The Witch-king of Angmar from The Lord of the Rings. Rapidographs, dry brush, and India ink. 8 x 10. 1965.

"Out of the wreck rose the Black Rider, tall and threatening, towering above her."
The Return of the King, Book V: Chapter VI; The
Battle of the Pelennor Fields.

This drawing was done about seven months after I first read Tolkien's Trilogy. I began drawing illustrations of various passages pretty much as soon as I'd read the book. I've mentioned before that at that time, I'd seen almost no illustrations from the Trilogy, so I was mostly on my own. I did a lot of sketching and actually began gathering photographic reference on swords, lightning, and such. I probably completed half dozen or so drawings before deciding I wanted to get better and then return to the subject. This was one of my more successful drawings of that period. Looking back at the material I drew and the reference I gathered, I'd have to say that this was probably my first relatively sustained effort at coming to grips with drawing as illustration.

I was a geology major in college at the time, and had had no real art classes beyond the occasional required semester in junior high school. I was pretty much making it up as I went along at the time. Perhaps because of the geo/paleo background, I used a Dimorphodon as a starting point for a model for the dead beast.

I had yet to discover flexible penpoints, so I was still using Rapidographs. I'd gotten pretty good at coaxing variations of line out of a technical pen using pressure changes, and I was emulating drybrush to a degree by lifting the point of the pen as I drew some of the lines. There is a lot of actual drybrush in this drawing; only the Good Lord himself knows what kind of a brush I was using. I certainly didn't know anything about them at the time! It could have been a whisk broom! <g>

I knew nothing about white-out either back then so everything pretty much had to be 'right' or be correctable within the drawing as it went along. I think some of this drawing evolved around passages I didn't like and had to rework in order to have the drawing as a finished piece. I can't say for certain but I think the paper here was probably taken from a sketchbook. It's thin but a better grade than typewriter paper.

Many years ago while I was in college, one of my best pals asked me to do drawings from the trilogy on the end sheets in his personal hardcover copy. I was a lot younger and pretty nervous about drawing in a real book. I also didn't know about white-out so I felt I couldn't afford to make a mistake. The drawings were okay but pretty tight. And I hadn't learned much about drawing or reference back then. But they were okay.

However, I never did a final drawing in his copy of The Two Towers. Probably end of the year/out of time sort of thing.

He never forgot. And eventually asked me to complete the series. He sent me his old copy of the second volume, and this is the drawing I did in the book.

The book paper wasn't the best paper to be inking on which is why this time around, I inked the drawing with a brush. Easier on the paper surface.

Of all the possibilities for illustrations in the book, I tackled the Ents because I never felt, in the few times I had essayed them before, that I'd really gotten close. At least not with a complete vision. Here, I came closer.

In 1977, television broadcast a 2 hour animated version of The Hobbit produced by Rankin/Bass. A friend of mine, Lester Abrams, was the principal designer for the film, creating designs for the characters in the film.

In conjunction with the broadcast, Abrams Books (no relation to my friend) published a hardcover coffee table edition of The Hobbit, illustrated from cells, storyboards, and design sketches for the cartoon. However, because it's a long book, a lot of story had to be edited out of the cartoon. Consequently, there were passages in the book where few or no possible illustrations were available. My friend recommended me to do some of the necessary drawings to fill in. Abrams needed some 40 drawings as I recall which was more than I could do by the required deadline. Other artists, including Gray Morrow and Charles Vess, were brought in as well. Our brief was to draw our illustrations in the style of the film. By the time the mad scramble was over, I'd done about 20 of the drawings, some larger and more elaborate, and some like this one, fairly simple.

In a few cases, there was really nothing to go on for guidance, as was the case with the thrush. The bird, who plays a significant role in the unfolding of the events in the story, appears towards the end of the book. Here, the thrush is hunting snails at dusk.