According to Plan

Page 6 of episode 4 of The Word Smith has found its way onto the interweebs revealing the plans of t3h g4m3rz.  This also marks the half-way mark for the episode (it will be twelve pages).  Go marvel at it, or just mar at it, without the vel.

And here is today's exciting sketchbook entry, for some definition of exciting:

It's a slight redesign on a character that has appeared in this blog previously.  I had had some plans for the character, but there's not really been enough time to follow through on them.  Perhaps when FASS has finished up I'll have the chance to revisit things.

In other news, I forgot to mention last week that I saw a license plate that read "LOTR4EVR" which I thought was cool (of course I'm a huge Tolkien geek, so I would think that).  I also had the opportunity to see The Hobbit in 48 FPS mode (I originally saw it in regular 24 FPS).  That is, of course "frames per second" and not "first person shooter".  I thought it was neat!  It didn't take me very long to adjust to the high frame rate and didn't cause any issues for me.

And that is all for this week.  Until next time,
Freak Out
-TFitC

Tourists at the Gate

Yarr.  It be time for another post, ye surfers of the seven weebs.  Arrr!  Yarr.  Um...  Narf.

Marshmallow-girl is unimpressed.  Another view of a character seen a previous post who may or may not become important at some point, if anyone actually cares.  The marshmallow wand is probably mostly unrelated.

On a different note, this is a view of the field behind my parents' house, done partially as more draw-what-you-see practice and partially as scenery practice.  The railing on the deck is not actually that warped, I just wasn't being too concerned with drawing really straight lines.

And finally, a one-page comic:

This based on The Lord of the Rings and the punch-line, of course, refers to Boromir's line "One does not simply walk into Mordor" from the movie version of Fellowship.  The page was drawn over the course of three days, about an hour at a time.

And that is all for today.  Until next time,
Freak Out,
-TFitC

Fly You Fools

It's time again for another post! Yay! Or not, your clickage may vary. Anywho, as I've previously commented on my need to practice foreshortening, I decided to do just that by doing some practice on perspective and foreshortening in the human figure.
Of course there's still a lot of practice to be done, but it's a start. The numbers in the image simply indicate the order in which the different sketches were drawn.

The next image was inspired by some dialogue from The Lord of the Rings. I've been a fan of The Lord of the Rings for a long, long time now, though it doesn't seem to come up much on this blog. Anyway, Gandalf's words when he faced off against the balrog on the bridge of Khazad-dum had been running through my head for about a week or so (though I'm not entirely sure why) and I decided to draw a sequence of six panels inspired by that particular encounter.
Obviously, the character in the sequence is not Gandalf - as I mentioned, this was inspired by the scene in question and is not meant to be an illustration of it. I used the text from the book version of the scene, though the movie dialogue is fairly close - it drops the first "You cannot pass" and uses "shall not" instead of "cannot" at the end. The character above is actually one that I borrowed from a drawing in one of my older sketch books that was fairly close to the image in my head and saved a bit of time in having to come up with a character design. (Incidentally, the older drawing was labelled "mahou kiepu shoujo" or "magical cape girl", for the curious.)

And that, as they say, is that.

Freak Out,
-TFitC

The Road Goes Ever On

I recently completed my "20th anniversary" read through of The Lord of the Rings (save for the appendices which won't take long) that I began back on the 20th anniversary of receiving The Fellowship of the Ring and The Hobbit for Christmas (commemorated in this post).

I do not recall when I finished my very first read through of The Lord of the Rings as I don't remember whether or not I received The Return of the King for Easter or my birthday. If it was for my birthday (as seems most likely since I do recall that I got The Two Towers for Easter) then I probably wasn't too far off my original finishing date either, but that's just guesswork on my part.

Obviously, I took my time reading, but I've had other distractions along the way such as course projects and also read Tolkien's take on a couple of old Norse legends (in "The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrun") somewhere in there.

Still, I enjoyed The Lord of the Rings as much as I always do. Certain things always seem to affect me in some way - like the Ride of the Rohirrim, Eowyn facing down the lord of the Nazgul and Frodo slowly having his mind eaten away by the ring as they approach Mount Doom, just to name a few.

I often also seem to pick up on something new each time I read the book. This time, it was from the final chapter "The Grey Havens" when Sam is agonizing over what to name his first child (a daughter), Frodo suggests naming her Elanor, after the flowers in Lothlorien, meaning "sun-star" as he says. That made me go "Huh! That is actually what that means..." If my readers will allow some linguistics, in Tolkien's elvish, "el" is "star", found in such names as "Elbereth" (star queen) or "Elrond" (star dome - if memory serves) and "anor" is "sun" as in "Minas Anor" (tower of the sun), the original name of Minas Tirith.

Anywho, as always I have enjoyed my latest journey through Middle-Earth, one which I shall no doubt undertake again in the future.

Freak Out,
-TFitC

Elen Sila Lumenn' Omentielvo

"A Star Shines on the Hour of our Meeting"

I am a long time fan of The Lord of the Rings. In fact, it was twenty years ago today that I received The Hobbit and The Fellowship of the Ring for Christmas. Not knowing anything about them at the time, I decided to tackle Fellowship first, simply because it was longer - I had never read anything that long before - not realizing that Fellowship was actually the sequel to The Hobbit.

To quote that oft overused phrase "and the rest, as they say, is history."

I read through Fellowship fairly ravenously, and I remember, among other things, being gripped by the tension of the journey through the Mines of Moria. I also remember that, upon reaching the end of the first book, that I didn't want to wait to have to read the other two. It seemed like it would be forever until I was able to get them. My parents had to tell me that they'd already gotten the other two books or I'd have gone out and gotten them by myself. So I tided myself over by reading The Silmarillion (which, while slow to get into, I nevertheless ended up adoring as well) and, I think, pretty much every other Tolkien book I could get from the local library.

Of course, when I finally did get The Two Towers and The Return of the King (after what seemed like an eternity as a child) I enjoyed them as well, including the appendices. I even taught myself to write using Tolkien's Tengwar letters (his Elvish script), though slightly adapted for the english alphabet.

I have continued to read and enjoy The Lord of the Rings from time to time throughout the years and started another read through of it today to commemorate the 20th anniversary of my first journey to Middle-Earth. I still have my original paperbacks, though Fellowship is in rough shape, having some loose pages, so I'm reading a newer edition. I might go back to my originals for the 2nd and 3rd books if they seem like they're in good enough condition.

There are relatively few things that have had as large or as lasting an impact on me as The Lord of the Rings. The fact that I enjoy it and still return to it 20 years later speaks to that. Among the things that I enjoy in The Lord of the Rings is the sense of history, the languages and the sense of hope against all odds - and many other things, besides.

Anyway, I could no doubt was on in much more detail than I have here, but I think it suffices to say that The Lord of the Rings is something which has had, and will likely continue to have, a profound impact on me.

Namarie,
-TFitC