Gollum's getting weirder. Some of these are good, some of these are bad. I'll let you tell me what's what.I really like that Gollum isn't given much explanation in Riddles in the Dark. It makes it a lot stranger and a lot scarier. Bilbo just wanders further down into the mountain, having escaped the goblins, and finds this pool. The narration tells us that there are other things in the old mountains besides Goblins; things slithered their way in when the mountain was still young and stayed. After being nearly killed by the goblins, Bilbo finds something that eats those goblins there at the heart of the mountain. And on top of all that, it lives by some weird code and agrees to a riddle contest with Bilbo? So weird. Gollum is the strange midpoint between the dark unknown and the familiar.
1,3,5,6,9
ReplyDeleteI think I would really love it if you kept your Gollum a silhouete in the shadows in your final piece. There's something about these little dark figures with their luminous eyes.
ReplyDeleteAnd certainly the Gollum of the Hobbit doesn't really need to look like the Gollum that everybody knows from Lord of the Rings. Tolkien had just basically made him up at this point, so there's not necessarily that connection.
It would give you much more freedom to deviate from the well worn withered monkey man appearance.
At any rate, I really like numbers 12 and 14. The long hair and long neck could really work. I'm not sure about some of the first ones, some of them kind of look like a monkey Abe Sapien.
And I think I prefer my Gollum spindly rather than blessed with Popeye forearms, but that's just me.
And I like 10 too. He looks like he could snatch a Goblin.
1 6 9 18 all seem like they could work, I really like all the subtle variations of them
ReplyDeleteLike C. I really like numbers 12 and 14... I'm really curious to see what could be the non-silhouetted version of 12's face.
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion the Gollums of the first page looks too much like Roswell aliens (especially 5). I'd like something more original and weirder.
9 for me. I like the eyes and how the head is bigger where the eyes are. Also like the body shape and wide forearms.
ReplyDeleteI am liking 10 & 18 actually. something about the spindly neck is attractive to me in the aesthetic. 18 probably has more pleasing proportions to my eye.
ReplyDeletegollum looks like a scuba diving monkey
ReplyDeleteI recall that Tove Jansson drew gollum as this massive huge thing, looking down on Bilbo. You only saw his top half. Although I realize that at one point Bilbo jumps over him so this couldn't really work..
ReplyDeleteLink. http://www.zepe.de/tjillu/hobbit/s/085.htm