'The Hobbit' As Tolkien Imagined It

Greetings!

It's been quite windy here the past few days, as a result...

this was what things were looking like on Sunday,

and here's today...lol!

Kind of depressing to say the least :( 
I just returned from a long walk and had to wear my hood the whole way;
the wind is quite nippy in spots.
On my walk I passed a number of homes that were very decked out for Halloween.
No pics to share as I forgot to take my camera with me today grrrr - 
I remembered when I was three blocks from home and decided against turning back. 
Hopefully tomorrow I'll have a few shots to share with you - one house had a whole
graveyard set up, complete with freshly dugs graves!

Aren't these amazing? I stumbled across them at StumbleUpon :)

The below images and descriptions are courtesy of The Guardian (guardian.co.uk)
I try to keep an ear to the ground for all things surrounding The Hobbit/Lord of the Rings
and these were published in Monday's edition. Peter Jackson's facebook page hasn't had an update in many weeks - I had high hopes for it when it was first announced, but it's turned out to be a big disappointment. If interested, The Hobbit Movie is an interesting site.

When The Hobbit was first published almost 75 years ago, JRR Tolkien provided a set of wonderful illustrations. But buried among the author's papers were 110 drawings, watercolours and sketches, some of which have never been published before. Here are some of the earliest images.

Smaug Flies Round the Mountain 

This watercolour is similar in composition to Smaug Flies Around the Lonely Mountain. Beyond the bridge are the ‘ancient steps’ by which Bilbo and the dwarves climb the ‘high bank’, and the road running around the spur to the path leading up to the look-out post. To the right are the ruins of Dale

Smaug Flies Around the Lonely Mountain 

This is probably the earliest of four pictures of Smaug flying around the mountain, and is an untitled ink drawing with an elaborate sky. It appears to be set in daylight, though in The Hobbit Smaug flies only at night. The dragon is black against the mountainside, as is the front gate and Ravenhill on the south-west spur. At the bend of the river are the remains of the old bridge that Bilbo and the dwarves cross in chapter 13 (‘most of its stones were now only boulders in the shallow noisy stream’)

The Lonely Mountain 

This drawing is demonstrably set at night, the dragon a stark white against a jet-black sky. Although this and The Lonely Mountain are more finished drawings, neither seems to have been offered to Allen & Unwin for publication – because they were made too late, perhaps, or because they contain varied greys or dense blacks not well suited to line-blocks

The White Dragon Pursues Roverandom and the Moondog. When producing his art for The Hobbit, Tolkien borrowed from his short story Roverandom, which was written for his son, Michael

Smaug in Flight and Dwarves Marching 

This earlier image was reused in Thror's Map, and on the dust jacket of The Hobbit.