Ringer Celebriel sends this pre-con report:
Just over a week to go!
Fans start gathering next Thursday night for the 21st annual Dragon*Con convention in Atlanta, which runs through Labor Day. Tolkien Track programming this year covers art, costuming, music, literary discussion, live action role play, film screenings, fan fiction, collectibles, and New Zealand travel, not to mention Saturday morning’s Parade, Friday night’s Evening in Bree with Emerald Rose
and the Brobdingnagian Bards, authors Peter S. Beagle and Sherrilyn Kenyon, Tolkien scholar Anne Petty, and “Making the Hobbit Happen,” led by TORn founders William Thomas, Chris Pirrotta and staffer Larry Curtis. (Corvar, Calisuri and MrCere respectively).
Many of the panels will be given twice during the weekend, to accommodate your wish to see the Weasley twins over on the Young Adult track or check out the Miss Klingon Beauty Contest on TrekTrac.
The main Tolkien Track room (except for parties and such) is the Clayton Room on the second floor of the Atlanta Hilton. Also, we are trying to get a few copies of Kristin Thompson’s “The Frodo Franchise” to give away as prizes!
Highlights include:
Meet & Greet: Find old friends and make some new ones before An Evening in Bree! (5:30PM Friday)
TORn panel: Join William Thomas, Chris Pirrotta and Larry Curtis for “Making the Hobbit Happen” (Saturday at 2:30PM and Sunday at 1:00PM)
Music: Emerald Rose, with their new “Con Suite” CD, plays Friday night at “An Evening in Bree” (8:30PM) and Sunday night at the Yule Ball (8:30PM)
The Brobdingnagian Bards play at An Evening in Bree and at Sunday’s late night Pirate party (11:30PM)
Film: Saturday night’s film program (10:00PM) includes “Ringers: Lord of the Fans” and MARS Productions’ “Middle Earth Idol,” along with some surprises!
Peter Beagle and Felix Silla talk about Ralph Bakshi’s animated Lord of the Rings (1972) at 4:00PM on Saturday. Catch Peter showing The Last Unicorn on the Young Adult track at 8:30PM on Saturday.
Dragon Smackdown: Come prepared to support your favorite dragon in Anne Petty’s discussion of Glaurung vs. Smaug. (Friday at 2:30PM and Sunday at 11:00AM)
Costuming: Join professional armor and sword maker Michael Cook of Celebrate Studios and award-winning master costumers Marcia Banach and Jules Kelly for their Saturday afternoon double session on “Bringing Your Costume to Life.”
(Oh yeah, and watch for Marcia’s new LOTR costume this year – A Return of the King character you’ve never seen before!)
Art: Discuss artists who have brought Middle Earth to life in a panel discussion featuring LOTR and Star Wars artist Sarah Wilkinson. Saturday at 5:30PM
and Monday at 10:00AM.
FanFic: Join Zhie and friends at the FanFiction Luau, Sunday night at 10PM. Age 18+ or with parent/guardian – IDs will be checked!
Travel: Thinking about New Zealand or been there and want share your story? New Zealand IS Middle Earth – Sunday at 1:00PM
Parade: The Dragon*Con parade is Saturday morning at 10:00AM. If you haven’t registered yet, please do so at the Parade Table when you arrive in Atlanta. You’ll see it when you pick up your convention badge.
Some Essential Links: Print your Tolkien Track Dragon*Con schedule at: tolkientrack.queencheetah.com/cale2007.htm
Anne Petty: www.annepetty.com
Arms of Middle Earth: www.armsofmiddleearth.com (Atlanta area Tolkien group)
The Brobdingnagian Bards: thebards.net
Celebrate Studios: www.celebratestudios.com
Dragon*Con Main: www.dragoncon.org
Emerald Rose: www.emeraldrose.com/mainpage.htm
Peter Beagle: www.peterbeagle.com
Sarah Wilkinson: www.sarahwilkinson.net
From the Geek Gods at WETA: Thanks to everyone who visited the WETA stand at Comic Con. Attached are are few highlights from the Weta crew.
The Rayguns statue gathered alot of attention, and creator of Dr Grordbort’s world, Greg Broadmore, was on hand to answer media and fan enquiries. The show exclusive, the Miniature ManMelter, completely sold out, and a little birdy tells me they are going for three times the original price on Ebay!
Here are this weeks updates for your news stations:
James writes: The AME (Association of Model Engineers) is organizing its Annual Exhibition, held between 8th and 16th September, 2007 and this year it is showcasing a massive miniature of Helm’s Deep, the main fortress of Rohan.
The exhibition will be held at the Scouts Headquarters in Floriana, Malta and shall display a wide range of models of all types of genres; including Military, Fantasy and Science Fiction.
This year, the Association has been working hard to construct this highly detailed model has been carefully built to closely match the film version.
The diorama is also filled with various models, including Elves, Uruk-Hai and the Men of Rohan, depicting the battle as portrayed in the film. Other models include, siege ladders, catapults and a group of Uruk-hai with a battering ram attacking the gates.
Apart from this diorama, a collection of highly detailed figures of The Lord of the Rings are displayed separately during the exhibition. Last year’s main centre-piece was a diorama of a Rohan keep being attacked by orcs. This year, the AME has taken a step further into realizing this full 3 feet by 2 feet diorama of the Battle of Helm’s Deep.
No photos of the model are available yet, since it is still under construction. For further information on the Exhibition and the Association itself, please click the following to the AME website: www.a-m-e.org
JUST BETWEEN US
Or A Few Words and Some Pictures
By John Howe
At rather a loss as to what to actually write for this newsletter, I’ve fallen back on the tried and true method of using something I’ve written before. (I have an excuse, I am working very assiduously writing texts for another book.)
Following is the introduction from FANTASY ART WORKSHOP, just so you won’t have to read it IN the bookshop come October, and can get directly to Terry Gilliam’s fantastic foreword and Alan Lee’s poetical afterword. (In between there are a few pictures, you can skip those if need be.)
Just Between Us
I wanted to call this book “How to Draw Like Me It’s A Cinch Anybody Can Do It”, but the editors seem strangely reticent. (They said it was too long, so we agreed on a different choice of words.)
It’s almost what the book is all about, but not quite. I will ramble on endlessly about how I draw and paint, but it’s REALLY all about how to draw like YOU. If you’re reading this introduction, and wondering if this would be money well spent, I’ll try to save you some time.
If you know how to draw already and you are quite satisfied with the results, then this book is not really for you.
If you feel figurative and narrative imagery is dull, this book is not for you.
If you feel that mythology and fantasy have little to say to our modern world, then this book is most definitely not for you.
If you are searching for off-the-shelf methods and surefire technical tricks of the trade, then this book is not for you.
If you believe pictures should speak for themselves, I’m tempted to tell you to buy it; there is an abundance of loquacious imagery inside.
However…
If you find your mind is so full of images that they keep escaping unbidden from your fingertips, then this book may be for you.
If you are unsure of the direction your artwork wishes to take, but know you should be heading somewhere, then this book may be a signpost of a kind for your journey.
If you find pleasure in telling stories in pictures, then this book may help you.
If life has obliged you to leave pages of yourself unturned, and you’d feel better with a little company for a chapter or two, then perhaps this book is for you.
I should say right from the start that I dislike most “How To…” books, unless they are purely technical, and concern themselves spark plugs, hot water pipes or computer software.. I dislike the temptation to reduce an intuitive and intensely personal process to a series of steps or a recipe. I am dubious of assemblages of rectangles and ovals magically becoming horses, tigers or trees. I moan when I see famous paintings divided into arbitrary circles, triangles and (fool’s-)golden means.
They reduce drawing to a method, in exactly the same fashion that first-graders learn to form legible letters – they are the equivalent of row upon row of vertical strokes, circles and diagonals.. Naturally, you will learn to write legibly, but you may not learn to express yourself.
Drawing is giving oneself up to an exercise with no immediate application. It is a form of communion with your subject, be it in front of you or in your head. Expertise and skill go hand in hand with your desire to express feelings, to tell stories, to create and share worlds.
It’s personal.
So, I have tried to find the words to say how I feel. With each picture being worth a thousand, that makes quite a few. The editors have had to seriously cut their number, and I’m grateful to them for allowing my thoughts such unruly growth, only pruning when necessary.
This book is personal too. I can only speak for myself, not for illustration theory. Nor am I trying to speak to some fictitious potential average buyer/reader.
If I could, I would rewrite this book for each one of you, and include a couple of chapters of your work. Of course, this isn’t possible, so I beg your indulgence.
Inside, you’ll find a first section that talks about how I get along with the Muse and find my inspiration (wherever and however I can), the second about what materials and techniques I use and how I use them (as best I can).
A third looks at a selection of my work, with step-by-step case studies to give blow-by-blow accounts of the process (this is the book’s reality show slice of life, complete with commissioning editors, deadlines and last-minute deliveries), while the fifth section deals with presenting your work and a last bit about the varied fields illustration can lead you to wander in.
And, lastly, to my comrades-in-art and fellow illustrators, I beg your indulgence also for this foray into the dreaded land of Explanation and the perilous realm of Reason, momentarily forsaking the foggy shores of Inspiration. I am speaking only for myself, not for my profession. All of you have your own voices. (But buy the book anyway.)
TALKING AGAIN
Otherwise, I’d like to mention a couple of recent interviews. (Please do go read them, the authors deserve every encouragement for patiently dealing with my inconsistencies and tardiness with a rare brand of perseverance.
Interview done in Saint-Ursanne with Pieter Collier, at the Tolkien Library.
This one is very short and tongue-in-cheek, on the LCSV4 site.
And while we are on the subject of talking to strangers, here’s another on-line interview: Middle Ages Meets Middle-Earth.
Udi writes:
“For the third year in a row, Mythopia is one of the most prominent literary conventions in the Israeli landscape. Starting off with academic lectures on the works of J. R. R. Tolkien and J. K. Rowling, it began to house other literary endeavours such as those of Philip Pullman’s “His Dark Materials”, G. R. R. Martin’s “A Song of Ice and Fire” and C. S. Lewis’s “Narnia”.
The convention attracts a wide range of audiences, from early teens to mature adults, all interested in fannish delving or academic exploration, with no correlation to the age of the audience, who enjoys the stage of Israel’s top academic lecturers concerning literary works in the fantastic genre, producing a fantastic convention.
One of the lectures about Tolkien’s work is
Túrin and Frodo: A Fate Too Similarly Different / Ran Bar-Zik
Túrin, the hero of “The Children of Húrin”, seems vastly different than Frodo, the hero of “Lord of the Rings”. A closer inspection
reveals that the similarities outnumber the differences, and sometime Frodo mirrors Túrin to extremes.
The lecture shall examine the similarities and difference and will attempt to reach a conclusion on Tolkien’s storybuilding and the eternal element of the dance between myth and modern.”
I can’t read a word of it but Udi tells us the official site can be found right here
