Thorin Oakenshield Portrait

A quick portrait of Thorin Oakenshield from The Hobbit. 

I drew this out of spite after watching the new Hobbit movie by Peter Jackson, but didn't get around to coloring it until today (after watching the trailer for the new movie and getting angry again). I really dislike the designs in the new Peter Jackson movies, and Thorin is one of the worst of the bunch (aside from the shit covered Radagast). He looks like an Aragorn clone that was removed from the incubation chamber before he was fully cooked.

With great trepidation I Googled the Beorn design from The Hobbit 2. What the hell is the deal with the skunk mullet?

The Vault: Treebeard Shadowbox

This project took me ages!  I think it was about a year in total from sketch to completion.  I had a long post about this on my previous blog, and have finally built up the initiative to post the process again.  You can click on any of the thumbnails for a more detailed version.

First Step:  The Sketches and Digital Color Test

   

Second Step: Mapping the Pieces and Painting Watercolor Swatches

To make sure that I constructed Treebeard correctly I had to map out all of the pieces, and then paint swatches for each of the mapped pieces.

 

Third Step: Cutting out the Pieces and Construction

To cut out the pieces I have to trace them from my “map” onto tracing paper, and then tape the tracing paper to my colored swatches.  It’s time consuming!

   

Fourth Step: Building the Box and Placing Treebeard

I built the shadowbox with some lumber I bought at the hardware store, and painted it black.  The Treebeard figure had to be attached to a wire skeleton that I glued to the frame.  After gluing in the ground and Treebeard I attached the background.  Later I had the pieces on the outside of the frame laminated (so they wouldn’t be ruined if the box was splashed with water), and I super-glued them to the front of the frame.

   

 

Ta da!