient: someone who's been part of the land since the times before elves…
Their appearance was inspired by estonian animated short "Suur Tõll (Töll the Great)". (Be careful if you decide to watch it - it is really creepy! :))