Tolkien's own LORD OF THE RINGS drawings

This could well be old news to you Tolkien maniacs out there, but I'm not much of a Lord of the Rings fan and until very recently I had no idea that J.R.R. Tolkien was a sometime-illustrator whose paintings and drawings appeared in some of the early editions of his books. They're an uneven lot, sometimes quite lovely and sometimes a bit crude.

I really doubt that the design of Smaug the dragon in Guillermo del Toro's upcoming Hobbit movies will look much like Tolkien's version, pictured below... Which is unfortunate, I think. I'd love to see Bilbo Baggins going up against a monster that looks like it's from a 1930s Popeye cartoon!




(Via Metafilter.)


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