Inspired by Middle-earth in 2023

Hello! Happy New Year! I hope you had an enjoyable festive break of whatever flavour you prefer!

This year I’ve taken the decision that this year I want the art tier benefits to focus on work that’s inspired by Middle-earth.

Many of you know me from my Middle-earth art - primarily for The One Ring Roleplaying Game first edition, but also from things like Battle of the Five Armies Board Game, some moonlighting on an expansion for War of the Ring, for standalone Middle-earth games like War of the Ring Card Game, even Games Workshop’s Middle-earth Strategy Battle Game - however briefly that one might have been!

(A cover I made for Sophisticated Games/Kosmos for one of their Middle-earth board games. Image ©2014 Sophisticated Games Ltd and Kosmos Verlag)

And so I’m going to make a return journey, after a few years rest from Middle-earth, refreshed and reinvigorated to continue and renew some work I started a long time ago!

(a spread from The One Ring Roleplaying Game ©2014 Sophisticated Games Ltd and Cubicle 7 Entertainment Ltd)

My intention for the art tier this year is to further explore peoples and places inspired by JRR Tolkien’s literary works set in his Middle-earth.

(Cards from The War of the Ring Card Game Game by Ares Games! Art is ©2022 Ares Games Srl. Photo courtesy of Anthony Meyer)

What to expect

I’m responding (at last!) to a lot of requests to do this, but I needed to be clear on what my own intentions are in order to do it. This might all seem a bit odd and overwrought, but there’s a lot of history between me and various Middle-earth projects, and I want to be very clear what I’m about here, for my own sanity. I think when you pour all of yourself into something over a long period of time, it can be dangerous territory when it comes to mental wellbeing. And I’m all about the wellbeing these days. :)

I am not making work to be used with any particular game, roleplaying or otherwise. This is an exploration of peoples and places inspired by Middle-earth through my artwork.

I like Middle-earth, and I want to make some more art inspired by it.

(It's the board from the brilliant The Battle of Five Armies Board Game by Ares Games! Art is ©2014 Ares Games Srl.)

That you might find it useful for your own roleplaying game sessions is an absolute bonus, and I’m very happy if you do find a use for the work at the table. But I won’t be specifically engaging with any gaming content, out of a fond respect for my friends who make ‘the real thing’ these days. I don’t want anyone to mistake what I’m about here. This is about my personal artwork inspired by Lord of the Rings et al.

Being entirely transparent, having done the official RPG art job, I am uncomfortable when my work is used to criticise the work of other artists and vice versa, and that's put me off for a while. From this side of the canvas, art isn’t a running race. And the inspirational material can cope with many, many interpretations. I like the work of John Howe, and I like the work of Cor Blok too. I like enjoy the work of Alan Lee and the work of Tomás Hijo. Victor Ambrus and Angus McBride are unimpeachable giants of Middle-earth art to me.

“All is best”, as the zen koan has it. (But I only have Tomás Hijo prints on my wall. heheh) 

I will also necessarily be using some careful language around “inspiration” and “inspired by” in order to protect myself.

What I plan to do

Each month I’ll pick a topic - usually a people or a place for each month, and make some images around that theme. Sometimes it’ll be research, then sketching, then a final painting. Sometimes it’ll just be drawings. Sometimes it might just be text discussing my working process, previous images made on the topics, or theorising about why I might choose to depict things a certain way. I like to mix it up. Sometimes a topic might spill over one month into the next.

If I can maintain momentum (and I don’t see why not) I think it would be nice to end the year with a body of work which I can do something with. Provided we stick to “inspired by” I think we could maybe see a little art book or something similar. That would be nice, eh?

The idea of having a theme for the year seems cool.

Scope

At the outset I have the following parameters for the project:

Inspired by The Lord of the Rings plus Appendices and The Hobbit. This is the scope of the work I’ve made in the past and it makes sense to me to stick to that. It’s what I’m used to. Much as I love the Silmarillion and earlier ages of the world, I think sticking to the Third Age in the big two novels as inspiration is where my interest lies. And I’d need to sit down and closely reread all that extra material, and no one wants to pay me to do that! So let’s stick to what I know best. I’ll have enough work to do reminding myself of salient info from those two books!

I’ll be continuing the themes that my more official and direct Middle-earth art was known for - of Middle-earth as inspired by it’s known influences of William Morris, The Kalevala, Beowulf et al, using a working knowledge of Early Medieval material culture and art history to inform the design work. For me this was the real crux of what I was always interested in, and I think there’s room still to pursue this.

To begin

I’m thinking that I will begin with taking some inspiration from the Elves of Mirkwood. I like the idea of starting with a slightly more mixed, everso slightly “rustic” for want of a more precise word, culture. And then reverse engineering the other Elves in Middle-earth. Starting with more and refining to less is a good way to do things, I think.

After that I’d like to finish off the set of nine black riders I started some time ago. It’d be cool to have all nine, eh?

Looking forward to it!
Happy New Year!