Niko's Sketchbook

[Griffin McPherson]

@nikoashheart these are looking great! This looks like a really fun project to work on. It’s also great to have portfolio-wise

[nikoashheart]

Finally have an update on The Hobbit series! I've finished Chapter 2: Roast Mutton. Let me know what you think! I'll be finishing the other two in the next few days.

[nikoashheart]

Another update to the Hobbit series! I of course had to do a Gollum piece, especially after doing that concept work for him earlier, and I really enjoyed working on this one. It didn't turn out quite exactly like I intended, but honestly I think it's better! My original was more "mysterious" but it was way too dark, I think. The scene itself is apparently so dark that Bilbo has a really hard time seeing, and I wanted to reflect that in the art, but in the end I felt it better to reinterpret it for the sake of the illustration. Let me know what you think!

Smaug is up next!

[Pamela Fraley]

@nikoashheart wow! I love the gollum piece! Very cool. I’m really liking how you’re pushing the values with your gray scale images.

[nikoashheart]

@Pamela-Fraley Thank you!! I struggled a bit with the values, so I'm glad they're working.

[nikoashheart]

And here's the last of The Hobbit pieces, featuring the infamous Smaug! I really struggled with this one. I originally intended to do something a lot more gestural with the coins, but they just became lost in the silhouette. This took a lot longer, but I think works better. I'd love to do more of these one day, but I've got other projects to get to, so the three + the cover will have to do for now!

[nikoashheart]

It occurs to me I actually never posted the cover I don't think? So up that goes as well!

[Kim Rosenlof]

@nikoashheart I really like this cover. Making the figures in the mountain is such a great idea. I also like the shadow Smaug idea too in the illustration above. Very clever.

[A Former User]

@nikoashheart I love the stylized shape of Smaug, very nice!

[nikoashheart]

@Kim-Rosenlof Thank you so much! The idea of illustrating the dwarves as the mountains spawned the rest of this project, to be honest. As soon as I had that idea, I was so excited to work on the cover~

[nikoashheart]

@Stephanie-H Thank you!