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TurnerMohan — Orcs
#goblins #hobbit #orcs #silmarillion #tolkien #lordoftherings
Published: 2014-12-12 08:34:42 +0000 UTC; Views: 26238; Favourites: 409; Downloads: 131
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"But of those unhappy ones who were ensnared by Melkor little is known of a certainty. For who of the living has descended into the pits of Utumno, or has explored the darkness of the counsels of Melkor? Yet this is held true by the wise of Eressëa, that all those of the Quendi who came into the hands of Melkor, ere Utumno was broken, were put there in prison, and by slow arts of cruelty were corrupted and enslaved; and thus did Melkor breed the hideous race of the Orcs in envy and mockery of the Elves, of whom they were afterwards the bitterest foes. For the Orcs had life and multiplied after the manner of the Children of Ilúvatar; and naught that had life of its own, nor the semblance of life, could ever Melkor make since his rebellion in the Ainulindalë before the Beginning: so say the wise. And deep in their dark hearts the Orcs loathed the Master whom they served in fear, the maker only of their misery. This it may be was the vilest deed of Melkor, and the most hateful to Ilúvatar."The Silmarillion, chapter 3 "of the coming of the elves and the captivity of melkor"
Orcs fascinate me; the perpetual foot soldiers of Evil, inherently cruel, nasty creatures that are ultimately the end result of horrendous, deforming torture, both in origin as a species, and, I would imagine, on an individual level by the cruel, brutal nature of their societies. Do orcs love their children? Their parents? Are they capable of having friends even amongst their own kind? All questions that Tolkien leaves largely, frustratingly, unanswered; nowhere in either his books or in the jackson films do we ever get to see orcs as anything other than these horrible all-purpose antagonists, fighting, growling, and just being generally unpleasant, but I would think, just like humans or any other type of creature, that the vast majority of their actual day-to-day existence is spent just kind of getting through life; breathing, eating, sleeping, shitting, having sex where they can get it, sitting still, walking around, letting their minds wander. who knows where those minds go? if they sometimes, in a quiet moment, rise out of the squalid meanness that seems to be their psychological fallback position?
Physically i wanted these to have the feel of debased, devolved creatures; their bones and muscles bent and warped away from the greek perfection of their elvish progenitors. tolkien's world doesn't seem to operate by evolution - both humanity and all other living things in middle-earth simply springing to life, garden-of-eden style, more or less fully formed - but the orcs (and other evil humanoid creatures like trolls/giants) seem a good opportunity to draw from a lot of the physical traits of pre-humans, or of our cousins in the ape and monkey families, to give them the feel of having basically evolved backwards. There is strong and, to me, very convincing theory that a lot of the mythology of trolls and goblins and such are a leftover from early-modern man's interactions with the then-dwindling race of neaderthals, and certainly this seems to have influenced the physical portrayal of fairy tale monsters throughout history, right up to the classic illustrations of John Bauer and Arthur Rackham, and i wanted to keep these in that fairy tale goblin tradition, while taking them through perhaps a more serious, conscious biological lense; weather-beaten faces and bodies, long arms and torsos, short bow legs, bunched, narrow shoulders, crooked necks, big hands and feet, prehensile toes, rough, feral body hair distribution.
another entry for the Tolkien Sketchblog.
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Comments: 91
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From a concept of corruption and torture you have created something with a true melancholy beauty. It's utterly incredible.
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Sounds good, the whole Neanderthals referring to orcs thing. I've also heard, though, that they might represent dwarves (though, considering the somewhat dubious morality of some dwarves in traditional tellings, it's not impossible they could be both), and that humanity might represent elves... which considering how elves behave in a lot of pre-Tolkienian stuff, is not reassuring.
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I think Tolkien's Orcs are left vague because he was unable to fully reconcile how he thought about them. On the one hand, evil is uncreative, so Melkor/Morgoth had to work with what was available. However, Tolkien was also a firm Christian with a belief that redemption was available to everyone.
In Fellowship of the Ring, I believe Elrond says something along the lines of how during the last battle, all living things were divided between whether they fought for Sauron or freedom, except for the elves, who all fought Sauron, so one can interpret that how they will.
Next to Dwarves, Orcs remain my favorite of Tolkien's races, despite how frustratingly vague he left them.
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www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPZlEO…
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I've always loved Tolkien's orcs because they were once in fact elves, the creatures he describes as most beautiful and well formed.
I've seen many portrayals of orcs, but this stands out vividly. The look of primitive ape ancestors is something I've seen before, but here it just seems so brutally mundane.
There was a moment in Return of the King where some orcs are talking about the old days, raiding and doing banditry with a few trusted crew. In that moment I really fell in love with them as these assholes were were also kind of maverick outlaws.
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www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPZlEO…
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In the two towers at Cirith Ungol Sam overhears Gorbag saying to Shagrat (innuendo?) 'What do you say?-if we get a chance, you and me'll slip off and set up somewhere on our own with a few trusty lads, somewhere where there's good loot nice and handy, no big bosses.' 'Ah!' said Shagrat. 'Like old times.'
So it's not like orcs don't long for a better life, its just that their overly aggressive nature and tribally divided society, not to mention being slaves to various dark lords, means they don't get on with each other let alone any of the other races.
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the orcs are probebly the saddest race of creatures in Tolkiens works. i got my hands on the tolkien bestiary where in it states that orcs cant love, Because of their creation they hate themselfs, hate Melkor and Sauron, they hate elves for in their hearts they somehow recall thats what they once where, they hate men,dwarfs and basicly everything that lives and breathes. They cant even make pretty things, only things to harm, because their entire existence is agony and they can only find relife whean they inflict a portion of it onto others.
As for their creation. i think Melkor did way more horrible things to the elves than torture and mutilating them. forced incest, selective breeding and probebly some mixing of dead creatures into them, hence the black cold blood orcs have.
I´d imagen orcs basicly reproduce by rapeing since its about strength and they give birth to probebly a litter where the strongest are raised and the weak are left to die.
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tolkien takes a very religious viewpoint in dealing with the orcs. i remember reading somewhere that the souls of orcs (being ultimately children of illuvatar they ofcourse have souls) would be able to be redeemed by iluvatar, but not by men, ala some kind of missionary work (nor i would think by elves) they're too far gone, their ruin and degradation by melkor too complete for that. To me they seem to represent humanity (or rather elves, though really i think the eldar and edain are supposed to be basically interchangeable on a purely biological level, i don't think elves have to have pointy ears) at it's absolute worst; all the evil and cruelty and pitilessness that we're capable of but with none of humanity's redeeming factors, or atleast none that can show through to the surface. they don't seem to be capable of having loving relationships, and even 'friendships' or alliances are highly tenuous (shagrat and gorbag seem friendly enough with eachother, but then one kills the other shortly after with out alot of provocation). I always wondered though if far under the surface, so far buried as to be all but innaccesible to the orcs themselves in their lives, are bits and pieces of their long lost better nature; if for example orc mothers might care about their children (it seems too much to hope for with fathers, alot of big adult males in other species will kill children, even they're own, and I imagine this is likely a danger in orc society as well) or if orcs can have feelings of friendship, charity, or even pity toward one another, even if those feelings don't last long.
alot of the time when thinking about orcs and how such creatures might actually be in real life, i find myself thinking about animal societies, like wolf packs (with whom they often share a mutualistic relationship) or groups of apes, with the big alpha and his retainers at the top and then everyone else below, vaguely under the top dog's protection but therwise having to fend for themselves. Yes i expect that basically all sexuality in their world is rape, as it might (by our standards) be said to be with many animals. also elements of gang culture and prison society influence my image of orcish society; all hostility and everyone on their toes, making alliances, establishing pecking orders and everyone trying to present themselves constantly as bad motherfuckers to avoid being messed with, effectively turning most social interactions into a series of aggressions and withdrawals. i guess you could say those parts of human society that most closely mirror the harshness and brutality that we see in animal societies. that in a sense is what orcs are to me; those parts of humanity that are the most savage, least enlightened, and what a religious person (like tolkien) might call the least "human"; the parts of us wherein we seem to be in danger of dropping off into bestial violence and ignorance, which is why, when depicting them, I'll often go for a very bestial, apelike phisiology, as if their ruination by morgoth has actually physically degraded and caused them to "regress" biologically (I am ofcourse in no way the first perston to have done this 
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www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPZlEO…
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Nationalists also could have been an influence on the creation of the orcs, don't forget Tolkien fought in WW1 when every nation in Europe had an "us vs them" mentality and blind loyalty to the state ; you could say the orcs are an allegory people blindly follow orders to perform horrendous deeds, ignoring basic morality. In essence the orcs are tribalism personified.
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I think, Tolkien has a rather racist view on orcs, because he describes them as evil in general and the elves, western men, dwarrowfolk and hobbits as good. Of course in the Silmarillion he describes also crimes committed by western men, elves and dwarrows, but still, in the LoTR and The Hobbit, the Free People are only descriped as good and the orcs as only capable of evilness.
He tells his tale out of the point of view of the heroes, but never gives the orcs the chance to tell us their stories. In this case, Tolkien is more the classical author, who only focusses on heroes and nobles.
History is written by the victor. And Tolkien lets those win of whose point of view he writes. So it's no wonder that he makes the orcs so evil in our eyes.
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www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPZlEO…
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Very nice, they remind me of the losels (ocr/baboon) hybrids from the Greyhawk D&D setting en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Losel
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That's a good way to describe the orcs- whereas the other major races of Middle Earth are shaped, the orcs are a case of de-evolution, having been tortured and twisted by Melkor.
You don't see a lot of the orcs outside of battle and bloodshed, so that raises some interesting questions to how they'd function if they were left to their own devices.. While the closest niche I could find for them would be like a medieval gang mentality (w/ the strongest in charge), they do have a few traits they retained from their elven origins- a bit of creativity, though more often practical than for beauty (if you look at some of the furnishings in Cirith Ungol, you'll find that a few of the effects were fashioned from spoils during the earlier wars with Gondor) and, though it's only done on a slight deviation, they can still sing, though I think Melkor and Sauron would discourage this as much as they could.
It's only one line int he book, but I remember one take that was done on it-
www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-tjJD…
(a mishmash of footage from the PJ version, and a song from the Rankin and Bass version of the The Return of the King)
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I remember adding to a riff on this- 'where there's a bill, there's a way' .. XD
Also, I remember a few folks in the military recalling times they had to call a march candence.., and they used this song. XD
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Nice picture, and I think it is also original one. It is good because I try to distance myself from the way the movies portray Middle-earth. I'd like to stress however that Tolkien never really decided what exactly was the origin of the orcs. His latest theory seems to be that they were at leas largely corrupted Men. He had troubles thinking that Morgoth could ever corrupt Elves so much that they loose their immortality, fate given to them by Eru (and he did say in a collection of essays known as Myths Transformed that orcs live shorter lives than (númenorian) Men). It would also sound reasonable considering that drúedain resembled outwardly orcs, and they never told to anyone about their most ancient history. Also drúedain and orcs hated each other relentlessly and both called each others traitors.
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everyone and orcs can be counted as bitter enemies, the orcs have pretty bad (and unfortunately well earned) pr amoung the other races of middle-earth. yes the orcs being in origin elves was never as strongly canonized by tolkien himself as it has since become in the mind of his readers thanks to the silmarillion, though i tend to prefer the silmarillion in most instances where it offers an account that differs from his other posthumously published writing, mostly just because a guiding single narrative (though brief and incomplete enough to leave room for great elaboration, like the fall of gondolin or the many versions of the children of hurin) is prefferable to me over contradictory and ultimately unresolvable alternatives (the silmarillion makes it feel like you really know tolkien's fictional world and can draw some conclusions about it, the other stuff in the HOME less so, which is what i like about that stuff - it gives middle earth this fragmented lost in time and possibly in unrelyable sources feel, but is for those reasons less easy for a speculative fantasy artist to build designs around)
really what i say about orcs and what motivated my designs for them would all hold perfectly true if they were rather the perverse descendants of men instead of elves. men always seemed to me, despite their almost pitiful inadequacy alongside their elder brother species, like the destined "stars" of illuvatar's creation, and the ones (again rather than the elves, who would seem at first glance the obviously better candidates) set to inherit it. they come into the world naked and infantile as a species, with all these other types of speaking creatures already so long since established, some representing for them this almost idealized version of themselves, what they might aspire to, others this horror, like seeing themselves in a dark mirror (jor-el's speech about humanity, what it is and what it wishes to be, given to his human-like but superhuman son, feels like something the elves might hold to be true about mankind) and there does infact end up being genetic influences of both elves and (regrettably, far more often) orcs in humanity, it's like we're caught inbetween; the moral wildcards of middle-earth, that above any other reason is why i suppose i prefer both elves and orcs coming before humanity; that they are part of the world we come into, they inform us.
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I can understand that view. I myself think that considerable part of the Silmarillion are legends even within the secondary world. Tolkien stated that what we have in Silmarillion are legends, possibly compiled in the Third Age.
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Legends yes, but written in a world where legends (Sauron, Elrond, Celeborn, Galadriel, Círdan, etc.) walks among men, which make things different.
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No. I meant that the Silmarillion is a collection of Mannish myths and legends even within the secondary world, and not everything is "correct" even in the secondary world.
Published Silmarillion is not canon. It is just one possible arrangement of certain versions of the tales that fits together most easily. Tolkien himself said that Silmarillion is a collection of myths even in the secondary world: “What we have in the Silmarillion etc. are traditions (especially personalized, and centered upon actors, such as Fëanor) handed on by Men in Númenor and later in Middle-earth (Arnor and Gondor); but already far back – from the first association of the Dúnedain and Elf-friends with the Eldar in Beleriand – blended and confused with their own mannish myths and cosmic ideas.” (HoMe X: Morgoth's Ring, Myths Transformed)
Also: "Physically Arda was what we should call the Solar System. Presumably the Eldar could have had as much and as accurate information concerning this, its structure, origin, and its relation to the rest of Ea as they could comprehend.
A little further on in this same Note it is said:
The traditions here referred to have come down from the Eldar of the First Age, through Elves who never were directly acquainted with the Valar, and through Men who received 'lore' from the Elves, but who had myths and cosmogonic legends, and astronomical guesses, of their own. There is, however, nothing in them that seriously conflicts with present human notions of the Solar System, and its size and position relative to the Universe."
"The astronomical myths of the Elder Days cannot be regarded as a record of the traditional beliefs of the Eldar in any pure form, because the High-elves of Aman cannot have been thus ignorant; and the cosmological elements in The Silmarillion are essentially a record of mythological ideas, complex in origin, prevailing among Men."
All are from Morgoth's Ring. Tolkien wanted to revise the chronology of the Elder Days, but the existing legendarium was already too large. However he did partly abandon many aspects of his earlier writings. He decided that Sun and Moon were created way earlier, and he also moved the Awakening of Men much further back in history. Published Silmarillion, especially the legends regarding the earliest times of the World should not be considered "canon" in the sense that they portray "real" primordial history authentically even within the secondary world.
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Bolg and Azog had something of an unspoken relationship in the last two movies. There really wasn't much there, just enough to get me wondering what kind of childhood Bolg (and orcs in general) might have had, and what went on beneath the surface level of machismo and brutality.
I just picture Azog raising Bolg by pitting him into fights, even when he was little. "Go over there and take that fucking scrap of food if you want to eat," and "Break his arm, break his neck, if that snaga bows up to you make a bow out of him!" seem like things Azog would say to lil Bolg. And it's all too easy picturing Bolg invent his trademark "I grab your weapon and hug it, now you're fucked" move as a scraggly teenage-looking orc. He had to be the absolute toughest, fastest, smartest fighter to measure up to his father's standards (which begs the question of how many failed sons Azog might have had). They both had to be untouchable to keep command, and with both of them showing grievous injuries (Azog's hand and Bolg's head) you can see the resentful shame smoldering behind their eyes. That, at least, was something huge and awesome Peter Jackson added to Tolkien's orcs. At least I think so.
Didn't Tolkien say the orcs were meant to represent the dark warring side of man he witnessed in WWI? That's another layer.
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Most of my orc designs are derived from apes, so it's nice to see that reflected in someone else's design. I'm not sure we see enough of orcs to understand the fundamentals of their society, and while I've had a lot of fun writing in the blanks in stories, the truth is there is very little to go on. You can't even look strictly at the Silmarillion, since this was published posthumously, and Tolkien had a number of additional notes as to their origins as well as regrets regarding their portrayal in LotR.
But, theorizing aside, this is a nicely done watercolor piece, with a lovely balance of hatching and color to fill in the sense of light. I also really like that stripe of thicker hair going down that fella's back. It looks creepily like a design I did for a first age orc, which I based off of a baboon...
fav.me/d7n0x4p
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Fantastic work, JTM, and your inspiration behind the imagery is wonderfully expressed. Love the detailing and the sense of warmth that comes through in your rendering. The scene draws me in and makes me want to know more about these orcs.
A few comments:
"Orcs fascinate me..."
Have you read Tolkien's meanderings about orcs in The History of Middle-earth, vol X, Morgoth's Ring? My bet is that you have. If not, I recommend it. It's an interesting glimpse into JRRT's evolving thoughts on them. ETA: Never mind. It's clear from your other remarks here that you surely have read it!
As an aside, Lamarckism was a popular notion during Tolkien's time, and one can possibly see that influence in his conception of the origins of orcs.
"There is strong and, to me, very convincing theory that a lot of the mythology of trolls and goblins and such are a leftover from early-modern man's interactions with the then-dwindling race of neaderthals, and certainly this seems to have influenced the physical portrayal of fairy tale monsters throughout history..."
Oh, yes! I love the theory, although hard evidence for it is a bit sketchy. Nonetheless, it's an intriguing idea, and yep, could very well be. I know that's been put forward for the legends of sasquatches, yetis, etc., i.e., our ancestors' encounters with other human species and sub-species and even extinct great apes, e.g., Gigantopithecus.
"...our cousins in the ape and monkey families, to give them the feel of having basically evolved backwards."
Warning! Pedantic life scientist's quibble here. Apes and monkeys are not "devolved." Rather, they are perfectly evolved through adaption to their environment, and as surviving species, they may be considered the "pinnacle" of their evolutionary lineage. Same goes for Homo sapiens neanderthalensis who were well-adapted to their environment at the time. We modern humans tend to think we're the bee's knees when it comes to species, but really, we're not.
But setting aside my idiotic quibble, I love the idea behind your imagery, and selfishly speaking, I'm tickled to find someone else with a similar conception of orcs, although I expect orthodox Tolkien canon-devotees would find my interpretation to be abhorrent.
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It is amazing, we working on a similar project. It is photographyic work and it's called. Snaga: One Tribe One Story.
Snaga is the name of one uruk tribe living in forgotten land called Bot. These orcs are free, united to the tribe and this connection help them survive. His society and habbits are more complicated, than it first appears. And what we know about society of uruks? What do they do when not at war? What is their everyday life? This series of picture will may getting closer to the society and life of uruks.
These pictures are a part of bigger photographic project and whole thing is in progress. We prepare small sample for you. The name of this whole project is Snaga: One tribe One Story and it is created in cooperation with young artist Cyril Gaja and Snaga larp group from Czech Republic. In addition to photos and created a series of paintings: Children of the Big Eye at the same artist.
Everyday life of tribe is formed by the thematic cycles of pictures. First cycle is called Road - Ogh in black speech. Ushatari warriors of the clan go trough the wilderness in to the cave. There he speaking about the past year and planning to tribe the fate for coming year. Second cycle is called Camp – Maudhul in black speech. This cycle of photos shows uruki in their camp living out of combat and war camping.
To the future we will work on several other cycles from life of Snaga tribe. So I hope you enjoy these pictures, and if you like it, please share and comment. More photos you find in our portfolio on Behance and on our facebook profile or here in our deviantart profil.
Behance:
www.behance.net/gallery/141697…
www.behance.net/gallery/169683…
www.behance.net/gallery/169685…
Facebook profile:
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Looking at your gradual development of a more savage Orc that is primate-like but definitely lacking in "modern human" qualities lead me to remember this piece on Youtube, which I had linked to from a Sasquatch podcast site. I am not sure of the fellow's science, but his version of Neanderthals seem very familiar.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZbmyw…
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well based on nearly everything else i've ever seen or read about neanderthals (which is quite a lot, they're a particular subject of interest to me) this guy seems like a quack and a sensationalist with an all too one sided take on the history of our species' long interaction with our nearest cousins, but he does offer us a near perfect picture of tolkienian orcs, in character, diet and scare-factor (if not quite, for my taste, in appearance) particularly compelling and thought provoking to me is the notion of neanderthals as regularly raping cro-magnon women, and breeding half-neanderthal children. I always thought that rape would be kind of the big unspoken elephant in the room concerning the orcish attacks on men and elves. Tolkien ofcourse lets us know that orcs and humans can in fact produce offspring, as can elves and humans; the former having occurred vastly more frequently than the latter, with what seem to be whole populations - mostly in the south and east, but also in eriador - containing orcish blood, versus only a few thin but strong strains of elvish preserved exclusively in the west (and people wonder why tolkien draws accusations of racism). it's one of the most ancient and enduring dimensions of any human culture's predatory assaults on another (we see it all the time in ancient history, like the rape of the sabine women) and it's not unbelievable, if a bit shocking and unsettling, to think of it occurring between distinct but closely related creatures like neanderthals and cro magnons, or orcs (who most likely still count, religiously and biologically, as part of the children of illuvatar) and elves/humans. all too often, in white western european culture (not that this is perhaps not true of other cultures aswell) a consistent "societal fear" is of the sexual aggression of men of other races (the "black brute" stereotype is a perfect case in point of this, with the (almost always unproven) rape of white women being the most famous charge for lynching in the jim crow south) Frank Frazetta (whose various, mostly black or sallow skinned, and often rather ape like portrayals of subhumans were a clear influence on bakshi's orcs, and continue to be an influence on mine) made many images that would be a case study for any psychologist wishing to examine this racial-sexual anxiety; distressed, usually naked white women, their breasts and asses blown up to pornographic proportions, carried off kicking and screaming by leering, dark skinned ape like creatures (when bakshi did "fire and ice" he got to make this theme in frazetta's work into basically it's own subplot, with the abduction of Tygra by Necron's subhuman minions, who seem to me to be pretty much the orcs from bakshi's LOTR in spirit, only allowed that extra, sexual dimension)
i think, though never explicitly stated, this breed of cutural-sexual fear; of being invaded, decimated, and lastly, sexually invaded and made less "pure" by another culture, courses though much of tolkien's writing, particularly when his scope is on the story of populations moreso than individuals. perhaps it is seen most clearly in the rather penelope/telemachus-like plight of the women, children and elderly of hador's people; abused, enslaved and, ofcourse, raped by the invading, mostly male population of easterlings following the death of basically all the men of hador's house, and of the very oddyseus-like vengeance of turin upon the easterlings years later. the sexual dimension of this part of the children of hurin is what i'd hoped to convey, personalized, in my drawing of aerin and turin. it seems kind of a prudish copout - regrettably somewhat typical of tolkien - that after years and years of marriage aerin does not seem to have borne brodda any half easterling children; forced, loveless marriages, when they occur in tolkien's world (which is not often) seem to be kind of against nature (and probably alot of tolkien's own religious opinions on the matter) and therefore tend to be childless, though ofcourse in real life this is not the case, and aerin having children, possibly sons among brodda's retainers, would make turin's righteous vengence a little more morally complicated than tolkien often seems to have the stomach or interest for. on a last note, it seems a somewhat consistent requirement of violated women to die in ancient mythology, and therefore seemingly atone for having been violated; in the oddessy odysseus orders the female servants who gave themselves (willingly or not) to the suitors to be hanged, lucretia of ancient roman legend is killed by her own father after being "forced, stained and deflowered" (as is titus andronicus's daughter, in a purposeful imitation) even in kurosawa's "seven samurai" (in a scene to which my portrayal of aerin and turin is heavily indebted) the long-since abducted wife of one of the farmers, once she's been freed from the bandits, chooses to rush back into the fire rather than live with her shame. we see this often in tolkien's world as well; aredhel is killed after seemingly escaping her husband/captor (arguably in punishment, karmically speaking, for having left gondolin of her own stubbornness, being snared by eol and having birthed the traitor maeglin) aerin chooses to die after she is freed from brodda (in a situation roughly akin in context to penelope's servants, atleast turin doesnt order her to do so, but it does seem like it's almost dramatically required of her to die) and even elrond's wife (following what many have interpereted as rape by orcs) chooses to depart middle earth. it's an ancient (and quite antiquated by today's standards) notion tied up with the requirement of female purity and is definitely a bone that any decent feminist would have to pick with tolkien and his predecessors.
sorry that last was a bit of a tangent, but one that's been percolating in my mind for some time (and will play into the next few pieces i have planned, which focus on some of the sexual/gender-related subtexts of tolkien's writing)
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Anything to stoke the creative fires, regardless of the overall effect. Like I said, I am somewhat suspicious of the science involved as per Neanderthals, but I had to agree that maybe Neanderthals have gone too much into the "just like us" category, and need to be brought back into context as a distinct sub-group. That being said, there was no need to swing back to H.G. Wells's killer ogre characterization either, although it was clever that from one interpretation of Neanderthals you get Dwarves, but on another interpretation you get Orcs. Lots of fun for the fantasy illustrator there! 
However, the idea of the near-human intellect with a predator's instinct, that was something that needed to be addressed for Orcs anyway. Part of the blasphemy involved in Melkor's "creation" of Orcs was the end result of creating them. The Orcs had no peace in their world, but there were plenty of chances for them to share that lack of peace with the other peoples, and so they earned their place as a race of eternal bad neighbors, even when not spurred on by a stronger and more wicked will. Somewhere between the killer-ape Neanderthals of Them and Us and the perpetual ill will of Grendel and the doing-my-fun-job mentality of just about every invading army or concentration camp staff of history is the Orcish mind-set. The world is not fair, there is only one scale of beauty, and the Orcs know which end of it they belong on, make no mistake about it! Spite, greed, and hunger will drive them on where the direction of a superior is not present, for in terms of death-dealing, arson, pillage, and rapine they need little encouragement. No place in the world, no peace, so no justice and no mercy! Tolkien didn't directly assign any specific population for humanity, the Orcish mind-set has been with us in some fashion since the beginning of things. The Orcs aren't derived from a single race, culture, class level, or occupation; they are the universal result of humanity's desire to be defiantly and unrepentantly inhuman when the situation seemed sufficiently necessary or rewarding. If the Elves are un-fallen humanity, then the Orcs are the humans who fell hard, and broke every branch of the ugly tree on the way down until the exterior matched the interior.
Speaking of which, the desire of the Orcs to smash and dirty everything that the prettier people have made leads to the uncomfortable question of exactly where half-orcs and uruk-hai came from anyway? Just as that fellow postulates that Neanderthals alternatively ate and interbred with ancestral modern humans, so Orcs routinely preyed on Men...and apparently sometimes bred with the wives and daughters of Men too. No surprise why, human soldiers who have survived the terrors of battle have often happily shared the impulse to celebrate life in the most basic form with the first women they could get their hands on, willing or not. In the West at least, we have advanced to the point where rape by victorious or marauding soldiery is now a crime, and not a fringe benefit, or a way of making sure that a conquered populace began to resemble the conquerors more than not. Orcs don't even have the need to justify bad behavior, or have much of a conscience over rape, since thanks to their maker they have a skewed moral compass to start with. And compared to orc-women, human women of the plainest sort must look pretty damn good. Not that they'll get the nubile princess types, those are for the big bosses, but the peasant wives and serving wenches are near at hand!
So Sauron somewhere between his residence in Mirkwood c. TA 1050 or so soon after re-awakening and the onslaught of uruk-hai from Mordor in 2475 decides to breed Orc 2.0, and gets the uruk-hai breeding program started. The uruks are still orcish in their race, but they have greater stature and strength, greater endurance, can withstand the Sun, and can be counted on to follow their orders most of the time without constant supervision. Sounds like the virtues of Men got added to the mix, right? So, again, how did Sauron decide that crossing Men into the Orcish breeds was a worthwhile plan, and how did Saruman get the Cliffs Notes version in order to create his own variation on a theme? Well, maybe some Human women did get dragged off by the hair or over the shoulder, and maybe as choice slaves, they birthed half-orc spawn that lived and thrived enough so that in their offspring the "Necromancer" saw something that he could use. After all, the Elves were no longer present in strength, and the Numenorian strain of the Dunedain was steadily declining, so the demi-god heroes of old were present in ever shorter supply for the Free Peoples. If he could just get his shock troops improved some, when the time came maybe he could overrun the armies of the West with shorter odds than before. Again, we are short on details, but that can be excused; some exercises in mass atrocity ought not to be contemplated for long, even under the guise of fiction.
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Well wasent there wicked humans that whorshipped Sauron as a god and his Nazguls as his sorta vassals? real world humans ahve done crazy stuff to apease their gods, so its not that far stretch of imagenation that some went willingly whean Sauron put out the wanted note for feritle humans to breed with orcs. Though i think most was dragged kicking and screaming from fringe setlements and kingdoms in the east and south, away from the eyes of the free folks
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That is a point worth considering, since all Saruman did was copy Sauron to some extent, and the nature of Sauron's uruk-hai breeding is off-screen and only the final results are seen, except indirectly at Isengard. Since vast portions of Rhun & Harad were under the Shadow, it would make sense if those regions yielded slaves and "volunteers" sent by their rulers as tribute to the Necromancer for undisclosed uses.
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I'm fascinated! This is so amazing! The idea is great and honed, your traces are even more beautiful than before and the simple colors are just perfect. It reminds me of some good art from the 70es and 80es, something that you don’t see everyday for sure. Your descriptions are always half of the pleasure in appreciating your art, and here you brought up so many important questions about the psychology of them orcs. I love it and it got me wandering for an hour.
You managed to put so much info in just one simple illustration, a very difficult effect that seems easy when you do, and you do it often. This shows the greatness and maturity of your art.
When you look a this image, a orc relaxing and at the same time keeping watch while a female tend to a bonfire, you inevitably start wondering about their minds and culture, they look much more “human” in a sense, and this sure makes the slaughter brought upon them by any other race a very uncomfortable thing, even as you take into account their savage and evil ways.
Everything you thought about really shows here: the ape-like qualities, the pre-human devolved traits, the latent savagery and raw strength (It would be very, very bad to face a chimp in a brawl, what to say about an intelligent, evil and armed chimp-like creature?), you can feel how much danger a single orc represent even though they're not that big.
The elven origins also show here in a very subtle but satisfying way, and this makes the whole story even more tragic. I love the skin tone, it looks like sick skin or something like this. Add to this the deformed features and limbs and you have the perfect Tolkien orc. A believable lifelike creature!
Above all I'm very impressed by how your style is solidifying and turning into something really unique and beautiful! I can't wait to see more from you. You art has it all: Skill, Beauty, Great ideas, Great references and research, great colors and composition and style. Keep it up James!
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Ah oh yes. I have this question and I keep forgetting to ask: What kind of pen do you use to finish your drawings?
Thanks mate.
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The main problem with Orcs (and Trolls at a remove) is that they are not natural beings. Dwarves, Elves, Men, Ents (and Hobbits too) all have a place in Middle-Earth where they have a natural affinity and an ability to thrive in peace and harmony. Orcs have no place of their own, they are a product of an ill will that was ever at discord with MIddle-Earth at its heart. It's not that the goblin-folk are inherently evil, but their "design" such as it was permanently skewed them towards evil-doing and being bad neighbors in general. Your illustration is a discourse on comparative anatomy, but the posture of the creatures seem representative of creatures who are out of place in the world, and so are doomed to always feel unhappy and unsatisfied, no matter how much loot and power they gather to themselves. Orcish life is our own human life seen in a dark mirror, the struggle for survival and self-gain shorn of any hope or kindness or mercy or contentedness. Orcs are miserable, misery-making savages who are as twisted and ugly on the inside as they are on the outside. Morgoth made them that way though, and one can understand how that act was judged the chief blasphemy against Eru.
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yes i totally agree, very well said as usual, and good to see you weighing in your opinion on this piece. orcs are fundamentally at odds with and have an animosity with the world itself. the sunlight hurts them, probably anything that grows, including any food except the flesh of other creatures, is distasteful to them. the existence of the orc species is in a sense this tremendous, basically unparalleled tradgedy (one which the elves, being the wise beings that they are, might have an instinctive awareness of, men less so) that a whole, vast population of lives, probably comparable to that of the free folk, is entrenched in such theologically hopeless evil. i especially like tolkien's line "for the orcs had life" as if to say that this is a major distinction from the other servants of morgoth like dragons, spiders, or even wargs, who are ultimately maiar spirits (or the descendents of such) who made the choice to turn evil, whereas orcs are living beings, technically they probably count as part of the children of illuvatar, but they're condemned to be evil and unwelcome in the world and even uncomfortable in their own skin. i like what you say about orcs as being basically man kind through a dark mirror, as i think that is exactly what tolkien was going for, and that the concept was very important to him (refferencing the horrendous deeds done in wwi, where man's cruelty to eachother reached a new scale via technology, didn't he say something to the effect of "we were all orcs"?)
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I think Orcs first came up in a serious context as the counter-point to Hobbits in terms of the place and reaction to life in Middle-Earth. The Hobbits have the Shire, and they grow and ingest food and pipe-weed and enjoy the simple and fulfilling life of people who have it good and know it. The Orcs live in mountain cave-holds and old towers, they get by on thin rations of military-grade food, and they are the automatic enemies of anyone they think has it better than them, including their own kind. Then in The Silmarillion Tolkien decided to give the Orcs the same depth as all his other "speaking peoples", and showed the cynical nature of their origins, and its cruel legacy for the Orcs themselves as well as all the other races who had to deal with their depredations.
I had a great deal of empathy & interest in Orcs as a people as a nascent Tolkien fan and D&D Dungeon Master so many years ago. It was interesting for me, an American raised in a Protestant Midwestern lifestyle, to encounter a race of beings who were inherently sinful and given to wickedness without a balance of nature. After all, humans have some orcish specimens, but we cover all the moral and societal ranges, and mostly on the good (or at least non-harmful) side of things. I was also rather influenced by Bakshi's movie and its delightfully grotesque orcs and orc-men in the fantasy barbarian mode. The Heritage Miniatures Dungeon Dwellers set of Orc minis (cribbed in design from their LOTR Isengard sets) were also an influence as Orcs (at least the warrior breeds) being tough and fierce customers, less cartoonish in their implied danger than the goblins, kobolds, and gnolls. (The hobgoblins from that minis series were their only match, in in my supremely biased opinion. 
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After some searching, found some good pics of the original DD Orcs (mine) and the 2nd version, which was later reproduced by Reaper. About half-way down the page, nice detail.
dndlead.com/Dungeon-Dwellers/1…
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Actually I think there is some text that Goblins will go for miles on end to avenge their own folk, and even a scene in the tunnel that leads Cirith Ungol, where Shagrat and Gorbag where casually talking like old chaps; like how they talk about their frustration with the Nazgûl and Shelob, and if given the chance they and a few lads to move elsewhere where they can share their bounty, as well as reminisce their redeeming fear that if Sauron's gone then they're though too.
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yeah shagrat and gorbag are "friends," but shagrat kills gorbag pretty shortly after they're talking about setting out together. it seems that this is as good an example as any of the hopelessly unproductive social capacity of orcs.
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Honestly if I were just a human bandit or pirate I would be acting the same way, especially considering a mithril shirt can buy nearly the entire Shire.
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as i said before i don't think they're worse at all times than humans could ever be, they just represent the worst of humanity
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Dude, freaking awesome as always! I love that you depicted a she-orc along with the male. I like it when artists draw fantasy beinsg with both a male and a female.
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