The Grey Pilgrim: Gandalf's Origins

Gandalf! If you had heard only a quarter of what I have heard about him, and I have only heard very little of all there is to hear, you would be prepared for any sort of remarkable tale. Tales and adventures sprouted up all over the place where he went, in the most extraordinary fashion.

––The Hobbit; Ch. 1: An Unexpected Party

It's impossible to imagine a Middle-Earth without Gandalf. Who would have booted Bilbo out his front door? Or rescued the Thorin & Co. from the clutches of the goblins? More importantly, who would have realized that Bilbo's small ring was actually the One Ring and had the foresight to start one small hobbit on a quest that would eventually lead to the destruction of the Dark Lord? The truth is, Middle-Earth would have been a very dark place without the Grey Pilgrim, yet few people––even among those who'd known the wizard longest––knew the full history of Sauron's greatest foe.

Fridays at the Mathom-House: Anke Eissmann

The Mathom-house it was called; for anything that Hobbits had no immediate use for, but were unwilling to throw away, they called a ‘mathom’.

–The Fellowship of the Ring; Prologue 

Seven days done and now it's time for a batch of amazing Tolkien art. Yes, good reader, it's that time again: Fridays at the Mathom-house. This week we'll be showcasing the art of Anke Eissmann, who's website has an awesome section dedicated to her Tolkien art. Anke's art caught my eye because of her use of traditional mediums like watercolor and pen-and-ink, instead of the digital art you see everywhere nowadays. In fact, her watercolor paintings remind a lot of Tolkien's own watercolors. So, limber up your scroller-finger and sit back to enjoy some great Hobbit art:

Durin's Day

March comes in like a . . .

Production video straight from New Zealand!

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, February 2012

Right-ee-o! February was kind of a slow month as far as announcements about progress on the movie . . . but the one announcement we did get was an exciting one.

Check out the updated list of movie progress after the break!

History of the Dwarves: Update

So, thanks to my tech-savvy wife, I've fixed the issue with the dwarf infographic. You can now access it by clicking on the image below, which has a link to the full-resolution image. Enjoy!

A bit of dwarf-ishness: Bilbo's Contract

So, I'm  a little late getting this posted (it's been up on theonering.net for a while now) but it's pretty cool, so I thought I'd better put it up anyways.

Using some high-res images of Bilbo holding the contract from Thorin & Co, DarkJackal managed to decipher some of the test of the contract. You can read more about the process over on his blog, Heirs of Durin. And even if you don't want to read the whole process, you should head over anyway 'cause there's some cool content over there.

To keep this post shorter, I'll just put down the finished "translation" that DarkJackal came up with. Note that he's divided the contract up into lettered sections that correspond to the pictures you can see to the right.

Fridays at the Mathom-House: Justin Gerard

The Mathom-house it was called; for anything that Hobbits had no immediate use for, but were unwilling to throw away, they called a ‘mathom’.

–The Fellowship of the Ring; Prologue 

After too long a break, it's Mathom-time again! Friday is here, freedom is near . . . and I've stumbled upon what might just be my favorite Tolkien artist of all time. Here for your enjoyment is the fantastic work of Justin Gerard. He maintains several great websites, all of which can be found through the previous link; but, his blog is a particular treat, since the artist goes into detail explaining the process behind his artwork. Enjoy:

A History of the Dwarves (in color!)

So, a big apology for being so derelict in my blogging. School finally caught up with me and started kicking me in the butt, so I've been focusing on that for the past few weeks. Luckily, my responsible side took over during a time when not too much was going on on the Hobbit Movie front . . . now, I know some people who are more interested in casting and actors might disagree, but as I have next to no interest in that aspect of the movies, I don't feel too bad.

Anyways, even though I haven't been posting, I have been busy working on a little something . . . a map! I've always loved maps, and I am also a huge fan of infographics, so I thought I'd try my hand at combining the two.

So, here for your enjoyment is an infographic detailing the history and travels of the dwarves from the beginning of the First Age down to Mr. Baggin's adventures with Thorin & Co. I'm pleased with how the map turned out, but keep in mind this is my first shot at this sort of thing . . . hopefully I'll improve as time goes on.

The image below is just a crop from the whole map, which can be found and downloaded by clicking on the image:

P.S. The map is pretty detailed, so you'll have to zoom in and scroll around to get the full effect.

Later!

Fridays at the Mathom-House: The Grey Pilgrim

The Mathom-house it was called; for anything that Hobbits had no immediate use for, but were unwilling to throw away, they called a ‘mathom’.

–The Fellowship of the Ring; Prologue 

The week was long, work was . . . longer, but no matter, cause Friday is here and with it comes a boat-load of awesome LOTR and Hobbit artwork. So sit back, get your scrolly-finger ready and prepare to be amazed. This week, instead of focusing on a single artist, I thought we'd take a look at several different artists who've done some great renditions of everybody's favorite wizard . . . Gandalf the Grey.

First up, we've got what might be my favorite version of Gandalf I've ever seen, by Lucas Graciano. Like the artist featured last week, this piece was done for the Lord of the Rings card game. I like this version of Gandalf so much cause it seems to show how the wizard can be gruff and contemplative at the same time. Lucas is an amazing illustrator and you can see more of his stuff at his website.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, January 2012

This post marks the start of a new series: at the end of each month (I know, I'm three days late) I'll try and scour the internet and make an up-to-date list of the progress that has been made on the Hobbit movie during the previous month. Since this is the first of these posts, I'll make it a longer list and just include all the film-related events that have occurred so far. Just a note to everyone before they read . . . I'm a Tolkien geek, not a film geek, so the things I list will be mainly concerned with how fast is this movie getting made, not with where so-and-so was spotted last weekend. Sorry if thats disappointing.

*Due credit goes to Of Thorin Oakenshield and The Hobbit - a perspective from across the Tasman, which provided most of the info I needed to get this list started.

Find this awesome list after the break!