“Tolkien opened up in me a dormant love of lost and misty times, myth and legend…”

Gouache on board, 18″ x 11″ Cover art for Princes of Sandastre (Book One of The Perilous Quest for Lyonesse) by Antony Swithin, edited by Mark Sebanc.

  Gouache on board, 18″ x 11″ Cover art for The Lords of the Stoney Mountains (Book Two of The Perilous Quest for Lyonesse) by Antony Swithin, edited by Mark Sebanc.

  Private commission. Gouache, 24″ x 18.75″ The challenge was to create images of the protagonists which carry the essence of the descriptions Tolkien gives us. It needed the two opponents to seem dynamic and energized. This was easy enough with the Witch King’s dramatic entrance, whereas Gandalf is described as statue like, a sentinel …

Gouache, 17″ x 12″ Among the illustrations submitted for this new edition, this one in particular was key. It astonished me that up to then I had not carefully read the Unfinished Tales account and picked up on this detail. In The Silmarillion, despite that Tuor and Voronwe had come to Gondolin through a winter …

Gouache, 17″ x 11.75″ I was excited to do this piece, based on a thumbnail taken from old concept ideas for Unfinished Tales. It offers a rare glimpse of the Elf queen and her mate Celeborn outside Lothlórien, during their long wanderings across the breadth of Middle-earth.

Gouache, 16″ x 11″ I was very glad to do this piece, which takes us up close to the mountain, and epitomizes the Northern landscape themes and settings of First Age tales, in particular. Mim and Turin can be seen standing under an overhang above the others. But the main interest for me was the …

Gouache, 19.75″ x 12″ Long a favourite tale from the book, it meant a lot to be able to include this scene in my submissions for Unfinished Tales. My thumbnail was quite basic for this scene, and I fleshed it out by deciding we should see something of the land across the sound/firth, and the …