The One Ring - Art-Wod portfolio cycle project

This project is made as part of the Art-Wod program's portfolio cycle project. I'm quite happy with how it turned out, and if anyone hasn't joined Art-Wod yet - do it! There are few resources out there that teach you in the ways of art as effectively as Antonio and co. does.

https://artwod.com/

-- THOUGHT PROCESS --

Anyway, my idea for this project was to re-design some of the main characters from Lord of the Rings in the style of Mad Max, or in something suitably punkish, post-apocalyptic in general. The challenge was to keep the spirit of the characters, while also adding in various modern elements (mullets included).

Aragorn's design took some iteration, but I settled on something which is closer to Mad Max himself's look, seeing as they are fairly similar in both their roles and how testosterone-fueled they are. His silhouette, in the movies at least, is defined by his long cloak and sword, so I figured a longer leather jacket would be suitable, if not outrageously impractical. The concern for practicality ceases once magic is involved, though, so I didn't sweat that...

Gimli is closest to the fantasy aesthetic. The post-apocalyptic vibe, I feel, comes from the way he patched together his armor, as well as the rhasta hair (and beard) style. It was important for me to still keep the various fantasy races' cultural identity, which is decidedly fantastical in how it looks, so it was tricky to incorporate it with more modern elements.

Legolas is a pretty boy, so to cover up for my envy, I covered up his face. He is very much inspired by the soldiers from WWI who fought in the trenches, and I guess Middle-Earth stinks, considering the state its in. His cultural identity in all the swivels and filigree was a bit easier to figure out after I had a headstart with Gimli.

Gandalf, much like in the books, was always his own separate entity, so it felt appropriate for me to go a bit more outside the box with his design. I was wondering whether to make him more of a hermit, but that I felt was too generic and obvious as a direction. The epiphany came to me whilst I was listening to 'British Steel' by Judas Priest. You can figure out where the main inspiration came from...

Also, I found the idea that he would scream 'YOU SHALL NOT PASS!' into his microphone-staff like a metal vocalist quite funny.

There you have it as far as thought process goes. You can find various sketches and thumbnails of varying quality (and you will not find all the additional A4 paper that went into this, as laziness prevented me from approaching a scanner). Enjoy!