What did your work consist of? Imagining the world in which we would evolve. I mainly worked on the settings. We would start by discussing a subject, I would go off and make a series of sketches, and then we would have a long discussion, through drawings, to come up with something that not only suited us aesthetically but also met the requirements of the shoot.
Númenor? I began by designing the map of Númenor, which is going to be of significant importance in the series: a vast island located off the coast of Middle-earth. Tolkien drew a lot of maps in his lifetime, but not this one. So we had to visualize what this world was like before the cataclysm that brought it down. We proceeded by doing a lot of research in the texts, grabbing a word here, an indication there... We had to locate it, check its size, set up the cities and different places. We spent a lot of time to know who could have built such road and when...
Confronting the fans? And at some point, we put this map online. Twenty minutes later, a fan sent us a message to tell us that we had made two mistakes: a city and an estuary were wrong!
A dwarf with no beard? On the lack of beard of the dwarf princess Disa: You have to accept that passionate people consider themselves the guardians of the temple. They are formidable and have encyclopedic knowledge. Some of them even speak the Elvish language invented by Tolkien. It is both frightening and exciting. So yes, we know that the slightest mistake will be blamed on us, but they are also a great source of information and their sites have always helped me a lot.
A Balrog with wings? Blasphemy! Some of them have been with us since the first Peter Jackson movie. I've also been fiercely criticized for putting wings on the Balrog, when today the concept is part of the populare culture...
Remaining faithful? In the end, only one thing is important: to go back to Tolkien's texts, keeping in mind that it is above all their spirit that we must illustrate.
How many drawings? I made 1500 sketches for the first season. And I'm already at 450 for the next one. I try to produce between five and ten sketches a day.
Real world references Unlike LOTR, which was a world in decline, the equivalent of Rome in the 17th century, with great empires that left nothing but ruins, here everything is alive, vigorous and populated... It's really going to be exciting. I only have one regret with the work done: not being able to discover it with a new look, like a regular spectator.[/qote]
'But very bright were the stars upon the margin of the world, when at times the clouds about the West were drawn aside.'
The Hall of Fire
(This post was edited by Voronwë_the_Faithful on Aug 13 2022, 10:07pm)