Lord of the Rings
An Illustrated Adventure.
I started a new chapter here, and what better adventure than Lord of the Rings to begin with? My first attempt at bringing black and grey realism to leather adapting techniques I’ve refined over a decade and jumping straight into the deep end.
Appealing to such enthusiastic fans of the iconic Tolkien Books, I knew I had to go the extra mile to make something special.
What a project this evolved into.
One Pair to rule them all,
One Pair to find them,
Expanding on the portrait of Gandalf, I added my own elven architecture to the background to frame the panel itself. From there I added his enemies, Saruman and Balrog, emphasising their own settings and characteristics. Saruman watching tirelessly from Isengard and Balrog roaring from the ruins of Moria with his lash outstretched hunting for Gandalf once more.
One Pair to bring them all,
And in the darkness bind them.
Frodo, on the other hand has different enemies. Gollum, found stalking him through the eerie caverns in Emyn Mail and the Witch King of Agmar leading Sauron’s armies into further conflict.
Fortunately for Frodo, he has the Leah of Lorien entertwined in the architecture next to him, reminding his foes that he’s not on this venture alone.
As a final touch, I added Gold to the ring itself, alongside the eye that continues to search for it, and tattooed the original elvish quote engraved into it.
If you look closely you will recognise that the map on one side is of the adventures beginning (The Shire) while the other, its end (Mordor).
‘Honestly, they’re absolutely incredible”
- Adam
