Finally finally. I’ve been too busy working on real stuff to do much freetime drawing.

This is the Balrog of Moria, and that under it is the Bridge of Khazad Dum. Very different from the previous drawings I think. As always, I’m trying to go just by the description of the text, but this one was probably colored quite a bit by the Balrog’s design in the Peter Jackson movies, which I think is pretty excellent. The book describes a large, man-shaped creature, with a ‘mane of fire,’ and what seems to be a kind of fluid, changing form of fire and shadow. The text mentions 'wings;’ but I think does so metaphorically (“…the shadow about it reached out like two vast wings.”), and also I feel wings would clutter up the image and sort of dilute the design of the thing.

Next is the Orc Chieftain that leads an attack on the Fellowship in Moria (before the Balrog bit, actually), whenever I can get around to it. You can see all previous LOTR drawings in one place by tag, here.