One Smitten Kitten.

LOTR + purple

relatable things in lotr/the hobbit

We’re so lucky they filmed Lord of the Rings when they did. Twenty years later, they would’ve had Viggo Mortensen riding a green bike that they CGI into a horse because that’s better for some reason.

This simple feeling… is beyond Disney’s comprehension.

Kids, kids. Are you telling me you think they didn’t use CGI in Lord of the Rings? One of the characters is entirely mo-cap and CGI! It has dragons and mammoths, and I promise they didn’t really build gigantic statues to sail boats through.

no, people are not saying they didn’t cgi the dragons they’re saying lotr used real horses unlike the above example of editing in a dog where they might have held an actual dog.

Exactly. LOTR was a masterpiece in balancing CG and practical effects, they didn’t overuse CG. That didn’t mean they didn’t use it, it means that when practical was better, they used practical. When LOTR used CG, it was because it could not be done at the time with practical effects; you just can’t make someone look like Gollum without making their suit and prosthetics impossible to act in. This was before motion capture, they had to animate Gollum BY HAND using Andy Serkis as a reference. Four tusked elephants with tiny people walking around on them aren’t exactly on sale, nor are fell beasts.

Isengard and Orthanc? Bigature (miniature but like, the size of a tennis court). Minas Tirith? Bigature. Helm’s Deep, the Black Gate, Barad-dur, Minas Morgul, Osgiliath, even elements of Lothlorien, Moria, and the Grey Havens? BIGATURES. Hobbits and Gandalf in one shot? Almost always tricks of perspective with, for example, a table set that was made in 3 pieces to move and make you think Tiny Elijah Wood™ was sitting at the same table as Giant Ian McKellan™, not greenscreen. They literally went so far as to make the Hobbits’ clothes (on the taller actors, not their little stunt doubles) with thicker thread to make their smallness look real.

Those statues, the Gates of Argonath? CG. The gorge and the boats? Real.

But the thing about the top example with the dog? They’re doing it because CG is less expensive because animal handlers have unions, while CG artists don’t and work in sweatshop conditions.

Regarding the “giant statues to sail boats through” especially, it was such a clever work of blending bigatures and real river exteriors filmed near Queenstown with actors/stunt doubles/scale doubles in the boats.

This is Richard Taylor with the bigature for a sense of scale from the behind the scenes special features (ngl, I want them to frame my front door) :

And this is what it looked like with all the lighting and framing put in place, with bluescreens to add background and foreground digitally:

And the gorge they transposed it over:

And the final result with the transposed river and sky and matched up colour-grading:

There is so much detail on the bigatures as well, that they incorporated the concept that the statues were only carved out of the cliffsides to a point, but that they constructed a quarry and cut the rock to build the rest. The bigatures actually include the worn down and aged remains of the quarry.

Definitely not the same as pasting on a dog for budget reasons.

The Best Dwarf ™ with his hobbit wife in their beautiful cottage.🤭 “It’s been 27 years… why are you still looking at me like that?”

One of my favorite things to draw is lovestruck Bofur~

[Sketch Commission] Dwalin x Primrose (OC) for @angelcrumblecake ♥

ive watched every tolkien movie i own in the last two days and i have no excuse for this and no explanation 

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bifur, bofur and bombur

my heart melts when I think of ori knitting mittens/blankets and bofur making wooden toys for little frodo

ori, dori and nori

balin and ori 🪶💤

i love them so much..........

they stole my heart my heart. it was mine. frome my mother. from mum

I watched Hobbit yesterday for the first time in 23 years of my life, and I've been sad about Thorin ALL DAY so I don't know about your canon, but everyone's alive in mine U-U

What is it, Edward? Where's the fu*king loot?

@googoogojob , you are the fucking ace of Ofmd Mermay 2024!!! Each of your Mermay drawings is like finding a nugget of gold!