HOME | DD
TurnerMohan β The Great Worms attack
#dragons #hobbit #tolkien #worms #wyrms #dwarves
Published: 2014-12-26 07:07:57 +0000 UTC; Views: 15771; Favourites: 321; Downloads: 185
Redirect to original
Description
the second in a series of ten illustrations I'm doing for an italian-language audiobook of the "Durin's Folk" section of the Lord of the Rings appendices. the tape runs roughly half an hour, so each drawing will play onscreen for about three minutes, quite a chunk of story to have to account for in one image.following the recounting of the origin of the dwarves, beginning with Durin the deathless, and the founding and long prosperity of his kingdom in moria (and his people's eventual forced expulsion from it by the balrog) the second section covers the flight from moria, the discovery of the lonely mountain and the founding of the kingdom of erebor, the dwarves' attempts to colonize the grey mountains and their expulsion (yet again) from erebor by smaug. I decided to do it as kind of a double image, above we have Thrain 1st - his kingly standard at his side and the vast host of his exiled people at his back - looking upon the Lonely Mountain for the first time, like moses at mount sinai (the dwarven kings often seem to have this old school larger-than-life feel to them, like old testament partiarchs) and for the bottom I thought a look at the Great Worms of the north described by tolkien - long, flightless, serpentine creatures - was appropriate. While smaug's attack on erebor is surely more iconic, the dwarves' failed adventures in the grey mountains actually takes up much more time in the audiobook (being a several hundred year campaign) I wanted an image that kind of summed up why their attempts to establish a lasting kingdom there might not have panned out; i imagine them happening in on some great nest of the beasts, who rush up to attack the invaders, their bodies rolling and coiling over each other like enormous pit vipers. it was important to me that they should look like that little drawing of them tolkien did on Thror's map ( corecanvas.s3.amazonaws.com/th⦠) and of course more than a little of movie-smaug found his way into them (it's gonna be hard to avoid that when drawing dragons for at least the foreseeable future)
Related content
Comments: 53
I recently realized the land drakes\great serpents formed a form very similar to the famous ''rat king'' example; brilliant idea !
π: 0 β©: 1
just looked up "rat king." definitely a concept i'll have a hard time forgetting about for a while, thanks
π: 0 β©: 1
Sorry if the entity is that much of a nightmare fuel; but I learned it from a children's book so that could definitely be worse; ( ie. I learned it from hydra thing at Spiderwick when I was 14)
It's indeed not a very pleasant memory but it is 'enlightening' in learning biology & animal behavior; at least
π: 0 β©: 0
This one is particularly exquisite in its execution, the technique really shine here. I love the way you can still figure out the design of the dwarves' attire even though they are so small in the image. The dragons are just superb.
This is beautiful and really show your skills I cannot help but nod and admire. Congrats my friend!
π: 0 β©: 1
glad you like this one man. i drew it on much larger paper than i normally work with (24"x36", as opposed to my usual 8.5"x11" sketchbook) so i had alot more room to move around both mentally an with the pencil.
i've got a couple more pieces done at this same scale currently in the works, some first age elven armor concepts. i look forward to hearing what you make of them
π: 0 β©: 1
And I can't wait to see them!
π: 0 β©: 0
I totally love this. Such a joy to find Tolkien's canon, and so beautifully rendered.Β ^ ^
π: 0 β©: 0
This is really a beauty!
I see that you have many new pieces!
i'll check them over and leave a thought or two, of course.
π: 0 β©: 0
Oh I really love those black and white illustrations of yours
They're always a pleasure to look at. The details and technique are wonderful and I love how every scenery tells it's own story. Just great (:
π: 0 β©: 1
thank you saraais. I always appreciate the opinion of a fellow dragonperson.
π: 0 β©: 0
Dragons, dragons, everywhere! 
Dwarves had lived in the Grey Mountains before the Longbeards arrived. Lesser houses, they had moved on...or been chased out by an earlier plague of dragons in the Third Age before the fall of Moria. Scatha an his treasure-hoard were from that time; Scatha's death brought on a time when the dragons retreated back to their lairs, and so about a century later Thrain I decided that the Grey Mountains were safe and rich enough after all. But four productive centuries later the Longbeards had to leave in the face of renewed dragon attacks, and more than they could withstand. Thror led most of his people back to Erebor, while his cousin Nain took a lesser number to the Iron Hills. Once again, we get a glimpse of paradise lost for the Dwarves, having to relocate again under threat of overpowering force. It made a very satisfying backdrop and explanation to why Thorin and company were so keen to wrest back their treasure from Smaug. 
Your dragons continue to exert a power and fell majesty no matter what their form. Β You did a great job of portraying Tolkien's long-worms in their "serpent" style, as I am confident he would have appreciated it. These long-worms are definitely the later ofspring of Glaurung, all his power and malefic cunning, but more streamlined and less ponderous. (There is a good comparison to these dragons, your "traditional" Smaug, and your Scatha.) They can run and leap and slither, aiming their fire where it will have the most effect instead of just having it wash across the steel shield-wall of the Dwarven host. If there is some movie-Smaug in them, I will understand, since Weta poured their wizardry into Smaug as the cinematic dragon to end all dragons.Β Β (Smaug was one of the times where the vaunted 48 fps 3D really worked; at times I could practically feel the heat from his flame-blasts! )Β Interestingly enough, it was a cold-drake that slew Dain I and his son and forced Thror to lead the exodus, but the fire-drake mob makes a very grand picture.
π: 0 β©: 0
It's magnificient, epic, very detailed and refined at the same time! The shading is mind-blowing
A wonderful tribute to an awesome world and its creator
π: 0 β©: 0
You put so much care into all your drawings. I think Tolkien would be impressed and honored, since he took great care in his own creation. I like the dreamy, mysterious, and undefined character that sketched drawings give to their subject matter.
π: 0 β©: 1
thank you, that's about the highest compliment i can recieve, and i certainly hope you're right
π: 0 β©: 0
Β I must say that this is - even by your own imposing standards - a fabulously terrifying image of a dragon; its possible to see a pit of ...
Β I'm sorry the mental image of the Well of Souls from RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK has just hit my subconsciousness and I needed to brace up against the sight of so many snakes in my recollections β¦ I HATE SNAKES (which may explain why reptiles and the reptilian in general terrify me even more than pigeons do - it's a short story, I saw one actually fly into a person once and then saw each stagger away wondering what the heck happened, leaving me with an irrational fear as a result).
Ahem, as I was saying your illustration of this β¦ now what on Middle-Earth ought to be the plural for Dragons? A 'catastrophe' perhaps or an 'Inferno' perhaps β¦ this amassing of dragons and the dwarves that are about to fall victim to it remind me of the legendary Hydra to boot (strike one down and another slavering jaw of poison death will tear at you in its place), somewhat ironically given that myth describes Heracles by killing that particular creature with fire (searing the stumps to seal them and deny all chance of regeneration, for the record).
Β Keep up the Good Work Master Mohan!
π: 0 β©: 0
Can I ask about your technique? I see it's made with graphite of some sort, but do you blend it? How? I love this effect and I've always wondered how people reach it
It's a marvelous drawing, very Alan Lee-esque (I adore Alan Lee's artwork, so consider that a huge compliment from my end).
π: 0 β©: 1
I'm glad you like it. honestly i'm still on the look out to learn good technique for pencil drawing myself, i find it's really hard, without image manipulation (which i don't do) to get anywhere near the really dark darks, even using the 7 & 8B's.
ususally, if i'm just sketching I'll work with a 3 or 4B but with this piece, since i was making it to be a finished piece (rather than a sketch) i started with a countour line drawing using a medium to hard pencil, around 2 or 3H (that seems to be the proper, academic way to start a piece, whether it's a pencil drawing or the pencil under-drawing for a watercolor panting) and then filled in the forms/reinforced certain lines with softer pencils, everything from 2B to 8B, using a paper towel to smudge areas and a kneaded eraser to get back to the white of the paper in select areas like the fiery breath of the dragons (i find the softer graphites, 5B to 8B are better for the smudging technique, as you don't have to use alot of pressure with them to get down tone on the paper, and then when you smudge them with a paper towel they don't really leave lines because they're so soft, some areas of shading in here were done with a slightly harder pencil and more pressure, like the are above the dragon tail all the way on the left, and it shows, that area didnt smudge as nicely as alot of the other places)
I'm a very big fan of alan lee's pencil work, i wish i knew more about his process and especially the hardness of pencil that he uses. alot of the time it looks like he may only be using one or two pencils somewhere in the middle range - soft enough to sketh freely with but not really dark either - as alot of his drawings don't go really dark, i don't think he smudges, instead being careful to preserve his white areas. the smudging technique i learned from John Howe's books (he's a lot more generous with insights into his techniques than alan lee is) looking over your gallery i see that you have a lot of beautiful pencil work, and could probably teach me a thing or two, especially about how you manage to get those deep tones and big expanses of beautiful pitch black in your pieces; do you photograph your work or scan it? as i find it's all but impossible to get really dark tones, even using a really dark pencil, with a scanned image, but then your work has really bright whites, which suggests to me a scanner (or maybe just a much better setup for photographing your work than i have. Honestly i've been trying to figure out how to go really dark with my pencil work, and i sense it helps to have a working order with pencil hardness, as it seems that some graphites wont sit on top of others, but i've never had any formal education in drawing, so as someone who seems to be able to do it, any insight you could offer i'd appreciate.
π: 0 β©: 1
Thank you so much for your elaborate explanation! I have a clear picture about your techniques now and I'll make sure to try them out next time I use graphite. I do have another question though: How do you go about composing your illustrations? Do you use references for light, modeling, anything?
I've Googled John Howe's work, and although it looks amazing, it's Alan Lee's use of pencil techniques that interests me most and John Howe seems to rely more on painting. They're beautiful pieces, to be sure, but Alan Lee remains my favorite by far
About my own work: I usually start off with clear outlines in hard pencil (usually HB, 2/3H is too hard for me, since I can't properly erase lines made with it. I do use HB/2H for details though, like irises in eyes or fine hair), then fill in the general shading with 3B or so, depending on my mood (drawings with soft light I usually do with 2B or H, since the shading needs to be far more subtle), and once I'm happy with all that I fill in the darks with 5B. When I need it really, really dark I use 9B and usually that gets the job done. But since I usually add quite some pressure to the pencil, the paper needs to be quite thick. I also like to use 9B at its sharpest to color in pupils, eyelashes and shading in and around the eyes, since it tends to bring a drawing to life more. When you do use a 9B, make sure it's very sharp. It allows you to make very clear lines in a very dark shade. And yes, since it's a soft pencil, it means you have to sharpen it over and over again, but I think it's worth it
About the contrasts: I usually use a scanner for my drawings. I tried photographing them for a while, but it's hard to get the lighting right and if there's a flash of any kind, it reflects off the parts I filled in with 9B, thus ruining the effect. Whereas the scanner leaves whites completely white and doesn't mess with the dark parts (although I do admit I sometimes use Photoshop to take out light reflections where they're not supposed to be).Β
I've never had a formal education either, so I can't even begin to tell you how glad I am with your elaborate explanation. Thanks again, and if you have any more questions, feel free to ask!
π: 0 β©: 1
if you were unfamiliar with john howe before (which i have to say kind of surprises me, he and alan lee are the two biggest tolkien illustrators in the world and worked together as conceptual designers on the LOTR and hobbit movies) i would reccommend giving his body of work a very thorough looking over. in many ways he is quite a bit more meticulous and detail oriented (particularly as a painter but also as a pencil drawer) than alan lee is. i've flip-flopped as to which of the two i liked better for years before realizing they're basically both like top tier kung fu masters of slightly different schools, hard to compare. that said i'm very familiar with the special pull of alan lee's beautiful work (and have tried the best i could to learn from it) i think alot of his success in making beautiful images, both as a pencil drawer and as a watercolorist, comes from knowing how and where to use the white of the paper behind the drawing/painting. both his drawings and paintings are very light-touch, feathery even, seeming to bleed out at the edges and he really emphasizes good contour line drawings, under both his pencil work and his watercolors. it's a beautiful way to work.
I'll usually compose my illustrations in my head first, and usually dive in with not a lot of prep work or preliminary sketches (although i've been trying to do more of those, particularly now that i'm doing more underdrawings for watercolor paintings, it's better if those dont bear exidence of extensive erasing or having re-drawn a limb or something several times until you've gotten it right - which is often necessary - and often it helps to o a preliminary drawing to map out where everything is going in the composition and in relation to eachother) usually i work without refferences; sometimes i'll draw myself in front of a mirror if it's a human(oid) figure in a difficult pose or one that i cant quite wrap my head around, but there's not a lot you can do for things like dragons (though while working on this piece i spent some time at the zoo drawing the crocodiles - among other creatures - that definitely helped me get a better handle on scale formations) as for lighting that's pretty much all from my head, or sometimes i'll look to another piece of art or a photo (i look at alan's stuff alot) but only if it really coincides with the lighting scheme i'm going for, as i find relying too heavily on another image can kind of hamper my ability to address my own piece, which is obviously different in alot of ways. for this reason (the fact that i work largely without refference material, something i'm also working on changing) i often find myself unsure of how dark to go with the pencils which is why i'll usually rely too much on the middle-tones, and often not go in for the dark darks until too late (when i've already toned the intended dark area with a lighter graphite, which is always a mistake i think; graphite sits better on the paper itself than it does ontop of other graphite, i think that's why all those photo-realistic pencil drawers will just go straight in to an area with whatever tone they intend it to be in the finished piece, like a black and white oil painting, i tend to work up tone and try and "massage and image into being, so to speak)
well having just used my 8b yesterday on a piece - which i don't normally do, in part because straedtler's darker pencils, 6 7 & 8B, are kind of rough and drag like charcoal or oil pastels and dont blend well with the lighter graphites, i tried out some derwents and cretacolors today which are not as black but go on much smoother - i can see how you get your pieces as dark as you do. let me know, do you hold off areas that you know are going to be really dark and then just hit them with an 8 or 9B or do you build up to those darks in progressive layers with different graphites. i'd be interested to know?
π: 0 β©: 1
I might've heard of John Howe, but I just never really looked into his work
I understand what you mean with relying too much on stock photos, and your method clearly works very well if these are the end results! It's obvious that you have heaps of talent if you can create these images purely from imagination, I'd have to look up pages and pages of reference just to get a feel for the textures I want to go for, and human figures are a real challenge. Although I suppose part of that is because I don't spend much time composing my own pictures, I tend to work from photos/real life. But that's because I've always found creating my own image a daunting task and I'm always afraid of disappointment (an idea painfully instilled in me by my high school arts teacher, oddly enough). But now that I know your strategy, I might just try to be more varied in my methods!
The dark parts in my drawings I usually first color in with 3B or so. This because I don't add 8B until the very last moment, so the picture needs to be sound shading-wise before I dare add it. And if I add a harder pencil like B or HB, the 8B won't stick, 3B gives a much better grasp for the softest pencils. 8B is the very last thing I apply to a drawing, because the slightest touch will smudge it. So when most people would consider a drawing done, I emphasize the darkest spots and then I absolutely cannot touch it anymore or I'll probably end up ruining it. The only thing I might do is sign it, but that's it. Hope this explanation makes sense
π: 0 β©: 0
This is splendid!
Will you upload all the ten illustrations? Also is this your first professional Tolkien illustrations or have you've done others in the past?
π: 0 β©: 1
well i'm being paid for it but that hardly makes this job professional. i'm working for a guy who's done the audiobook on his own (no licensing from the tolkien estate) and will be releasing it for free on youtube (don't tell anyone, he's hoping not to get shut down). it was the same story with the "long winter" series i did, only this'll be alot bigger
π: 0 β©: 1
Oh i see, black ops
π: 0 β©: 0
You know sometimes I doubt... sometimes Ekukanova come up with a wonderful piece all in color (Aegnor and Andreth recently) and I doubt... or I go see the Hobbit and there are those pretty drawings of John Howe at the end of it and I doubt... and then you come with another amazing piece and nothing feels more like Middle-earth to me than that. And I know that, in my humble opinion, you are the best illustrator of Tolkien's work in town.
The Dragons are great and, for once, your explanation was almost superfluous since the drawing speaks clearly by itself about your inspirations : when I saw it I thougt directly "vipers", "Weta's Smaug" and "Worm from Thror's map". 
Ho and I saw the Battle of the Five Armies yesterady : weakest of the trilogy for sure. If someone does a short version of The Hobbit in only three hours (instead of eight and a half) I think that last part would have only half an hour to be saved. Dain was both grotesque and cool though... but seriously : one headbutt was stupid but fine. Five of them !?! :/ Nope !
π: 0 β©: 3
doubting thomas 
i know what you mean, the description isnt really needed here, i had thought that the worms got across everything i'd wanted them to, and i'm glad to hear you agree. i figure the dwarves are standing on ravenhill, even though it's probably a little farther from the mountain than i would place the hill, ideally. actually the image of the dwarves and the mountain here was basically taken whole from a panel in a storyboarded prologue sequence i did for the hobbit years ago - back when the pj films we now have were just a dream - that the dwarves, after leaving moria, (the awakening of the balrog was pretty much my planned opening sequence) and wandering in the wild, they would climb this hill to see the lonely mountain loomin before them, we'd see thrain and his advisors looking over the mountain (which as dwarves would be adept at telling, shows all the telltale signs of containing great mineral wealth) and then their veiw would turn downward to the (at this stage very primitive looking) village of dale in the valley below. thrain (then shot in one of those great wide angles from the knees like charlton heston) beckons to his people, with the lonely mountain behind him.
grotesque and cool kind of sums up that whole movie
π: 0 β©: 1
About Ravenhill I don't doubt that sometimes you can increase distance if it is for composition purposes. That's how it works. Undoubtly one of the Hobbit movies few qualities was to enhance Ravenhill as the most notable height around the mountain... even though it's way too big for me and shows a lot too many mountains around the... Lonely Mountain !
I can't find the piece you are talking about. Could you update it ? The idea of a film with both WETA's Balrog and Smaug is appealing since they are both among the best monsters ever seen onscreen.
Speaking of old actors, I recently saw Spartacus by Stanley Kubrick (not a bad movie but it gets old) and realised that was the first movie I remember seeing with ol' Kirk Douglass and wondered how an actor with such an ugly face could have made his way in Hollywood and play so many main characters. But he got charisma, kind of a both soft and powerful voice for such a manly person, and I was wondering what you'll do if you had to cast him (in his prime not with the Kirk of 2014) in Middle Earth ?
I liked the second movie, mainly because of Smaug and cause I was prepared to see something in the same spirit than the first one, but BotFA was too much for me. Too much bad romance (in the end : what was Tauriel & Kili's story about except winning time on a 8h1/2 saga ?) ; too much stupid jokes (Alfrid... gosh... who is that supposed to entertain ? The five years old children who will not see the movies cause it's too violent for a five years old ?) ; characters with a deepness in their personnality and dialogue matching that of a Fast & Furious ("My mother died here" ; "Your mother loved you Legolas") ; absurd physics (the ice can support a fight but can be broken from underneath ?) and I'm not speaking about the "oh-my-gosh-my-palm-and-forehead-hurt-so-much" falling tower !
And that's only the worst moments : the scenario, the clichΓ© scenes, the filming, most of the movie is fucked up. For me it was a bad movie even though quite funny to watch after the first chock.
π: 0 β©: 1
Man, those scenes you listed made me feel like a Mordor-bound hobbit (okay that was an exaggeration). But seriously, when I realized what was wrong with the movie (which doesn't always happen with the first viewing, but it did for this one), I began to desperately hope for a beautiful emotional ending that would match or even surpass The Prologue in AUJ by being true to the book. But all we got was: Thorin's dead, Battle's over, foreshadowing to the non-canon adventures of Legolas, "Bilbo is out. Peace!", a quick Return Journey montage, and slightly disturbing ending... I was left thinking: "I literally just held my pee for two hours and this is all I get!"
On the bright side, I did love what they did with the auction scene! But that's about all that I liked about the ending besides Bilbo, Gandalf, and Bilbo's awesome costume!
π: 0 β©: 0
If anyone does make a shorter movie version of The Hobbit, they should get Turner here as their concept artist. I really want to see his Bolg donning that Balrog-inspired helmet on the Big Screen, not to mention his accurate rendition of the Longbeards!
π: 0 β©: 1
I do agree ! Β
π: 0 β©: 1
the dwarven thirst for gold is absolutely alluded to in nordic mythology; the dragon fafnir actually started out as a dwarf, but was transformed by greed and wickedness into a dragon (a thing that I thought the Battle of Five Armies alluded to very nicely - and purposely - with thorin) it was really Wagner who preceded tolkien in casting the greedy, secretive dwarves of nordic mythology as jews, and there was definitly some conflation of dwarves and jews before him i european folklore (like rumplestiltskin) but i think tolkien took what wagner and others had done and took it in his own direction, with the dwarves of middle-earth also embodying alot of the "positive" jewish stereotypes; they are hard working, industrious, brilliant artisans, and they always look out for eachother (i discuss this, and the biblical partiarch like role of figures like durin or thrain in the comments under Durin, the first drawing in this series)
as for the great worms, yeah, there wasnt a lot more to say for them than that, I started with a clear idea of what they should look like and move like and it wasnt that hard to get it down on paper. for some reason i actually find flightless dragons are more satisfying to draw than their winged cousins, maybe that's because they're easier to figure out anatomically (the now very heated question of "4 limbs or 6 limbs" isnt a concern with them) and also it's easier to get a sense of their weight and power (and their size relative to humans or dwarves, as the scale of a flying thing is often not easy to tell). but also, i think flightless "serpents", though almost never represented in the media, are actually more "classic" and archetypal in human mythology than flying dragons.
as for the hobbit films, while i didn't find BotFA as dispicably awful as apparently most people here, I am waiting for the dilligent fan cut that gives us the three hour single film the hobbit should have been
π: 0 β©: 0
I like this a LOT better than that weird were-worms cameo in BotFA. I've loved your art since I saw your Thorin Oakenshield (I do not have a thing for Thorin, I just really like your style of drawing him and everyone and eveything else from Tolkien's legendarium which I must admit I still have a pretty limited knowledge in having only read the Hobbit & LOTR.
I totally agree with you about movie Smaug affecting how you draw dragons. My mental image of Chrysophylax actually looks like him, only smaller with four legs and bluish-green scales... And ears!
π: 0 β©: 1
yeah the were-worms looked like enormous versions of the giant leeches from "king kong," not what i pictured. tolkien describes the were-worms as living far out in the eastern deserts, which i always took to mean something like the Gobi out in the middle-earth equivalent of mongolia or western china. I'd love to do a drawing of them; maybe two serpents fighting out on the dunes, coiling around eachorter clawing and flailing wildly, flinging huge heaps of sand high into the air.
glad to hear you like my work, it's always good to know a fellow tolkien fan appreciates it.
movie smaug as a model for Chrysophyax is a good one (I thought you'd only read the hobbit and LOTR?
π: 0 β©: 1
I've recently purchased and read a copy of Smith of Wootton Major and Farmer Giles of Ham (the latter I really enjoyed because of its ridiculous awesomeness which reminded me so much of The Hobbit and The Brave Little Tailor, one of my favorite fairy tales from my childhood!)
I would just love to see your take on the were-worms. To be honest I thought their entrance in the movie was kinda cool. But I was left disappointed by their lack of participation in the battle (though not enough Bear-assery is an even bigger crime!)
I've been appreciating your art for months. But I only just got a DA account yesterday
π: 0 β©: 1
well boy it's always great to see a long time appreciator of my art coming out of the woodwork, i'm very flattered that you enjoy my work so, I'll have to check out your smaug and farmer giles.
I would say (though you probably don't need me to tell you this) that the silmarillion is the big #3 tolkien book behind LOTR and the hobbit, much of the tolkien related fan art out there (including much of my own work) pertains to it, and personally i cant reccommend it highly enough; it'll open up the world of middle-earth for you like you wouldnt believe.
π: 0 β©: 1
Yeah, I kinda figured that out when I watched Silmarillion for Noobs (again thanks to one of your comments somewhere in the Numa Numa Numenor folder)
I reallly wanna get my hands on the Silmarillion! Only problem is that Game of Thrones is currently reigning over the Fantasy shelves in the bookstores of my hometown! But really, your art was what really makes me want to read The Silmarillion. Thank you, mellon!
π: 0 β©: 1
www.ae-lib.org.ua/texts-c/tolkβ¦
there's the whole motherfucker, including end notes
π: 0 β©: 1
Many thanks, mellon!
And thanks for sending me the E-text! Now I don't have to worry about breaking that damn spine!
π: 0 β©: 0
This is absolutely gorgeous! I love how soft your style is with such an awesome amount of detail.
π: 0 β©: 1
thank you, this is a photo of the work, i may try to get it scanned aswell
π: 0 β©: 0
You know I would love to see more of these illustrations for English language audio books.
π: 0 β©: 1
| Next =>