LOTRArts storyboards

From the inspiration of a Master author (JRR Tolkien)…
to a Master film maker (Peter Jackson): a meeting of genius…



The transformation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s literary masterpiece of The Lord of the Rings (LOTR) by Peter Jackson (PJ) into film, 'spawned' three sets of sketch/art cards.

An ultimate goal has been to collate these sketch cards into a storyboard depicting LOTR’s epic journey across PJ’s Middle-earth.

A separate storyboard has been created for:

• The Fellowship of the Ring



• The Two Towers



• The Return Of The King.



These storyboards are displayed by film chapter, and feature script excerpts, sketches and screen caps.
Specific features of the storyboards are given below.

Acknowledgements
The creation of these storyboards has only been possible due to the creativity and dedication of others.

To all those who have contributed their insights and art in all its forms, go immense gratitude, indebtedness and sincere thanks.

“Comrade-in-arms” To Jack Trautman (j2112tbooks) who shared this sketch journey across Middle-earth, and without whose encouragement and enthusiasm, insights and many of his precious gems, these storyboards would never have come to be.

LOTR film scriptwriters and composer To: • Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens for their marvellous and highly acclaimed LOTR screenplays, and
• Howard Shore for the majesty of his award-winning musical scores.

Artists To those artists officially on the Topps sketch card sets, and those who have been asked to contribute PSCs where official cards were not available. In particular, it has been a privilege to develop a special rapport with Soni Alcorn Hender, Len Bellinger, Javier Gonzalez, Jason Potratz and Keven Reinke.

Fellow collectors To those fellow Scoundrel members and OCD collectors (the ‘old LOTR-gang’ of Jack, Ken, Len, Ian, Holly, Phil et al) for their support and camaraderie. In particular, to Ken, who has provided leadership through good and difficult times, in being an inspirational appreciator of art and passionate advocate to maintain integrity in the sketch-world.

LOTR websites
To the websites for painstakingly capturing not only the images of PJ’s Middle-earth, but providing the storyboard narrative.
• TK421
• FRAME CAP Library
• Arwen Undomiel
• SCREEN CAPPED

Creation of the storyboards: the principles

Story in sketches
To capture the essence of the major storyline through sketch images. There was no intention to capture every moment of the films – just their emotion and drama.

Text/dialogue
To provide continuity, threads of words from the film scripts have been inserted between sketches.

Film reference
To link to the imagery of the film, a screen-cap of the scene is provided alongside each sketch.
Musical themes
To provide Howard Shore’s emotional operatic feel of the films, an option is provided to play segments of the score to immerse oneself in the sound of the films.

Sketch insertion
Four main 'rules':
• official Topps sketches were to form the basis of the storyboards
• any sketch could only feature once in a particular storyboard
• for some generic poses, if the sketch accurately portrays the scene, it could be used again in a separate storyboard
• if there was no official Topps sketch available to depict a major scene, a PSC or Evolution after-market sketch could be used.

Reveal
All storyboards have been mapped out, aligning sketches and screen caps.
• The Fellowship of the Ring storyboard is completed and uploaded.
• The Two Towers storyboard was uploaded on 2 February to commemorate James Joyce's birthday.
• The Return of the King storyboard was uploaded on 25 March, the Tolkien Society's 'Tolkien Reading Day' (day of the fall of Sauron).
• As changes occur, the storyboards will be updated, and a chronology of these changes will be recorded separately.

Call for feedback
Feedback, comments or suggestions for improvement are sincerely sought – please contact us or post in the guestbook.

Card collecting terminology

For those unfamiliar with card collecting terms, this overview relates primarily to two of the sketch card sets produced by Topps Company Inc.
(Topps) from Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings (LOTR) movies:
• Masterpieces (MI) released in 2006 and
• Masterpieces II (MII) released in 2008.
Topps produced many cases containing these card sets (eg 2,250 cases of MII).
For more details see NS Lists MI and NS Lists MII

There are varying forms of LOTR cards: trading cards, etched foil cards and sketch/art cards. In all cases the card is 2.5”x 3.5” in size. A brief outline of these cards follows.

Trading cards
Topps commissioned a number of artists to do a series of artworks. These were then reproduced as trading cards and placed in packs in trading card boxes.
For MI/MII, there were 90/72 art cards in the set, and each trading box contained 36 packs of seven of these cards.



Etched artwork
Topps commissioned artists Rafael Kayanan for MI and Russ Walks for MII, to create a composite LOTR etched artwork (equivalent in size to six sketch cards).




Etched foil cards
Each of these etched artworks was cut into six pieces and reproduced as etched foil cards. The six pieces of the original art were randomly inserted into trading card boxes.The chances of finding one of these original artwork pieces was for MI 1:68,000 and for MII 1:108,000 oacks.

Two of these are in the collection:




Sketch cards
A sketch card is a one-of-a-kind piece of art; it features original, hand-drawn artwork on one side of the card surface (the other side has printed logo of set).

For the official sets, Topps commissioned 87 artists for MI and 104 artists for MII.
Depending on the availability of artists etc, the number of sketches completed per artist ranged from around 50 to 1100 (with some doing considerably less, eg for MII DeLiz did only 17).
Two of these sketches were inserted randomly into packs in each box.

The artwork is diverse in terms of the array of media used, and the form and style of art, often belying the label ‘sketch’.





Diverse artwork forms
The artwork ranges from:
• simple line drawings
• shaded monochrome
• with color highlight
• to spectacular in colour, design, detail, and subject matter, in scenic form, or
• oil portraiture, eg sometime amazingly gruesome, or
• beautifully poignant,
eg:








Diverse artistic styles
Arwork ranges from
• comic form, to
• dramatic realism,
eg:




Artist Return sketches
As compensation for contributing to the MI and MII sets, artists could nominate six of their sketches to be returned to them to keep or sell. These are called Artist Return sketches (AR).

In rare cases, the artist chose to use all six AR cards in one composite scene, eg:



'Second-wave' MII
In addition, artists contributing to the ‘second wave’ of MII, were typically provided with three additional AR cards, eg:



Artist Proof
The Cryptozoic Hobbit sketches chosen by artists and returned to keep them or sell are referred to as Artist Proofs, eg


After-market sketches
For the Evolution set Topps permitted artists to be commissioned by collectors to repaint the sketches the original sketches and were inserted into packs. These are called After-market sketches (AM).
The example shows the original drawing and the reworked AM:


>   After-market sketches for MI and MII sets
Topps disallowed after-market sketches for the MI and MII sets. However, it seems that Topps provided extra MII blanks to some artists (in addition to the nine official AR cards). 'After-market' sketches were then completed by artists years later on these additional cards.

The discussion of this controversy can be found at: Scoundrel Publishing



Panels
Some artists completed sketches over multiple cards, these are called panels. Sometimes each piece is stand-alone. However some only form a complete portrait or scene when the separate pieces are reunited, eg: If the individual pieces are pack-inserted, a major goal for collectors is to reunite these panels.



Triptychs
The MI Kansas triptychs: three artists (DeLiz, Dillon, Engstrom) collaborated on two three-card panels. They each drew on and signed each card, see Ents and Gollum triptychs:




Master and Master Master sets
• A 'Master set' contains a sketch from each of the artists contributing to the set.

• A ‘Master Master set' is one which also contains one of the original Kayanan or Walks etched foil cards.

Personal Sketch Cards (PSC)
PSCs are not part of the official sets.
They are sketches completed by an artist on their own card stock, often commissioned by a sketch collector, especially if the desired image was not permitted on an official card, eg imagined meeting of Tolkien and Jackson.