Angus McBride epitomises Tolkien illustration in the 1980s and should be ranked up there with Alan Lee and the Hildebrandt Brothers for his artistry and influence. In this post, I’ll show you why.
I’m a firm believer in the idea that the things you have an enduring interest in relates directly to not only when you were exposed to them, but also to what you saw first. That is to say, it is more often the case that the reason a person likes one thing over another similar thing can come down to which one got to the first.
The Tolkien art that I grew up with is verrrry different to what a person born more recently would likely have seen, especially once those films came out. You could go as far as saying that Tolkien art has its own generations. With the advancement of digital art technology and forums for presenting digital artwork, there is just so much Tolkien art out there now. This was not always the case.
The power to be Picky
Back in the day, the Tolkien Estate was very selective about which artists it allowed to appear in their books and calendars. The man himself was notoriously difficult to impress in this regard, and only a few artists, Pauline Baynes and Cor Blok, are known to have made his particular grade.
Iron Crown Enterprises, enter
The rights to Tolkien’s work have long been broken up into two distinct categories.
- Books/Calendars – owned by the Tolkien Estate.
- Media/Merch – bought by Saul Zaentz Company in 1976, now owned by Middle-earth Enterprises.
Iron Crown Enterprises had the rights to create roleplaying games within Tolkien’s world from 1982 to 1999. During that time, they produced two product lines – Middle-earth Roleplaying game (MERP) and, later, the Middle-earth Collectible Card Game (MECCG). Both are awesome.
The artistic face of MERP is undeniably Angus McBride. WIth covers like this, I’m sure you can see why…
Of the nearly 100 modules released by Iron Crown, the vast majority of them sport covers illustrated by Angus McBride (they often used the same pieces of artwork multiple times, mind you). These books can be quite hard to come by these days, and their value seems to only ever rise. With the resurgence in tabletop gaming of late, this is probably no huge surprise.
MERP is an interesting line of products in that while the modules do cover the characters and locations found in the main Tolkien books, they spend quite a lot of time in regions of Middle-earth less well known. There are definitely more pirates in Middle-Earth than what Tolkien alluded to, if you take the MERP content as canon!
Angus McBride: Master of skill and whimsy
Returning to my original point, I was exposed to Tolkien art back in the 80s. Specifically, this:
Tolkien art back in the 70s and 80s was just different to what you see now. It was more… cute? No, that’s not it. Fairytale! Maybe… Whatever it was, it didn’t have that seemingly compulsory amount of grittiness that modern fantasy art has. Here are a few examples from those lighter and brighter days:
Angus McBride fits with these renditions like a custom-made glove. His paintings are a joyful balance of that whimsical charm of the old school Tolkien artwork and an attention to a level of fairytale realism that grounds his work to the spot. Perhaps more than any of the above examples, McBride’s renditions of Middle-Earth give you the impression that we are not looking at an entirely made-up world, but one just beyond the pages of our history books.
Gouache like you’ve never seen gouache before
If I didn’t know that McBride primarily used a painting medium called gouache (pronounced ‘gwahsh’), I would have bet Smaug’s hoard that he used acrylics. My own experience with gouache is limited to only really ever using it for highlighting, thanks to its wonderfully opaque quality. But that paint’s usefulness extends beyond that. Gouache can be thinned to use for washes and even once it has dried, you can ‘re-activate’ it by adding water to it again. For a paint-wielding illustrator like Angus McBride, this must have been an easy medium choice to make. And speaking of Smaug, look at the insanely good things he could do with it!
You can see the thinned-out gouache effect in the sky and background plumes of smoke, contrasted with the laser-sharp lines on the foreground standing stone. To be able to achieve so much variety with a single medium has me seriously thinking about picking some up again myself!
I think McBride shows off his style and mastery of his chosen medium not in the grand settings or renditions of characters, but in little spots at the edge of your focus – the areas that serve merely as border details. Look at this exquisitely realised clump of grass:
I cannot tell you how masterfully done this insignificant little patch of leaves and dirt is. McBride went to the trouble of painting this section using layer upon layer of increasingly opaque tones and hues to create structure, framing, and depth of field. Here’s the full painting, with the featured section just below the Entry Bridge over the Bruinen:
This is where a lot of great fantasy artists really let their abilities loose. That ability to control focal point direction and the measure between detail and indistinct areas is a hallmark of the greats like Frazetta, Jones, Petar Meseldzija and, most assuredly, Angus McBride.
A Fine Balance
I’d like to end this all-too brief look at Angus McBride by sharing my personal favourite piece of his:
The reason this particular illustration is my favourite McBride piece is quite simple- it is beautiful to my eyes. While I may love a good battle scene, a brilliantly-imagined creature, a hero showing almost unimaginable strength and resolve against odds you’d wager they couldn’t possibly survive, sometimes it’s just the skill and delicacy an artist shows that appeals to me.
As somebody who can semi-decently push paint around a surface, I often find myself looking not at the scene a painting depicts, but at how the scene has been created. The Eaves of Choil Borba is, to my mind, a window into McBride’s own preferences in art. Take a look at this section from the top right of the painting:
There is so much knowledge on display here. The shapes of the trees are authentic and believable. This isn’t something you can do unless you really know how to paint a tree. I would find it a virtual impossibility that Angus used reference on this small bit of background detail. He painted this with a combination of knowledge, design and skill.
It’s almost as if The Eaves of Choil Borba is actually a selection of paintings living within a painting. Look at this section and tell me this isn’t a painting in itself!
The smooth contrast between summer’s hazy light and warm afternoon shadow, the violence of the ambushing cave-dwellers and the flight of the little birds seeming unconcerned with anything other their own business; the way the foliage overhangs the cave roof and dances down to the tiered waterfall – it is a beautiful display of contrasts.
In McConclusion
I could quite happily keep talking about McBride and his work, but as I said at the start of this post (I know, it seems so long ago now), I want to show you why I think he should stand with the absolute greats of Tolkien illustration. But, what I don’t want to do is spoil all the surprises his work has in store for you. Hopefully I’ve given you enough of a taste for you to seek out his work yourself. If you do decide to undertake that endeavour, I would recommend you get yourself a copy of this book:
As it says on the cover, the book has game statistics included (on the left-hand page of each spread), but it really is just the closest thing we have to an Angus McBride art book. The images are nice and clear and I believe it includes all of McBride’s major LOTR illustrations to this point of publication. Well worth seeking out!
A Legacy Yet Found
Angus McBride passed away in 2007, four days after his 76th Birthday. I think we fans that know just how incredible his Tolkien artwork is owe it to him to share it with those who are yet to discover this very real fact. His Tolkien art IS incredible.
It’s time the world saw!
The Tolkien Gateways Angus McBride page
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