Gandalf the Gray

For the past few days I've been listening to the Lord of The Rings audio books while drawing. It didn't take long for me to start sketching some of the characters in my sketchbook. Gandalf was the first to be drawn followed by other wizards of Middle Earth. Which is going to be a small series of Gandalf, Radagast, and Saruman. Each one will be drawn on a different color of toned paper to make the color that is associated with the color of each wizard. I may even draw each dwarf from the Hobbit, but that's in the future. 

The Hobbit

Tonight I am going to see 'The Hobbit' at midnight. Its a good way of ending the semester since I have been working on 5 illustrations as an independent study. I currently have 3 paintings done, and 2 left to finish. I have really enjoyed illustrating the text and already have plans on continuing some pieces that didn't move past the sketches. Scenes I am looking forward to illustrating are: when Gandalf meets Bilbo outside his hobbit hole, the trolls, and the goblins. I also want to illustrate the scene where Bilbo steals gold from Smaug. But those are ideas for larger illustrations, I also have a list of smaller illustrations I want to complete like Bard, single paintings of the dwarves, and an impossibly long illustration of the whole party crossing the misty mountains.

There is enough work to keep me satisfied in the mean time since I have an ever growing list of non-Tolkien inspired pieces to accomplish as well. Starting in January I will be doing process posts for the creation of 'the Hobbit' illustrations. They will go through each stage of the creative process; sketches, comps, pencils, inks, and painting. 

The drawing above was drawn while waiting for paint to dry, its based off a little drawing in my sketchbook.