The Lord of the Rings Sketchbook: A fascinating journey through the artistic creation of Middle-earth

Alan Lee, along with John Howe and Ted Nasmith is a very talented artist and depicts Middle-Earth brilliantly and with ease. This book is littered with astoundingly masterful sketches and a few incredible watercolours taken from the edition of the Lord of the Rings which he illistrated about fourteen years ago. The book deals with how he illistrated the book and, with the help of Howe and other talented artists, designed the Lord of the Rings films. The sketches are massively inspirational, and demonstrate just how good an artist he is. They are sensitive and detailed, some are highly refined some are very sketchy but all are beatiful. His detailed drawings of the realms and peoples and of course creatures of Middle-Earth are great to look at.Alan Lee also writes an interesting text to accompany his excellent artwork, which is informative and insightful.The only thing I would say is that it would have been nice if he would have focused more on telling the reader about illistrating the book, rather his work on the film. I say this because we can find out about that on the extended edition DVD's and in neumorous other books (such as Gary Russles equally brilliant 'Art of lord of the rings books')Also the format of the book is rather on the small size and it should have been bigger.However, this is an unmissable book by a extreamly talented artist whom without not only would we be without a fully illistrated Lord of the Rings, but also the films wouldnt be so visually impressive.P.S sorry for any spelling mistakes.

Alan Lee’s sketches are magical! He gives grandeur and perspective to the world that Tolkien outlined (JRRT went into much less detail than many authors, crafting his words in a way that allows interpretation around his framework which is why LOTR is three books and not ten). This is where Alan Lee comes in; his imagination is as rich as his talent. This book, holding outlines, pencil sketches and more finished images, shows the bones of his work before it is fleshed out; outlines, pencil strokes, perspective guidelines etc. If anyone wants to improve their sketching or just see how a master works, this book is a great buy.

I like this book.A must for any Lord of the Rings fan.

This book was very enjoyable.

Bought this for my daughter's birthday. What a bargain! 10.10 amazing and well worth the £15 I spent on it thanks.

Bought for mg nephew who loves this and he was so pleased with all the detail in it, although the actual book facier is upside down compared to the sketches and writing

When you watch a film like any of the LOTR trilogy, it’s staggering how the societies and even regions each have such solid visual consistency. When you read this book and look at the initial art, you start to realise it was almost all born in the sketches of John Howe and Allan Lee.I’ve had a fondness for Alan Lee’s art ever since his Mabinogion illustrations, so I was excited to get this.It doesn’t disappoint, it’s a quality book from content to layout to image/text ratio.The illustrations and Alan’s slightly self-depreciating when describing them seem to go together really nicely and even the placement of text makes for a surprisingly immersive read (I expected this to be a ‘looking at’ book).Can’t fault it.

Lovely book. Good condition. Prompt delivery. Thank you.