In a Hole in the Ground There Lived a Hobbit…

Literary Geeks rejoice! The Hobbit movie is almost here!!

I am especially excited as I’ve recently become a big fan of the show “Sherlock”, and I can’t wait to see Martin Freeman and Benedict Cumberbatch taking on Tolkien! A while back, Peeg had drawn this fantastic Hobbit scene, titled “A Shortcut”… yes, yes, all hard core Tolkien Geeks know that’s actually from Fellowship… In any case, I really struggled to do this image justice with my Copics, and I’ve been working on it and adding to it for over a month.

Here is my little progress tutorial, hope you enjoy!

I began with my line art, and first decided that I wanted my light source to be coming from the top left of the page. I am NOT a light source expert, to me, it simply means that things closer to the top left will be lighter, and things further away will be darker. I add highlights and shadows by where I “feel” they should go, rather than the actual physics of the situation. Sooo… I began by adding in my highlights and shadows. I used Copics Wo and W1 for the the shadows, Y0000 for highlights.

Next I began to work on the tree. I flicked up from the base of the tree (darker area) into the lighter area. I wanted the wood to have a warm feeling, like the sun was shining on it, so I used earth tones that have a bit of red in them. The tree is E30, E35, E08, E37, E29, and I added Y04 to the highlighted areas. I used the same principles in the log. I colored in one direction to establish a wood grain.

Beginning stages of the tree

Tree, mostly completed, beginning work on the grass.

Next I went in and added my lightest color of grass (YG21) over the areas I had previously highlighted with Y0000. Then I added my darkest grass color (YG25 and YG17) over where I had shadowed. After that I began to blend them together using an assortment of YG’s. I chose yellow green over pure green to enhance the sunny feeling.

The sapling in the corner should have the most sunlight on it., so I beefed up the yellow. What I love about Peeg’s line art is that he gives you more than enough space to get your markers in, but still enough detail to guide your shading. You can also see above how the grass came together. I tried to keep all of my marker strokes going in the same direction to create the idea that maybe the wind was blowing the grass.

Finally, getting the hobbit himself!

Since the title of the scene is “A Shortcut to Mushrooms”, I should comment on the mushrooms themselves. I didn’t want to color them the stereotypical red fantasy mushroom, because the scene in the book is about how much hobbits love to EAT mushrooms. So, I colored them E30, used YR02 for a middle tone, and W5 to shadow.  Before I began to seriously work on the hobbit’s skin, I went through and really darkened up where I wanted the shadows to fall. For his skin I used E0000, E000, E11, E21, E00. Shadowed him with W3, W5.

 

Hobbit’s all done. His clothes are much brighter than a hobbit’s would be, but, hey, its my picture.

So, the area behind the Hobbit ( I guess I really should ask Peeg which hobbit it is. Pippin?). I admit I was confused about what it was, so I thought I would make it a shadowy area, so the hobbit could emerge into the sun filled glade of fungus. I wanted to give the shadows some depth, so I layed down some Y17, RV13, B91, and BV 23. I followed the circular pattern of the line art.

So, here he is, all finished up. To blend up the background, I colored over it with E 31, then freshened up the color, then I blended it all together with W3. To avoid making this blog post unreadably long, I left out some of my notes. If you have questions on an area of the picture that I didn’t color, please put them in the comments and I will answer them!

Peeg (go to his blog, enjoy his amazing paintings! Commission one while you’re there!) colored his hobbit differently, I couldn’t find it on his blog but it was on his facebook page. Here is his version! He used more orange undertones, and more purples. His is much closer to what the scene would really look like in Middle Earth.

Shortcut, colored by Guy Gondron with Copics.

With no further babble, here’s the line art so you can color him yourself!

Shortcut to Mushrooms, by Guy Gondron