The fantastic Hobbit fan artwork you see pictured at right is the work of Sri Lankan graphic designer and illustrator Rommel Arumugam. Arumugam sketched this piece, which he calls Blademasters, at work one day.

“I actually started on doing just Thorin while I was at work (It was a slow Friday), and when I saw the completed version, I decided to do Bilbo and Gandalf as well,” he told TheOneRing.net.

“It was solely done on Illustrator, using a wacom. I decided to make the swords the theme because of how much history beyond and before the hobbit they carried, all the way from Gondolin, to the battle of the Pelennor Fields.”

[High-res gallery]