Hello,

Given the article posted yesterday, I'm now at liberty of showing my illustration for 'Gollum', possibly my most daunting assignement to date for The Lord of the Rings.

As usual click to see full-size, please.

At first I thought he looked a little too much like a "grey" (alien) but then I figured he probably would have that complexion from living underground for so many years. Great job!

Love the pose! It's really vulnerable, but still mischievous. Very well done!

Thank you so much to you both.

Amazing art, Tiziano, very well done, and I really like your portrayal of the character.

You mentioned that this was a "daunting assignment," which is definitely is. This sparks my curiosity, though; would you mind (if you are allowed) sharing a little about how the entire illustration process works? That is to say, do you get a list of different characters you are assigned to illustrate? Or, are you sometimes given a concept or phrase (like "sneak attack") to give your own artistic interpretation? I'd love to hear a little about the process of bringing these cards to life, and how you and the rest of FFG's artistic team goes about creating a distinct visual for each and every card the development team thinks up.

Cool, really fantastic some FFG guys share their stuff on the community forums.

Beautiful work, totally love it. It creat an absolutely great atmosphere for this game. Honestly, makes a difference

Lightdarker, Iver, thank you so much! I really hoped that my view of Gollum could 'click' with the players' and had the right athmosphere.

First, a disclaimer, I'm not technically a 'FFG guy', meaning I'm not an employee. I work as a freelancer and I am put under contract for specific projects, I've no special insight in the workings of FFG besides what I need to know to do the job I'm hired for (and most of what I do know comes with a non disclosure agreement anyway).

Lightdarker, it all starts with a call for art, saying that a new block of packs (or another new project) is in the works, giving the deadlines for sketches and finals and asking to let the AD know if one is available and for how many pieces.

After a few days, the assignements arrive: we are given all the technical specs the graphic department sets (final size of the illustration, color profile and so on) and a description of the piece. For instance, for a generic character it could be (made-up description): a ranger of the North is looking for tracks in a snowy forest, possibly with a reference to a passage in The Lord of the Rings mentioning attire and equipment. The brief is more precise when it involves specific high-profile characters like Thorin or Denethor, quoting longer passages or items or details that have to be included.

Beravor was a case apart since she is a 'made up' character who had already appeared in a different game and needed to be recognizable, so I was given reference from Middle Earth Quest for her.

The main point of every Lord of the Rings assignement is short and to the point: 'Stay away from the movies', I actually like it, it takes away even the shadow of the temptation to be lazy, and 'forces' one to be creative and go deep into the primary source material.

Please, feel free to ask any time you (or anyone else) have any question or curiosity, I'll be glad to answer if I can.

Tiziano said:

Awesome!

Tiziano said:

Good job on Gollum, but I even more like Denethor. He is one of my favourite hero card protraits. His portrayal is much better than the movie Denethor.

When you did the Gollum art, how difficult (or easy) was it to get rid of the movie gollum from your mind? After all he is one of the most iconic characters of the movie trilogy. I guess everyone who watched the movies and afterwards is assigned to draw a picture of Gollum not resembling his movie appeareance is somewhat spoiled (in a creative sense)...

LOVE your artwork, Tiziano! I love the more realistic artwork on a lot of these cards. The art direction for this game is really top notch.

And it doesn't matter if Beravor is made up! She's currently one of my favorite Heroes to use, mainly because of her beautiful picture. (Though the card drawing action is nice too!) Her picture is so genuine that she feels like she's always been a part of Middle Earth.

Great work! Keep it up!

Mattr0polis said:

Thank you! With every assignement I strive to do the best I can and to be as faithful to the spirit of the world as possible, such comments as yours and the other ones in this thread, the feedback and the appreciation of the community (as well as constructive criticism when you all feel it is needed) are a great encouragement to keep on this road.

Shelfwear said:

Thank you very much! To me Denethor is a fascinating, multi-faceted character, trying to portray him giving as many hints of his personality as possible was a very stimulating endeavor.

Honestly, Gollum was the assignement that frightned me the most.

For the other characters, I felt, the movie left more mind-space given how the actors were different from the descriptions in the books ( in the novel Gandalf is brown-eyed, both Boromir and Faramir have black hair, Eomer is younger than Theodred, Legolas may just as well be dark-haired as blond), so with any other main character I would have had the feeling that my personal view was both different and well-rooted in the primary source material, but Gollum in the movies...was really near to how I pictured him in my mind.

I tried to 'blank' him for a couple of days, avoiding to form 'mind sketches' and focusing on the words, on how Tolkien described him. Then, the first thing I visualized was the pose, I tried to go for a 'passive and miserable but with an hint of danger' thing, and I posed for Gollum myself, then I drew my sketch 'adapting' the shape of my body and my face and changing my proportions according to Tolkien's description.

Starting from a human body I know well and adapting it was the only way that came to mind to stay as clear as possible from the movie Gollum.