Hello,

My name is Tiziano, I am one of the free-lance illustrators working with FFG, some of you may know me from the AGOT and CoC forums.

Over there I have the habit of posting my works for the community to see in big size as soon as my cards come out of non-disclosure, I'd like to keep the tradition over here too, and so, here is the art for my first Lord of the Rings LCG card to be released: Thorin Oakenshield.

Please click to enlarge.

Thorin at Bilbo's home. Very nice.

Thank you very much.

Amazing, look forward to seeing more.

Looks good. And it's nice that FFG will let you know when it's okay to post this sort of thing.

Frank6 said:

... and Gandalf (Wand-Elf) just outside, maybe following regulations about smoking (pipe) in interior spaces.

I wish I had a fraction of your artistic talent.

What size are these before they scale them to fit on a card?

echtalion said:

Aahh .... Cool. I didn't see that.

That looks fantastic! Glad to see the artists are doing Middle Earth justice!

Thank you, all. It's a real pleasure to be able to share my works with the community (more will come, either when they are spoiled or when the game will come out, I've 4 cards in the core set).

TheDukester said:

Indeed, that's one of the reasons i like working for them, they make my life easy with regard to NDA.

Gwanum said:

FFG requires them to be sent in at twice the printing size minimum, since I like to work big I paint them at 4134 px per side at 350 dpi and send them in at about 2200 px.

Rumb13stiltzkin said:

Thank you again, I must say that playing the demo I was stunned by the average level of the art, it's an honor to be in such company.

I'm really liking the satiny finish apparent on the cloak, skin, and leather. It feels like it's adding a subdued gloss to the image. Feels tangible and and soft, which is a neat take on a gruff dwarf. Digging it, man. Also, I like how you left the exterior uniformly washed out, but the colors and definition still exists. Way to direct focus!!

Simply wonderful,. Thanks

Wow, fantastic! Thanks for sharing.

Thanks for sharing; incredible work!!!

Just as good as your aGoT art!!!

Hi,

what media did you use to paint it?

PS I'm getting into drawing chibis (as an extra cultural dip for my Japanese studies).

Thank you so much to you all for your warm comments. Middle Earth is a daunting topic to work on for any illustrator (even though, at the same time, many of us hear its siren's call) because one ends in the same arena as some of the greatest masters in the genre.

In Thorin's style I can only bow and say 'at your service and your clan's'.

Echtalion, it is a digital piece, usually, once the sketch is defined and refined, I block in the colors (already with a base of mass and lightting) in Painter, and then go on with the refining in Photoshop. I find that the mimicking of traditional media of Painter (I usually go for artist's oils ) helps to avoid the plastic-like feeling that is the curse of not few digital works.

Oh good lord, that's GORGEOUS! The way you do skin tone and texture is AMAZING. LOVE that BLUE.

You did the "Drunken Hallucinations" for Call of Cthulhu, didn't you? That was equally awesome (and delightfully strange). Did you get to draw any Lord of the Rings creatures?

Yes, typic american work, i 'am sorry - it seems to be very far from Tolkiens world.

alex.nem. said:

I'm sorry - are you J.R.R. himself? If not, keep comments like that to yourself or preface it with stuff like "imo just doesn't seem like ..."

~

alex.nem. said:

I don't know what that means. Did you mean 1940's Britain? A collegiate setting? Should Thorin be wearing a tweed suit? Or do you mean to say that it is very far from Alan Lee and John Howe's idea of Tolkien's fictitious world?

alex.nem. said:

You might wanna watch what you say, thats almost discriminatory.

It's a great picture, better than some other artwork I have seen for LotR.

alex.nem. said:

Funny, since I'm Italian.

I'm curious though, what do you see as ' very far from Tolkien's work'? As an illustrator, Professor Tolkien works were rather stylized, my style is definitely more realistic, in that we are definitely 'far' from one another.

If you mean that that's not how you visualize that specific scene out of The Hobbit, well, you have every right, of course, every individual reader (and illustrator) 'sees' things differently when reading. But if in your opinion some things are off with regards to the text itself and Professor Tolkien's vision, well, I'd like to know what your objections are,and elaborate on my choices.

jgt7771 thank you! Yes, Drunken Hallucinations is one of mine, and yes, I did paint one of the enemies for Lord of the Rings. I'm not at liberty of being more precise, at the moment, due to the non-disclosure agreement I'm bound to.

And again thank you to all commenters, sorry for any belated answer, I had a pending deadline.

Happy Holidays!

TIZIANO: Can you share more of your art with us?

Happy holydays to you too!

And yes, now I can. :-)