Alan Lee (1) (1947–)

Alan Lee nos revela, por medio de imágenes y palabras, cómo creó las maravillosas ilustraciones que acabarían por servir de inspiración a la trilogía cinematográfica de Peter Jackson y le proporcionarían el codiciado Oscar de la Academia.

El Señor de los Anillos. Cuaderno de bocetos nos brinda un fascinante periplo por la imaginación del hombre que retrató con imágenes la visión de Tolkien, primero sobre el papel y luego en las tres dimensiones de la gran pantalla.

Este libro contiene primeros esbozos y más de 150 dibujos, algunos de ellos inéditos, producidos para las películas, así como muchas obras nuevas creadas especialmente para este libro.… (mehr)

It's a wonderful book! It not only presents beautiful art of Alan Lee but also documents his work on the Lord of the Rings movie sets, paying tribute to a host of people working on visual aspects of these movies, from miniatures makers to gardeners.

First things first, the art is amazing. Book presents only a fraction of over 2500 drawings made by Alan Lee during the production of the movies and I loved the selected pieces. Some allow to admire how tirelessly teams of people worked to faithfully translate detailed drawings to real objects, others show explorations of ideas that were discarded in the process, and some are a testament to a franctic production schedule, showing that the artist had to deliver what was necessary and skip the rest. There are also several illustrations made for books, where readers can see the process that allowed to find their final shape.

The second theme of the book is craft. Alan Lee is a devoted reader of the source books, following Tolkien's inspirations and studying Norse sagas, Celtic myths, and medivial history. I loved how humble and open he is when writing about his skills. For instance, he openly states that drawing anatomy, be it humans or horses, is still a chalenge for him and he will cover difficult parts with shields or by adding foreground characters if he can't make them look right.

The last theme of the book is the participation in a 6 years long project where deadlines are tight, nights are short, and a lot of effort goes unnoticed in the final product. There is a deep sense of pride and satisfaction, but the author doesn't shy away from the difficult parts of this job. Even though I watched all the extras on DVDs I was not aware of how engaged he was in the production and post-production of the movies.

It is a great book for any LOTR fan, books and movies alike, as well as for artists who'd like to understand how work on a filmset could look like. Probably, there won't be any filmset like this one anymore, which makes me sad and at the same time grateful for the fact we experienced the LOTR movies being made.… (mehr)