Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1480624
There was one environment the Art Department could not make in that unit set, the Hall of Memorial Trees, where the elves tended to images of their fallen, carved into the living trunks of trees. We dug deep into the Tolkien Legendarium to see who to feature here, and John Howe designed a dozen soulful sculptures which were lovingly brought to life by Neil Lafolley and his team of sculptors. One of the first things I did was go back to Tolkien's own drawings and paintings, studying their graphic quality. I dug into the broad history of Middle Earth drawings by Alan Lee and John Howe—and was graced with the ability to work with John Howe every day, to keep the pulse of Tolkien's DNA in our details. As we immersed ourselves in the details of Tolkien's vast world, they guided our design. What audiences know of the dwarven kingdom under the Misty Mountains are the ruins seen in the films. It was important to capture a Second Age culture that is based on the reverence for the stone that Gimli speaks of when he describes the glittering caves in LOTR: "We would tend these glades of flowering stone… With cautious skill, tap by tap—a small chip of rock and no more, perhaps in a whole anxious day…" In our Second Age Khazad-Dûm the dwarves honor the forms of the rock, more than they impose their will upon them. I went back to those early drawings of Alan Lee and John Howe to find elements of dwarvish architecture that were irregular and more intimate. From there, I explored various corners, both in wide shots and interiors, with many illustrators working simultaneously to speed up our process. In the end, though, it took exploring the world in 3D to resolve it, working in Unreal, SketchUp and Rhino, finding ways to give a sense of scale but still respecting the shapes of the stone and even finding a sense of intimacy. E. DWARFISH GUARDS LEAD ELROND THROUGH KHAZAD-DÛM (DWARVES). COMPOSITE SHOT—BRIDGE AND BRAZIERS ARE PRACTICAL, THE SURROUNDING ENVIRONMENT IS CG. F. PRINCE DURIN AND PRINCESS DISA ENTERTAIN ELROND IN DURIN'S HOME, KHAZAD-DÛM (DWARVES). ILLUSTRATION BY ROBERTO FERNÁNDEZ CASTRO. PHOTOSHOP OVER SKETCHUP MODEL BY DANIEL JENNINGS AND GORDON STOTZ. E D C F