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#ents #tolkien #treebeard #lordoftherings
Published: 2016-06-30 09:06:39 +0000 UTC; Views: 6945; Favourites: 130; Downloads: 44
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I'll come up with something to say about this one in a day or two (the ents' appearance being one of the more debated aspects of Tolkien's world, I feel any attempt at them should include an explanation) but for now I just wanted to get it out there. Likely this'll be the first of several depictions I do of the fourth and by all means most different of the 'free peoples'Related content
Comments: 20
Ok, it's official: I'm in love with your art style. It's original and at the same time it reminds me of Alan Lee's work. I'm fond of conceptual and fantasy art, and your gallery is one of the most interesting I've seen here 
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Well thank you, being compared to alan lee is always high praise (totally unmerited as well, having gotten to see some of his original work in person recently i can say the man is a consumate genius with a pencil on a level i can, as yet, only dream of reaching
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Β I just wanted to pop in and say that I really do like this particular Ent; I have to admit that he makes me wonder what the rest of his ... Brothers? Comrades? Cousins? ... must look like; for some reason I tend to associate this fellow with one of the younger Ents, although I'm not quite sure why this should be the case.
Β Perhaps it's the fact that he has relatively short "hair" as opposed to the Mane one associates with the Elders of the Tree-Folk?
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I like this ent. I think there has always been a problem whether ents should be more mannish or more treeish.
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it's a delicate balance to be sure, and most interpretations that i've seen (likely owing to the films' leading example) are skewed too far over in the "moving tree" direction i think, the ents, though undeniably "treeish" (and progressively moreso with age) are ultimately, like the dwarves, rough immitations in form and concept of the children of illuvatar, and therefore likely in my mind to be creatures of flesh and blood rather than cellulose (though again, straining the line) this one was taken almost direcltly from the opening description tolkien offers us of treebeard; tall head, short neck, trollish face, smooth bare arms, barky torso, ect.
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Lovely, as always. I've really enjoyed your insight on the Middle Earth Mythos through the sketch blog (as well as your art of course), and have been looking forward to your take on Ents.Β
But really, thanks so much for your art and writings in the Tolkien Sketch Blog - I'm reading the trilogy for only the second time in my adult life and it is only just now that the scope and the gravity of the series of interconnected works that is the Middle Earth Mythos is beginning to sink in. Your writing here has been excellent food for thought.
I think you have a very intuitive understanding of myth, obviously from close familiarity with it, but it's just that you really "get" what the conventions of that ancient mode of symbolic communication and storytelling, and that lends so much to what you're doing here. Your entry for your depiction of Luthien dancing before Morgoth is just one example, but I think the one that really made me appreciate your perspective. It's just some really stimulating discussion on some stuff that really near and dear, and we're all the better for it. Thanks a lot, man.
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tolkien's world, like most good creative undertakings, is not all surface but improves and deepens considerably with return visits (to a degree that never fails to amaze me actually, twenty years into his books and I feel I'm always uncovering new layers of middle earth)
an understanding of the workings of mythology is, i believe, essential to any successful attempt at fantasy fiction, either written, drawn, filmed, ect. in a way i think that's really what the fantasy genre is; the means by which our old myths continue to find a place for themselves in our world today. No one has pulled it off better than tolkien because, i believe, nobody has come at it from a more complete understanding of our myths and the "mythic process" than tolkien did. Most of what I've learned about the workings of mythology (even mythology in no way related to tolkien's creation) has come through a study of tolkien's process. the ents are as good an example as almost anything else in his fictional world. most other writers, upon creating such wondrous creatures, wouldn't be able to resist going into extensively detailed physical descriptions, making sure we the audience knew what a cool thing they'd made, yet tolkien's descriptions are tantalizingly (almost perplexingly) scant, and this is entirely effective, because in a sense we all know basically what an ent is without him having to tell us, we know they fit somewhere in that broad mythical cannon of "giants," unfathomably old, immensly strong, forest guardians, sort of greenman-esq. they're already kind of accounted for in our collective mythical subconscious (as are their dark counterpart, trolls, with whom they share considerable common ground in our muddled human traditions) to the point where it would almost steal the fun from the experience to hear them described as if they were some sci-fi beast tolkien felt he needed to impress us with.
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It's always nice to see how you would depict the creatures of Tolkien's worldΒ Β
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it's always fun to do so
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Such a beautiful illustration, this is a perfect representation in my opinion. Very well done!
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thank you, the ents are a tricky one, as tolkien is pretty sparing on details.
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Yes that is true, I see you're a Tolkien fan ^^. You are welcome
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This is beautiful. Looks blends right in with the trees, but is not 100% treeish, just as Tolkien described. Yeah the ents are apparently giants with tree-like colors and skin patterns but not actual trees. (The more tree-like ents in the movies, probably fit better as Huans 
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for this one i was working straight from tolkien's description of treebeard: tall head, short neck, trollish face, smooth bare arms, barky torso, and ultimately more a humanoid creature than a man-shaped tree. they count themselves as one of the 'peoples' alongside elves men and dwarves, and seem like good intermediaries between other speaking beings and trees. the Huorns are entirely trees, and though they can move, i've always enjoyed how tolkien doesnt attmept to make anthropomorphise them or make them "nice" the idea that trees are alive and conscious but not necesarilly sypathetic and entirely inhuman is tremendously appealing to me
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Good to see you back in action again following your vacation. Yes, the idea of the tree-giant ents really gets the imagination going all over the place for artists. No one really got a clarification out of the Professor either, so we'll have to go with interpretation. Lots of room for interpretation...
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Well i wish "back in action" really desckribed it, but i may be soon, in a big way
with this guy i just tried taking tolkien exactly at his word with the description of treebeard, but then ents also look notably different from one another, so drawing just one ent doesnt quite "tell the story"
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