How to use this Page

I am just so impressed with everyone's work! Love love love your Frog and Jo's Otter!

Wonderful! LOVE Mr. Collins :)

Thanks for posting Tara,

Wish I could've come up to the event. It looked like a great opportunity to learn from Justin. Thank you for sharing some of your experience here, it's fascinating to watch a piece of work come together.

It's been fabulous getting to watch him work in person. I follow his blog, so I've seen lots of his WIP posts - but they pale in comparison! The internets are great, but are hard pressed to compare to in-person experiences.

Maybe you can come for another one? :-)

They all look wonderful! What fun. Attending workshop vicariously through this blog...allows me to "be there", sort of.

If I were an artist I'd totally do this. Even though I'm not an artist I WISH I could do this.

I love the Lord of the Rings. It's one of my all time favorites. I've read it so many times over the years. There's more than meets the eye there. I agree at times some of the description can be a bit over the top but the flow is wonderfully weaved together with each story within a story going on. So many of us are hobbits who like our little caves. A few of us whether from want or push, go on adventures. I'm going to have to get a set again.

Thanks Vickie! I tend to read it at this time of year for some reasone. It's a holiday book for me.

Such an awesome little sketch, man! I look forward to reading more of your experiences with the story along with seeing more sketches. Also, thanks for the mention :)

Thanks Eric! I always saw the Hobbits as slightly haunted looking for some reason. I think I perceived all of middle Earth as a bit of a gloomy place.
I'm a bit embarrassed at how much more refined your Gimli drawing is as compared to my doodle...

Heh... don't even compare them like that, your "doodles" have such character to them, I think the Hobbit and the LotR story would fit so good in your style. You have all those little swirls and awesome line work, it'd be perfect.

Peter Jackson's Middle Earth is a very successful translation...but is by no means definitive. I think the success of the films comes from recognizing the relationship between 'selling the concept' through realism and through that realism introducing the fantasy, which in many ways is important in film. The imagination, while reading the book, doesn't have to worry about the adaptation from one medium to another...and I think a gifted artist can maintain the whimsical and fantastical without worrying neccessarily about the literal realism of actors, budgets, and a mass audience. Fewer considerations and demographics to please make for a much purer and honest image.

Thanks Bruce! I didn't mean to imply I don't like the films! I love the films. In fact I feel the things that separates them make them both more enjoyable in their own right. I'm just expressing my shock at just how different they are. I do prefer the books. I like the tone, pace and narrative voice better. And I prefer the movie in my head more. That's the greatest flaw with the film.

I agree. There's a similar discussion going on on Tor, in a thread following Jo Walton's post on [i]The Nine Tailors[/i], concerning the various TV incarnations of Dorothy Sayers' Lord Peter Wimsey. Sometimes, as good as an adaptation is, the one in your head is the first adaptation you "saw" and thus will always be your favorite.

That having been said, thank you for having given me a sixth, wonderful way of seeing a hobbit. You make me want to go back to the text and reimagine your version in motion.