Middle Earth Visions

The Hollywood version of an image can become so immensely pervasive that, at times, it can be almost impossible to picture anything else in your mind. The Lord of the Rings/Hobbit franchise is one such example. Trying to imagine middle earth with different geography, heroes with different faces, villains with different armour, can strain at your imagination. That is why it's important that at times you need to take part in a little visual palette cleansing. Inspired by a twitter post that's exactly what i've done here. I've gone on little visual journey through different illustrators interpretations of hoe Tolkiens worlds look. I'm not going to blether about them much. I just hope you find stuff that you've not seen before and that you like.  

Sara Kipin

This book cover reminded me of Frank Frazetta's illustration of Orcs. The kind of grinding march towards battle is a great image.

Frank Frazetta

Angus McBride 

And you can't go wrong with a bit of Angus McBride. His illustrations for the MERP publications were all gorgeous pieces of art.

Angus Mcbride

Cor Blok

But sometimes it's worth diving into lesser known stuff just to give your mind a jolt.

Stephanie Vecellio

Frank Frazetta

Ingahild Grathmer (Queen Margarethe II)

Tom Jung

And you have to remember the Jackson version wasn't the first attempt at bring LOTR to the screen. This poster image from an uncredited Tom Jung is classic.

Eric Fraser

At the same time there is something to be said for the classic black and white illustration that apes the look of the woodcut. An attempt to show what illustrations from versions of the tale may have looked like if the were published in middle earth perhaps.

M. Belomlinskij

Frank Frazetta

Jian Guo

And we have to remember that LOTR is international, seeing how different cultures represent the tale in their own way is always enlightening from a design point of view.

M. Belomlinskij

Ted Naismith

Sergey Yuhimov

Using medieval paintings as an influence for art work shows is perfect for the near mythical tales.

Sergey Yuhimov

Livia Rusz

And it shouldn't be forgotten that these are books for children.

Ian Miller 

Ian Miller 

A familiar artist takes on a familiar story but produces something you couldn't forsee.

JRR Tolkein

But it must always be remembered that the author had his own vision of his own world.