The Art of the Lord of the Rings Trilogy

The Art of The Lord of the Rings

by Gary Russell

With complete access to artwork created over a five-year period, this authoritative and insightful book illustrates the creative development of the entire Lord of the Rings movie trilogy.

This official book contains over 400 exclusive images; the very best artworks from the first three Art books are collected together, many much larger than they have been seen before, with all-new text and information and new interviews with many of the artists. In addition, the book includes 100 unpublished artworks from the extended Director’s cuts of the three films, and digital imagery and designs not available when the first books were published.

Printed on high-quality art paper, this lavish book is ideal for Tolkien collectors, film enthusiasts and art students and finally allows the massive undertaking of making The Lord of the Rings trilogy to be fully appreciated.

Genres: Art, Fantasy, Fiction, Film, Media Tie In, Reference

224 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2004

About the author

Gary Russell is a British freelance writer, producer and former child actor. As a writer, he is best known for his work in connection with the television series Doctor Who and its spin-offs in other media. As an actor, he is best known for playing Dick Kirrin in the British 1978 television series The Famous Five.

Reviews

[Sean Smart · Rating 5 out of 5]

A beautiful book

[Parka · Rating 5 out of 5]

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(More pictures at parkablogs.com)

The Art of the Lord of the Rings is actually a condensed edition of the three LOTR art books published earlier, namely The Art of The Fellowship of the Ring, The Art of The Two Towers and The Art of The Return of the King. This art book has 223 pages while the three art books have 192 pages each.

So what's the difference?

Well, the art here is arranged by artists and a few more unpublished illustrations are included. Other than that, the bulk of the work here is pretty a rehash of content from the those three art books.

The primary focus here is on the concept sketches of Alan Lee and John Howe, which takes up to 190 pages. You'll see the pencil sketches that give form to the world of Middle-earth. The second chapter is on Weta Workshop and its artists. The gallery showcases more character designs and sculptures. The last chapter, with only a few pages, is devoted to the digital painting, which mainly talks about visual compositing and matte painting.

The commentary and depth of the books are great. There are captions for every sketch and illustration provided, both from the artists and Gary Russell. These includes the various iterations from the discarded to the final designs used in the movies. The artists talk about the English and European influence on their sets and architecture, compositing photos and matte painting, techniques used to create the rich and seemingly authentic world, costume designs and other elements of the film.

The books provide a great insight into the amount of art and details required to produce a movie — three actually — of such massive scale. What you don't see in this book is talk on the production aspect, which is left to The Making of the Movie Trilogy and The Lord of the Rings Official Movie Guide.

If you already have the three art books, this book is definitely less appealing unless you're the got-to-have-it-all person. As a standalone, it's still worth the money and is a decent artistic companion to the movie.

[Poppy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really wish I could draw.

[Katelyn Jenkins · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very good visuals (meaning, mainly pictures). An inspiring read and it was very interesting to see how ideas were developed for Weta's team at the time of LOTR's creation :)

[Mayu Vargas · Rating 5 out of 5]

No tenía ni idea de que el 25 de marzo es el día de leer a Tolkien!!! 😆 pues termine de leer este libro de Gary Russell y de todos los libros de arte de la película de "El señor de los anillos" este es el mejor, tiene arte conceptual, dibujos de Lee y Howe , y un sin fin de historias 🖤.ñ

[Jaimie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Having previously read Gary Russell's the Art of the Fellowship of the Ring and knowing that there are two companion volumes which focus on the second and third films in the trilogy I expected this fourth art of volume to be a sort of mashup of all three books and to contain much of the same content. Though I would have been happy to revisit some of the same contents, I was pleased to find that instead this book was meant to be an expansion and contain a mixed collection of a whole bunch of the artwork that didn't make it into the previous three books. Normally I prefer these types of books to focus on one subject (one movie in this case), but since the story of the Lord of the Rings is one long epic it is actually more useful to see the full range of design work produced over the development of the three films. Russell does organize the presentation of the artwork logically, though, focusing first on the overall visual effects team before featuring the two principle conceptual artists (Alan Lee and John Howe), and finally filling the rest of the book with the communal designs and efforts created by the Weta Workshop. This progression made the story of the creation of the films really come to life, as Russell and the artists discuss how the project evolved through the art design process and how their personal interactions with Tolkien's work shaped their vision. The epic story of the Lord of the Rings in movie form would have been nothing without careful treatment of the visuals, so I am glad that the incredibly hard work of the many artists who worked on this project is featured to wonderfully in Garyh Russell's books.

[Saranya ⋆☕︎ ˖ [hibernating] · Rating 4 out of 5]

beautifulll!!!!

[Patrick riley · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you have ever read lord of the rings or seen the movies you should know what it's about.People fight in it and people argue.It's a really good movie or a book. If you have not seen the book but read the movie you should read the book.If you have not seen the movie but read the book you should watch the movie.

[betanine · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was drawn to this book as a fan of Alan Lee and John Howe’s art for Middle Earth. Reading about the thought process and how they used the art to create the magic for the movies was surprisingly interesting to me.

[Kayleigh · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is a beautiful book. The book is basically a collection of the 3 earlier books with some new art. I had hoped for more about the costumes but there isn't much in this one. I do enjoy it! It feels nice to finally have all four of these books.

[Sebastián Posada · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Paul Lasaine visdec pieeces make it worth the purchase. Add the John How and Alan Lee conceptual drawings and this book becomes magic.

[Kirby Davis · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderfully broad look at how Peter Jackson, Alan Lee, John Howe, and all the other artisans at Weta developed into cinematic form the look and feel of Tolkien's Middle Earth.

[Douglas Summers-Stay · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed learning about the process-- how Jackson would say, you're all doing the same thing, go wild-- and they would make all these crazy designs like having the Watcher in the Water being a giant seal-- and then they would go back to almost what they started with, but pulling in a few of their favorite details from the wild designs. I think that's a good way to do creative work.
I liked how respectful they were of the books in their designs.
Some of the most interesting designs were for the Easterlings, who you barely notice in the movie.
I liked how the armorers would come to the artists and say, look, you can draw this stuff, but you can't actually wear it in combat, the joints won't bend the right way, these spikes will poke the wearer... it made it so that there was a reality to the armor fantasy drawings often are missing.
I always like the unused examples in these books-- it makes me imagine an entire alternate movie, where everything is a little different.

[Serge Pierro · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Art of The Lord of the Rings is a fine collection of concept art used for the production of the movies based on the trilogy. Alan Lee and John Howe, amongst others, are represented here and provide great insight into the inner workings of both the art and its use within the production. Nice pencil work and beautiful digital matte paintings are some of the highlights. Recommended for concept artists and fans of the series.

[Mark Matzke · Rating 5 out of 5]

concept-art lovers unite! and spend an hour or two with this tome

[Federico · Rating 5 out of 5]

A panoramic view on the arts of the film... with scratch, designs and in-work suggestions.... Good book to read and view, like the others 2! :)

[Franc Evan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love the pencil sketches...

[Orma]

Quando una ha delle amiche fuori come balconi, può anche capitare che le vengano regalati libri così...

[Charlie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Personally I wouldn't call this an 'art book' due to the distinct lack of artwork inside it, a couple of sketches sure, but when I bought it on amazon, I was expecting what anyone would be if ordering an art of book. I was expecting a book filled with tones of concept art and not with mostly words...

Other than this odd name choice which doesnt fit it, the book was interesting enough to peruse.