Initially, I was hired to be a Production Illustrator. But later, I was asked to be the Visual Effects Art Director, as well as the Scenic Unit Director. I would be lying if I said it was anything less than a dream job!
Below are some of the small color roughs I did for the films. (I'll post the larger Illustrations in an upcoming post.) You may have seen some of these images in the "Art Of LOTR" books, but sadly, the color reproductions in those books were terrible. This is what they were supposed to look like.
Unless otherwise noted, these are all acrylic painting.
44 comments:
wow, these are absolutely jaw dropping, been a big fan of yours since prince of egypt. thanks for posting these sir.
Paul, you art is fantastic! the colors and composition inspired me
Amazing stuff.....good thing your wife knocked some sense into you.
Was there a conscious decision to work mainly with paint and brush on these films as opposed to working digitally?
Jared,
Was there a conscious decision to work mainly with paint and brushes...?
Yes. I'd been exclusively digital for the past year, and I didn't want my traditional painting skills to get rusty. So I promised myself I'd kick the digital habit for a while. Also, believe it or not, the LOTR art department was very low tech. We had one computer...a really buggy Mac, running an outdated version of Photoshop. Plus I shared an office with Alan Lee...the most low tech artist I've ever met...a genius with pencils and watercolor. I had to try to hold my own with him, and working digitally in the same room as Alan, would have somehow felt...I don't know...gimmicky.
These are amazing. You are so good. As an illustration student, you are a true inspiration and someone to look up to. Keep up the great work!
Beautiful stuff! I'm glad you went low-tech on these!
Wow,wow,wow! Awesome stuff! Thanks for sharing. Very jealous...
Don
Amazing work Paul. You are a true inspiration to me. I'll come back often.
Sebastien
WOW~ I am blown away with happiness... Drop dead gorgeous!! You have no idea how happy i am looking at these~~~~~ ^______^
Thank you Thank you Thank you~
sw
Simply amazing, these are the paintings that remind me of picking up the first LOTR art book and learning about your work.
I always thought you used gouache but I see now it's acrylic. I'm curious, what's the general size you worked these paintings at?
Wow, hot diggity. Thanks for sharing man. Your work is elusive and I'd only seen a sketch here or there but coworkers and other artists would always talk about you in awe. Now I finally get to see what they were talking about!
Holy wow. ::picks jaw up off floor:: ...these are incredible. I also can't even imagine sharing an office with Alan Lee. o.O I want to see more!
Simply unreal and simply stunning. I'm in awe. Where are you located and do you teach?
Beautiful Paul. Such a great feelling of looseness yet they are all complete. Such a nice variety of palette's too.
MAC
Good. Lord. And. Butter. -Beautiful-. Just what I needed to get my mind off packing for my competition in Jakarta since I'll be flying off Monday and NOTHING is done right now...except halfway packing.
I love them, love them, LOVE THEM. It's great to know you work in acrylics, because I do too to a limited degree. Floating colour, like in tole painting, though I'm rusty at it.
More! More! I'm really greedy yes, but this is sooooooooooo gorgeous...
--Shuku
Geez, i just feel like crawling into a hole with my blanky. In anycase , Great Stuff! im blown away.
Breathtaking!...now how can we turn these artworks into an alien movie...
thank you, thank you, thank you!
beautiful. There is so much going on in each little gem that just points out how amazingly talented you are. I hate gushing, but MAN these are worth gushing over!
Any chance you'll collect up the unpublished work and print it someday..?
Makes me wanna cry they're so beautiful.
I am in awe...your sense of light is powerful. This work is a glimpse of Heaven. Thank you for being so generous to post them!
Daren Asked, "Any chance you'll collect up the unpublished work and print it someday..?"
I've always hoped to publish an "Art of Paul Lasaine" book...someday. But as all this work was done for hire, I don't own the publishing right to any of it. (Kind of like how the Beatles don't own a lot of their own songs.) Not that I couldn't secure the rights, but I know it'll be a big pain in butt...dealing with all the legal departments of the various studios.
That's why I started this blog...so at least folks like you could see this stuff.
Dam, Paul stop making us all look bad! :)
But Barry, I just started:)
Thanks for posting these.
I enjoyed the art books as much as I did the movies and the original Tolkien novels.
The colors in these are truly stunning and sophisticated.
I saw some of them at your computer as screensavers some time ago.
In my opinion the movie obviously looks good, but these designs look even better!!
Jeeeezus...!!!!!
Beautiful!!!!
These pictures are amazing!
Thanks Paul.
Laurent
I really like how simple and balanced you keep your statements.. something I have to keep reminding myself to do better.. Thanks for posting these! Great studies for geeky artists like me to see and learn from :)
Holy geez....amazing!!!
these are insane!
that's it Paul.
I'm just gonna stop painting, quit my job and set a Paul Lasaine shrine in my apartment and pray everyday.
post more please!
Please~~!!
Breath taking......really inspiring works . The sense of scale and epic feel is fantastic .
Thanks for posting .
Dice,
No need to set up a shrine...you can join me at the shrine I built for you.
geeeeeez... jaw-dropping ridiculously amazing!!!!!
JUST when I felt I knew the first thing about painting, I see this. Thank you!
amazing !!!
Great Stuff!!!
you and nathan must be Freemasons or something... some kind of secret painting brotherhood.
These pictures are some of my favorites ,...simply beautifull.
I've always loved all of your works and LOTR ones in particular.
Can we have some more? ;)
Anyway having them on line at last it's just great!
Thanks!
Those are awesome! You can tell they were put into consideration in the movies. Great work and keep sketching and painting!
Hi Paul,
Great work. I knew you when you were a little kid. Man you really blossomed.
Take care
Dennis Derr
I have to say your art style is breath-taking. I am studying your artwork for my A2 a-level art and im very much used to the graphic style artwork rather than traditional use of acrylic. However, after seeing your work it really has inspired me to give it a shot!
funny you mentioned the color reproductions of the "art of LOTR" books. I always admired your paintings within them, but I was always rather dumbfounded by how muted and desaturated they were. I was like "shouldn't color-key paintings be bursting with contrast and color?"
NOW.. for the first time in YEARS do I understand the truth! "The color reproductions were terrible". These look so much better than what was actually published. Thanks, Paul! You inspire me, sir!
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