Smaug - Hildebrandt brothers Tolkien second calendar, my stories about illustrators:)

I couldn't wait till tomorrow to start the next series of posts about Hildebrandt brothers, so I start today:)

We already went trough all the illustrations of the first calendar, year 1976. Now let's go through the second one, year 1977.

January month begins with a truthly awesome illustration - Smaug on his gold:

Look carefully through it. Such power, such might! I can't avoid notice that style changed a bit. Now drawings are more naturalistic. I nearly can feel the heat of the fire!

Paw attention on the treasures. Tim Hildebrandt said that he used his wife's jewelry for references. Exactly - diamonds.

By the way, Smaug is the second dragon in brothers artistic career. First one was the dragon from the story " Smith of Wootton Major", also by Tolkien. I can't find good resolution image and don't have the book (WHYYYYY?!?), but here it is:

If you haven't yet read it - do it, Tolkien is not only the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit, all his other fairy - tales are awesome as well.

Here we have a sketchdrawing for Smaug:

So, what do you think, it's just me or the second calendar starts with a really much more powerful and colorful image?:) All the other illustrations are a bit different in technique as well. Tomorrow we'll continue our journey:)

Thank you for watching:)

Love, Inber