Images

japan-magpie:

makisaumon:

Smaug by Chad Gowey

I think this kind of half-beast, half-reptile Smaug is my favorite.  I LOVED the Rankin-bass version with its pelt, and the sinuous grace of this is awesome!

If you want to see the artist’s process from sketch to final pic, check out his progress entry here (clicky-clicky!)

misbehavingmaiar:

maire-annatari:

John Howe has sketched a portrait of Melkor.  Probably at that moment when the Balrogs heard his screaming and drove off Ungoliant.  

“…Ungoliant had grown great, and he less by the power that had gone out of him; and she rose against him, and her cloud closed about him, and she enmeshed him in a web of clinging thongs to strangle him. Then Morgoth sent forth a terrible cry that echoed in the mountains. Therefore that region was called Lammoth; for the echoes of his voice dwelt there ever after, so that any who cried aloud in that land awoke them, and all the waste between the hills and the sea was filled with a clamour as of voices in anguish. The cry of Morgoth in that hour was the greatest and most dreadful that was ever heard in the northern world; the mountains shook, and the earth trembled, and rocks were riven asunder. Deep in forgotten places that cry was heard. Far beneath the ruined halls of Angband, in vaults to which the Valar in the haste of their assault had not descended, Balrogs lurked still, awaiting ever the return of their Lord; and now swiftly they arose, and passing over Hithlum they came to Lammoth as a tempest of fire. With their whips of flame they smote asunder the webs of Ungoliant, and she quailed, and turned to flight, belching black vapours to cover her…”  (Silmarillion Chapter 9, Of the Flight of the Noldor and the Screaming Fits of Dark Lords.)

*________* I DID NOT KNOW THAT JOHN HOWE HAD DRAWN A MELKOR. ❤ ❤ ❤ Oh, my heart!  The writhing seas, the smoking, razor backed mountains, the shadowy dragons! And his hand! That expression!   And all in that misty silver graphite… *sigh* 

Some deep-seated part of me still recognizes Howe’s illustrations as somehow authoritatively “WHAT MIDDLE EARTH LOOKS LIKE”, and the rest of me just acknowledges that he is A Damn Fine Illustrator and his pencil work makes me want to turn in my sketchbooks and lie down for a long time. 

madeinrohan:

fallen crown.

misbehavingmaiar:

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