Indistinguishable From Magic

The Five Wizards of Middle-Earth! With The Hobbit around the corner, I thought I’d do some Tolkien warmup sketches. The Wizards are actually called the Istari, a group of spirits that were sent to Middle Earth in the form of old men to secretly undermine Sauron, though Gandalf seems to be the only one who met with any real success. You may not recognize a few of these guys: Radagast the Brown - He’s the fellow you go to for Eagles. Also I suspect he smells. Alatar & Pallando - the Blue Wizards don’t appear in many stories because they were tasked with going East and South to help the people there resist Sauron. It’s not entirely certain what happened to them, though they may have been successful in their own way. They’re often depicted as Old White Dudes, but given their purpose in the story, I decided to make them more ethnically appropriate, making Alatar more central Asian and Pallando more North African.

The Five Wizards of Middle-Earth! With The Hobbit around the corner, I thought I’d do some Tolkien warmup sketches.

The Wizards are actually called the Istari, a group of spirits that were sent to Middle Earth in the form of old men to secretly undermine Sauron, though Gandalf seems to be the only one who met with any real success. You may not recognize a few of these guys:

Radagast the Brown - He’s the fellow you go to for Eagles. Also I suspect he smells.

Alatar & Pallando - the Blue Wizards don’t appear in many stories because they were tasked with going East and South to help the people there resist Sauron. It’s not entirely certain what happened to them, though they may have been successful in their own way. They’re often depicted as Old White Dudes, but given their purpose in the story, I decided to make them more ethnically appropriate, making Alatar more central Asian and Pallando more North African.

Notes

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  9. infinitebuckets reblogged this from dresdencodak and added:
    Having seen this picture long before The Hobbit, I was in no way disturbed or surprised by Radagasts appearance. In fact...
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  14. gallantcannibal reblogged this from barbotrobot and added:
    Hear, hear!
  15. barbotrobot reblogged this from dresdencodak and added:
    can’t appreciate enough...@dresdencodak made...Pallando...
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  17. uselessguidefor reblogged this from dresdencodak and added:
    idea that the blue wizards...homologous white dudes
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