Emily's LotR Blog

been trying to draw this nerd for years, finally managed to do something passable

hair that's on fire, man fire in general ughhhh

he's missing the shadow mostly because i would not be able to draw it, but also because it kinda runs counterproductively to me trying to show what he looks like just turn your screen brightness wayyy down if you want to know what he'd look like with it

The WK's helmet/crown is sort of based off Tolkien's sketch of the crown of Gondor and some designs I drew up for some regular Gondorian helms He's dressed in a full-body outfit that's held to his body by leather straps, it's hard to make well-fitting clothes for him since his measurements are a biiiiit tricky to take Neither of his hands are good, his left especially (which is why it's subtly cropped out of frame), otherwise there's nothing here that I think is tooo clumsy Designwise there's not much I'd change, I'd just remove the spike from his helmet (I remembered immediately after I drew it that he wears his hood over it), add some more weapons and stuff to his belt, and decorate his armour a bit (i have a different design for him as the ruler of angmar that's much fancier and i reeeeeally wanna draw that again now, so stay tuned for that)

Durin's crown is based on the design on the West-gate of Moria, just fancied up a bit His shield is based on one from Tolkien's drawing of Smaug, but he really deserves a prettier one :P I thought a hammer would be a cool, it's ceremonial and made of gold, silver, and pearl I think his design and the drawing holds up basically to how I'd do it today, though the mail's a little too dark (oh and I wouldn't give him the chausses, since I mostly tie those to Dáin and the dwarves of the Iron Hills)

The Uruk is still really really good from every aspect to me The feathers in his helmet mark him as a captain, worn in a plume like Men wear them, and they're eagle feathers that he bullied out of some mountain Orcs for some extra flair The cape is just for decoration, unlike in Mordor where it denotes status Same goes for the fur over his shoulders He could use a shield and some other equipment I guess, but otherwise there's not really anything I'd change about him!!

So I think everyone basically knows what Trolls are supposed to look like, I just have a couple specific features I imagine them with ^^ They start out with smooth, green scales all over their body that grow and roughen as they age until they're more like the scales on a crocodile's back They also slowly start to turn greyer and stonier as they're exposed to light over time (only direct light from the sun actually turns them into stone though) Their heads are covered in sparse, moss-like hair on their scalps and sometimes their chins, it usually doesn't grow very long Their eyes are just black, though they reflect light a bit in the darkness (like cats), and glow red when they're angry (stole this from the Drúedain, use it for a lot of my evil designs) The Hobbit's pretty clear that they wear proper clothes instead of just, like, loincloths or something like that, so that's how I imagine them They usually find a small group of Orcs they can bully into fashioning clothes for them, which tend to be made quickly and crudely, and they don't care to change into a new set until they've worn them completely to shreds The Hobbit also mentions they wear "stony boots" but. I don't know what that is, so What I give them is just simple leather thingies tied tightly around their legs (has to keep from slipping off since they don't have toes)

This was very very recent and it's probably the best LotR thing I've drawn so far

So I think it goes without saying that my idea of Balrogs is very different from the usual hahaha I see them as very very human, the only key physical differences being their grey skin, their burning yellow eyes, and their size (Gothmog's the largest, probably around 8 feet tall) Obviously he'd normally be shrouded in darkness and be covered in flames, but. I'm not that good at drawing so :\ They wear armour because, yknow, why wouldn't they I don't usually go super elaborate with armour designs because. I'm not that creative and it's hard haha. But I also just think of evil stuff being more "boring." Like, they're singlemindedly focused on conquest and destruction, so they focus on efficiency over looking nice. And the Balrogs are sort of the epitome of mindless slaughter and destruction, so I think of them as dressing for pure function over looks I've never drawn any of the other Balrogs, but they'd have their hair free (and of course they'd have different faces like people do) Otherwise they're not super distinguishable from one another