One Sketch To Bind Them

The Lord of the Rings Trilogy by J. R. R. Tolkien, aka "The Fantasy Funkmaster"

Don't mind that faux-title I gave Tolkien. But if you're a fan of epic fantasy (which I am, of course), then you pretty much owe your entire fandom to him.

I've put off doing LOTR booksketches for a while. I thought that the movies did an excellent, EXCELLENT job of portraying the novels. And yet I couldn't go through my life without putting some of the characters down on paper.

Do you know why the brave dwarf Gimli was picked to be illustrated first? He's not my favorite character. I even liked Boromir better! In fact, I was a staunch Legolas supporter throughout their competition. I still can't believe Legolas didn't win. HE HAD ARROWS, for crying out loud.

But I digress. Wait, one more thing. Legolas had arrows. Ok. You don't want to hear me complain about the small stuff. That is not a shot at Gimli's height, by the way.

Speaking of dwarven characteristics: There are only so many ways to imagine a dwarf. I mean, sorry little guys, but you've been stereotyped. Big bushy beards, stocky/muscular, wield axes. You guys like pounding stuff. You like blacksmithing. You live in mountains and are very tempermental. Don't like elves. I think that every fantasy book out there has some sort of prejudice between elves and dwarves. What's up with that?

Alright, so why did I draw Gimli first? Because he's one of the most fun to illustrate. Look at all that stuff! And it's pretty fun to render crazy facial hair. You should try it.

Side note: I have this LOTR riddle book. The first question asked me to translate a sentence from Elven to English. I don't even think they had a codec. What the heck??? That crushed my soul.

About the illustration:
Gimli was drawn with Prismacolor pens and colored in Photoshop. I used a sweet rock texture as well. Textures are so helpful. For a great texture resource, check out www.cgtextures.com. I really like how it came out, and I'm excited to take on some of the other characters!