Legolas of Woodland Realm

Legolas of Woodland Realm


“Legolas turned and set an arrow to the string, though it was a long shot for his small bow. He drew, but his hand fell, and the arrow slipped to the ground. He gave a cry of dismay and fear.”

-- J. R. R. Tolkien: The Lord of the Rings, Book 2


I’ve told before of how I work.. in a very unorganized way, like with everything that I do.. I usually have several ideas kicking around in my head and when I pick up the pencil and start sketching something new ones pop up.. so instead of starting one drawing at a time I often start half a dozen and then slowly finish those up one by one. That’s why I have such huge WIP lists too.

Well, this one was started simultaneously with the Beleg drawing, because my image of Beleg and of Legolas have always been very similar and I wanted to draw both in order to study their differences and make the way I see them clear to myself at least..

So, it’s a slip from the Silmarillion to the Lord of the Rings.. a simple drawing of the elf-warrior member of the Fellowship of the Ring. Drawn fairly quickly with a regular HB pencil, this is much sketchier than most of my recent drawings. There are not that many good quotes on Legolas in the book and not much about his appearance.. only that he was wearing green and brown. I chose the scene at Moria, because I wanted to draw him in a dynamic pose readying his bow. The bow could be simpler, I guess.. this one is a composite bow. His “long knife” I imagine as a simple scramseax-type blade that was as much a hunting knife as a fighting weapon.. the sheath is not the typical seax-type, though.