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TurnerMohan β The Blue Wizards
#gandalf #pallando #saruman #wizards #allatar #bluewizards #istari #lordoftherings
Published: 2014-12-27 09:56:50 +0000 UTC; Views: 28823; Favourites: 487; Downloads: 192
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Allatar and Pallando (no doubt known by different names at this point) meet for a chai, somewhere in the vast expanses of the East.The blue wizards fascinate me. They are perhaps the two most significant absentees of the events of the third age in the west in middle-earth, having ventured off east and never returning; theirs was the only (remarked upon) excursion of the ainur into the east, and in them and their story (what precious little we have of it) as with little details like the oliphants or the "apes of the southern juggles," middle-earth is expanded out beyond being merely some pseudo-european mythical world and comes to feel more like a fictionalized version of, well, the whole world. Tolkien changed his mind a few times about the blue wizards; his original concept, presented in he appendices to the Lord of the Rings and in the Unfinished Tales, placed them as the last two members of the istari, who went far out into the east of middle-earth and never returned, founding cults and magic traditions, but in this early concept, generally speaking, the blue wizards (like radaghast and saruman) are supposed to have failed in their larger mission (to inspire the people of middle earth to action and contest the rise of Sauron) becoming terminally side-tracked in their journeys. His later conception of the duo was less critical, placing their arrival in middle-earth midway through the second age, several thousand years before Saruman Gandalf and Radaghast, and in this version they are remarked to have had a great impact as missionaries to the east, successfully combating the influence of evil and instilling in the peoples and cultures of the far off eastern lands some much needed knowledge of the Powers in the True West.
personally I can't make up my mind as to which concept I like better. I definitely prefer the notion of the five Istari coming to middle-earth as a unit, and the concept of maiar spirits being sent to middle-earth to do a particular job and instead becoming lost in the vastness of the world is really interesting to me, much more interesting than them simply carrying out the rather narrow task of missionary work, but at the same time it's nice to think that the Valar would give SOME thought to the children of men outside of the edain (the case has been made elsewhere - and I think it's a sound one - that it's just a little douchey of both the elves and the Valar to hold it against the "evil" men of the south and east that they came to worship the only one of the divine powers who actually bothered to show himself to them) and if the blue wizards were sent to middle-earth with stated purpose of going east, it is reasonable to believe that through their influence the peoples and cultures out there gained some awareness of the creator and the divine truth of the world they live in.
It was suggested to me that the Blue Wizards should look ethnically like the people of the farther regions of middle-earth who they would be interacting with, which seems especially fitting if they were indeed MEANT to go east (and provided a great opportunity, artistically, to draw on "wizards" from non-european cultures). I was going for a very central-asian feel to their rendezvous setting, and also to have them look like they've been living apart, among different peoples in different lands (the "East" always reffered to as one unified, villainous entity by westerners, is infact far bigger and more diverse than the west). it was a matter of some debate for me whether or not they should still retain their blue robes (leave it to the valar to be tone-deaf enough to clothe their two emmisarries heading out farthest into hostile territory in the rarest and therefore most conspicuous dye color, because it's "the color of the sea") but finally i thought they should retain their colors, reworked and re-tailored as cultural stylings dictate, and finally hidden (like gandalf's white) under less attention-grabbing garments.Β imagine the two meeting for the first time in many, many years, possibly to discuss the reemergence of sauron, (or maybe just to catch up over a nice bowl of hashish)
this was a really fun picture to do and to think about. maybe there's an inherent fondness for those tantalizing little side characters we only get to hear a word or two about, but I've got to love the blue wizards for going out east and becoming immersed. i see them as the sort of rebellious ones; they came to do their mission but got kind of floored by how huge and awe inspiring the world is, and came to develop a personal affinity for the under-cared-for people of the east, as both inherently good, empathetic children of illuvatar, and as a people under constant pressure from the forces of evil. I like to think that in attempting to undo things like dragon-worship and curb the spread of ruthless mordor-supported warlords, they had alot of work cut out for them - not the least of which being relentlessly hunted by servants of sauron - and came in time to relish the task (saruman is of course rebellious as well, but more like the ivy league educated success case who crashes and burns in his mid thirties, they "failed in different ways" as tolkien puts it)
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Very interesting art and write-up here. Having read the main books and seen the movies (and owning them), I always wondered most about the Haradrim and the Rhun (and those beyond them), and naturally it was intriguing when I found out about the Blue Wizards. Sad lack of info to go on about the lands beyond Middle Earth, though it seems clear that there's a lot more land/realms out to the East and South, especially considering what Tolkien based his world on. That said, I think it much more fascinating now to consider a wider world more like our own with a vast variety of peoples and cultures, rather than just one which is largely based on Eurocentric themes. As someone who finds Asian histories and cultures more fascinating than most (as well as someone with a degree in History) I'm always on the look out for more fantasy themes and worlds based on or influenced by those sorts of things. Shame they seem to remain comparatively scarce in relation to the saturation of European themes in the fantasy genre, but it makes curiosities like this more special I think.
Anyway, apologies if I got a little long-winded there, but your excellent write-up and art here got me thinking.
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I like it, I like it a lot - it's rare that anyone puts any real thought into the East of Middle Earth, let alone the Blue Wizards, and speaking as a Byzantinist, with an interest in interactions between East and West, both in real history and fiction, your conception is an excellent one.
However, one little quibble - the most expensive dye, assuming that Middle-Earth reflects Earth-Earth as much as I think it does, would be purple, the Imperial colour (so rare because of the difficulty and expense of making the damn stuff). Blue wouldn't be cheap, but it wouldn't be as eye-popping a statement as purple - especially not if it was a greenish-grey sea blue.
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Good work. i would like to see more of the east to see what kind of culture's are there.
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This is a beautiful picture, and I love all the thought and detail into the lore that went with it. You can really tell. This is wonderful.
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i always liked to think one of the blue was merlin
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I love this,,,,,picture and description and everything. I love the Two Blue Wizards (but Radagast is my favorite). I love how 'Pallando' involves the word for 'far' like 'Palantir'
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Great picture! And very interesting to read the backstory and the thoughts behind it.
I always loved to speculate about the Blue wizards and I imagine them similarly. It seems natural that they adopted some "native" style of clothing and identity and also quite different from each other (there must be many different cultures in the East). It is also interesting idea that they had different personalities and approach to their job.
As for their mission, I'm not sure too, what I prefer. I think they may have been succesful in turning people in the east from worship of Sauron, bringing wisdom, charity and inspiration and indirectly helping the West by draining resources of Sauron in the East. But at the same time the may have failed in a similar sense as Radagast - not turning really to evil and openly allying themselves with the Dark Lord as Saruman did, but becoming too estranged from the Powers of the West, so they remained in their beloved lands in the East and didn't care about returning even after the fall of Sauron.
By the way, what do you think about their interaction with the Avari?
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Superb! This is one of the latter best! I see some new stuff here, seems like you are making experiments a lot aren't you? I specially appreciate the way the boy is flat yellow, reminds me old comic books and Fairy Tale paintings, I don't know if its on purpose or a byproduct of a new type of paper or ink but it just works. The faceless man on the left is another high point! I really like how this style is bold, rich and help focusing on what really matters. The only critics would be about the first plane. There is something about it that distracts my eyes, maybe the colors being too light or the straight guiding lines of the cane or even the size of the objects, I don't really know exactly what and of course I could be just mistaken but I got that impression. Not something that ruins this excellent piece in any way of course. And concept wise it is just a gem. I don't recall seeing any rendition of the Blue wizards and yours is perfect and should be the official
Keep up the great work Turner.
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This is awesome, I love it so much, and the back story! I actually didn't know that Tolkien had two concepts for the Blue Wizards, so thanks for that bit of information.
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I thoroughly enjoyed your explanation for the backstory here. Could you explain the outfits a bit more? I'm guessing one is from the more 'southern' lands?
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thanks, and yeah the one on the left i imagined operates more in khand and near harad (areas roughly correspondent i would think, to the middle-east, persia, the lower stan countries and india) i wanted to use these two as another opportunity to present the classic dichotomy between the "wizard in the woods" type and the "wizard in the tower" type. Allatar (the one on the right) is more a gandalf type; a wanderer with alot of grit, making no lasting home anywhere, and he's spent time way the hell out there in nomansland (a mongolian/siberian shaman was the look i was going for with him, that bone around his neck may even be a tip of walrus tusk from the middle-earth bearing sea) he has a hunting hawk (it's likely to me that even small raptors are in fact sevants of manwe, or atleast long descendants thereof) and like gandalf is girt with a sword (only in his case it's that scimitar; a gift i imagine from some good khan out east in recognition of him as a friend to man and a slayer of evil things) whereas pallando might establish himself as a mighty magician in some lavish city of men like some bagdad type place out in khand or near harad. i based him mostly on muslim sufi musicians (i didn't get to include it in this piece, but i wanted him to carry a musical instrument, like an alghozo flute or drum, I'd considered him even attaching strings and a bridge to his staff, turning it into some kind of tumbi that would let him channel his power through song and playing, the world was afterall created as music, and i liked the idea of him weening people away from sauron's influence and toward some understanding of the divine powers through music) i see him as enjoying his creature comforts and the finer things in life, but i tend to think if anything his job is actually more dangerous, those places being more directly under sauron's control, and he has perhaps at many occasions had to do battle with powerful, mordor backed, kind of jafar-esque sorcerors (possibly black numenoeans like the mouth of sauron, or even on occasion one of the nazgul; while drawing this piece the idea came to me to do a fanfic about some mid third age, never-heard-of-in-the-west great battle on the steppes, where the free people of the east, aided by the blue wizards, defeated the forces of evil lead by khamul the ringwraith)
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Wow, that's awesome! I really like how much thinking and research you've put into this and can't help but respect the result even more. Thank you for sharing your thought process with me. Solidly justified design decisions = best ones!
Looking through your gallery, you back up a lot of your art that way β which I think adds to it and gives it so much more dimension. So, essentially, I have no choice but to watch you now. ;]
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A color picture from you is always a delight, given your love of shading & detail. This one looks painted instead of inked, are you trying something different? The quasi-Indian and quasi-Tibetan looks seem appropriate for Wizards who felt it was necessary to go East and South, and I like the idea that they both did not wear royal blue, or changed from that color if they began so. The Istari did not have set missions, and they seem to have had some personal latitude in their choice of action, as long as they chose to abide by the commandments set forth by Manwe. At least one of the Blues was a follower of Orome (who greeted and guided the Elves), so I am certain he at least went East on purpose. And if he should go there, then he should look the part...
The section on the Istari in Unfinished Tales really got me to re-think the Five Wizards, their mission, their respective interpretations of that mission, and their results. The Valar were clever in avoiding their own ban and relinquishment of power, but also wise in having the peoples of Middle-Earth be encouraged to resist Sauron through their own efforts, with the guidance and assistance of a few wise old mentors. 
In a sense, these two wizards in conference are bound to fail, for they don't even have the minimal amount of favorable cultural bias enjoyed by Gandalf, Saruman, and Radagast, and only Gandalf never strayed or wavered in his mission of ceaseless roving in the West. But the Blue Wizards maybe chose "to light one candle than curse the Darkness (sic)" and they might have prevented the full might of Sauron from being turned on the West, or diluted its effect. The East is home to despotic rulers, but it is also the origin of many faiths and philosophies which also seek positive meaning and power in life. There were also underground movements that subverted the tyrannies of caste and king, or demanded that justice be done in the name of Heaven, which even the greatest despot could not set aside. That might have been what Tolkien had in mind in the end after all.Β
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this one was watercolor on illustration board (a really shitty illustration board that couldnt take paint at all, i'm lucky i finished) i believe both allatar and pallando were maia of orome, which makes them wanderers by nature (making them well suited to the east which as i tend to imagine it is fucking big, roughly the same size relative to the western lands of middle-earth as asia is to europe)
in the west you have the elves, which have been around forever, have personally interacted with the valar and maiar in some cases, and have sauron's number cold, and any civilization that's got half a brain will heed their warnings about him (though there's no shortage of less than half-brained civilizations in the west, even among the "good guys") but in the east, it always seemed, they never had that. to them elves are just some untrustworthy or full-on hateful (or just purely mythological) things that live in the west, along with men that they've been similarly encouraged to hate, all by the forces of evil (first morgoth and then sauron) who are really the "divine" forces that the men of the east have had by far the most cultural exposure to, as sador remarks of the very earliest and most western category of what you could call "easterlings" - who i always liked to think were more slavic, ethnically, and probably closer related to the edain than to the myriad "easterlings" of the third age - "they learn as fast from the orcs as we have from the eldar" and i think that's pretty much what the history of cultural development out east must be like; alot of their language and culture beyond what they could make for themselves they got, in origin, from emissaries of angband or mordor (and probably dwarves as well, some houses of which range far out into the east) and i like the idea of things like the men of the east worshipping dragons for example (the way dragons are treated in chinese tradition not as evil but as supernatural beings) or of symbols like the all-seeing eye finding it's way into cultural iconography, without the artists who paint and carve them (a few generations in) really understanding what it is (you cant really tell but the eye is actually incorporated into the underframe of that table that the wizards are sitting at, which i liked as a concept; obviously the blue wizards like and trust the family/clan whose yurt they're taking tea in, despite the Eye appearing on their furnature, it's just part of their culture's symbiology, so long ingrained that they don't even rightly know what it means) humans however, are not orcs, and i would think that their humanity and inherent goodness (in the religious sense) would out itself all over the cultures and civilizations of the east. plus we wouldn't really know from the western perspective of lotr how much of the population of "middle-earth asia" actually is under sauron's rule. perhaps there are whole free nations out there.
i like to think that, like real history, it'd be a complicated story, the story of the east; a place where the same courts that bear statues of dragons have pretty decent confucius-style morality being taught in them. it's a less morally black and white world than the west, again in large part thats because of the absence of elves to show men the way (i like to think this is all stuff that the blue wizards would be sensitive to and able to work with)
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As Middle-earth is more or less constructed along the lines of our own Earth, so I expect Rhun to be equally large, or at least the same size as western Middle-Earth on the other side of the steppe plains. There should be the Siberian-style mountains, the cold taiga, the eastern icy wastes, the Red Mountains separating coastal lands from the interior, inland deserts, jungles, and great rivers. The various peoples of Asia should be spread up and down this region, as thickly or thinly as they might, while leaving room for the Dwarvesintheir mountain holds and Avar Elves in the deep woods. Orcs, trolls, and dragons would have fled the ruin of Angband to find refuges, and then been reinforced by levies from Mordor as Sauron built his power. The East in terms of Men was more than Turkic and Hunno-Mongol nomads causing problems for Gondor and the Northmen, though. Wainriders, bearded axe-men, and Balchoth alike were all from the East, and even their cursory descriptions imply a wide diversity of culture and development. Tolkien said little of the peripheral East, but from the Appendices one gets the idea that the Dunedain of Arnor and Gondor were content with what they had, and felt little need to enter into Rhun as warriors or merchants.
Now, Rhun and all attendant lands was under the Shadow for nearly all the first three Ages of the Sun. The Edain had fled it in the time of Morgoth, and in the Second Age Sauron extended his power there after Numenor had denied him the West and South. At least three Nazgul sorcerer-kings had built realms in the East at that time, further strengthening the power of Sauron as a god-emperor incarnate. If the Free Peoples of Middle-earth in the West at times had to cede large portions of territory to Sauronic forces due to location or lack of resistance, what does that say about the East, who had felt his direct power for generations beyond count? In Sauron's East a Chandra Gupta would not feel the need to assuage his conscience with public works and temples, nor would beautiful and pacific Angkor Wat rise from the jungle, nor would philosophers and poets sit under the cherry and peach trees of Kyoto and sip tea. Rather, the likes of Attila, Cao Cao, Tamerlane, and the Taliban would persevere and proliferate, receiving permission and promotion from Mordor as long as they remembered their allegiance to the true Lord of Men in Barad-Dur.
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Again, at first glance the work of the Blue Wizards seem doomed to fail whatever they did in this environment. But Tolkien's UT description of the Blue Wizards as missionaries gives an idea of what could be accomplished. And it wasn't all hopeless, since the Istari had arrived when Sauron had just gotten himself established at Dol Guldur as a "necromancer". The East had doubtlessly undergone great tumult in the wake of the War of the Last Alliance, with the Nazgul gone into the shadows and the guiding hand of Mordor absent. Indeed, in the 11th century of the Third Age Gondor was at the height of her power, and the White Tree was seen on the Sea of Rhun. The Blue Wizards might have had an easy journey to the east, where they could explore and examine the lands under the Shadow, and begin to see if there were Men, Dwarves, and Avar Elves ready to defy the Shadow, now that the Dark Lord had proved to not be invincible after all. They may have gotten diverted from their mission by other pursuits, but at least in the Third Age the Blue Wizards could offer some alternatives to hopeless, endless groveling to the Eye. Β
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I always thought the Sea of Rhun and Nurnen as Black/Caspian seas and Orocarni as the Ural, so the 'East' that appeared in LOTR is only the Great Steppe, we haven't seen the entirety of the East, leaving the room for good or at least neutral Easterlings standing against Sauron. And even Cao Cao and Timur, despite their atrocities, were still men of culture who tried to beautify the environment they are living in, and Priscus' account of Attila's court portrays the Huns as actually rather civilized people.
It is possible that Khamul the Easterling was a lynchpin keeping the East tied to Sauron, and with him absent for many years (due to Sauron's focus on eliminating the threats on the West), the East was getting restless.
As for the 'cruel' Easterlings, historically the nomadic people were perceived by sedentary people as cruel and barbarous, but it was a very different story from their POVs.Β
EDIT: I think there is at least two dialogue between sedentary and nomadic people arguing which of their way of life is better. Interestingly, in both of them, the nomadic side was from the men who initially sent unwillingly to the nomadic society (in Priscus', it was a Roman prisoner who was taken as a slave initially but earned his freedom, and in Chinese story, it was a eunuch who was sent as part of imperial marriage. Both rose high among the ranks of a nomad society with their merits).
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Gotta say I love this interpretation of them. It's fun trying to pin the two names on them. Which is which? Also fun to imagine all the adventures they might have got up to, alone and together.
Wonder what their staffs were like?
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funny you should wonder about the staffs, as i gave some consideration to that; we hear about them "founding cults and magic practices" through which, we can assume, some small bit of divine truth and divine wisdom found it's way into the religious practices of the south and east. especially if middle-earth is to be taken as a mythic parallel for our real world in ancient history, that seems like an (admittedly somewhat condescending by modern, multicultural standards) attempt on tolkien's part to grant some credit to non-christian traditions like hinduism or budhism as possessing a genuine spark of divine truth, however muddled or confused by tradition they've become (that was always CS Lewis's attitude toward "other" religions) and i wanted to play with that idea with both these figures; for example allatar (who i envision as the more east asian looking one on the right) might enter the traditions of the people in the far east of arda as a kind of proto (or mythic, alternate) confucius, and similarly the more indian/middle-eastern looking pallando might have inspired traditions in his regions like sufism in islam. i picture pallando as basically a proto-sufi musician; the cosmos in tolkien's world were brought into being by the music of the ainur, and obviously so much of religious practice in our real world is bound up with music, so i thought that music be the medium through which he attempts to bring the people or khand and near harad (where i imagine him operating mostly) away from evil and communicate some knowledge of the divine truth (i didn't get to include it in this piece, but i wanted him to carry a musical instrument, like an alghozo flute or drum, I'd considered him even attaching strings and a bridge to his staff, turning it into some kind of tumbi that would let him channel his power through song and playing rather than through spells and thrusts like gandalf or saruman)
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As a practicing Sufi I really love your interpretation and in depth knowledge! 
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thank you so much. though not religious myself i love sufi music, there's something about it that has always resonated with me, and seems so "wizardly" in the old school, religious mystic sense of the word (the guy on the left was based primarily on the pakistani singer Allan Faqir)
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Very interesting to know!
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I'm kind of picturing your Allatar with a staff bent forward like a fishing-hook, myself.
...not exactly as in-depth as you, here, but it seems like an (admittedly shallow) way of portraying the character's more indirect approach toward the people he considers his wards. Also I've never really seen a wizard staff shaped like a wide shepherd's crook. Then again, maybe that's because Moses did it first. >_>
Pallando having a musical staff is doubly great because dual-purpose magic staffs just seems cool to me. (I've always liked the idea of a sword-staff, for example)
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I don't know if this will make people throw rocks at me, but I kind found the inclusion of the two blue wizards to be lazy writing for Tolkein. Really both Gandalf and Saruman, as well as Radagast are the really important ones.
This is something Lewis Lovhaug (Linkara) brought up when mentioning the dwarves in the Hobbit when he reviewed the comic adaption, and yeah I know this was back in the early half of the 20th century and Tolkein was just trying to make England's own mythology and harken to the old anglo verses like Beowulf... but still some of the writing came off as (For a lack of a better term) -- "Unfinished."
Which I understand since I myself tend to leave my work unfinished time to time.
Anyway, I REALLY love this drawing.
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i'm not sure how including places, creatures, or characters like the blue wizards, that are mentioned but don't feature in the story at hand, constitutes lazy writing. Gandalf Saurman and Radagast are the "important ones" because they live in the part of middle-earth where the events covered in the hobbit and the lord of the rings take place, and they take part in those events (and radagast just barely). it doesnt seem to me that tolkien should have either written more about the blue wizards (though i wish he had) or simply left them out; peripheral details like the blue wizards or the city of umbar (which we never get to "see") help create a sense of reality to world of middle-earth, that it is bigger than merely those individual stories taking place in it which we get to hear about in detail (like the quest for erebor or the war of the ring)
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Okay, that actually makes sense now. Thanks for clarifying and sorry for the mishap.
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Beautifully composed scene and a rare glimpse into the mysterious world of the Blue Wizards. I always like seeing where your eye will turn next in the deeper world of J.R.R. Tolkien!
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these two have been on my mind for a long time, i first started this painting back in march or april, and have had a lot of time to think about the blues brothers and what their time in the east (and the east itself) might have been all about
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What a wonderful portrait of them! They could have been extremely interesting characters, a pity we don't know so much of them
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it is a pity, but i love the frayed edges of tolkien's mythos because they add such a sense of size and (never to be fully encompassed or understood) scope to his fictional world. and also i find those frayed edges are really where, as tolkien himself said "other minds and hands, wielding paint and music and drama" can step in and help to fill in the grey areas.
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Nice work! I like the idea, wish they were in the movies!
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well considering PJ basically threw the kitchen sink at those hobbit movies, i'm kind surprised (and more than a little grateful) that they werent in it, but yeah i'd love to see them in some movie of their own (maybe i'll try my hand as a fanfic writer 
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Fanfic, huh...?
Hmmm... The War of the Ring from the viewpoint of the Blue Wizards and their good natured disciples. The guy who got shot down in Herbs and Stewed Rabbit comes to mind
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Bahahah kitchen sink. Yes 
You should!
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A simply fantastic piece and incredibly interesting toughts, Turner. Maybe my favourite from you.
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thank you my friend, this one was one of my favorites to think about (maybe not to paint, though
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It's great both in concept and realization.
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A Blue Wizard picture! 
Beautiful picture!
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agreed, i prefer the idea of them coming at the same time as the others, and yeah i like to think they didn't fail in their mission, they just did it their own way (maybe not up to gandalf's standards, but i would hope the blue wizards are two of the very few people in middle-earth who would posess the knowledge and the authority to tell gandalf to stuff it) i love that tantalizing detail that tolkien provides about them founding "cults and magic practices" through which, we can assume, some small bit of divine truth and divine wisdom found it's way into the religious practices of the south and east. especially if middle-earth is to be taken as a mythic parallel for our real world in ancient history, that seems like an (admittedly somewhat condescending sounding) attempt on tolkien's part to grant some credit to non-christian traditions like hinduism some credit as posessing a genuine spark of divine truth, however muddled or confused by tradition they've become (that was always CS Lewis's attitude toward "other" religions) and i wanted to play with that idea with both these figures; like allatar (the more east asian looking one on the right) might enter the traditions of the people in the far east of arda as a kind of proto (or mythic, alternate) confucius, and similarly the more indian/middle-eastern looking pallando might have inspired tradtions like sufism in islam.Β i picture pallando as basically a proto-sufi musician; the cosmos in tolkien's world were brought into being by the music of the ainur, and so much of religious practice in our real world is bound up with music, that i thought that might be the medium through which he attempts to bring the people or khand and near harad (where i imagine him operating mostly) away from evil and into some knowledge of god (i didn't get to include it in this piece, but i wanted him to carry a musical instrument, like an alghozo flute or drum, or maybe he's even attached strings and a bridge to his staff, turning it into some kind of tumbi)
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Β Now these two old gentlemen look like they have more than one tale to tell over the course of this reunion - it amuses me to imagine that the Middle Earth tradition of 'Arabian Nights'-type tales got its start as a result of the serving-lads recollection of the Tales told by these twin blue wanderers of the far horizons!Β
Β Please allow me to congratulate you once again Master Mohan on producing such a fine image, especially such a splendidly evocative piece of work! (long-anticipated it has proven well worth a wait to see).Β
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yeah well something like the world of arabian nights is definitely where i see pallando (the one on the left) operating. i liked the idea of these two as another opportunity to present the classic dichotomy between the "wizard in the woods" and the "wizard in the tower." Allatar is more a gandalf type; a wanderer with alot of grit, making no lasting home anywhere, and he's spent time way the hell out there in nomansland (a mongolian/siberian shaman was the look i was going for with him, that bone around his neck may even be a tip of walrus tusk from the middle-earth bearing sea) he has a hunting hawk (it's likely to me that even small raptors are in fact sevants of manwe, or atleast long descendants thereof) and like gandalf is girt with a sword (only in his case it's that scimitar; a gift i imagine from some good khan out east in recognition of him as a friend to man and a slayer of evil things) whereas pallando might establish himself as a mighty magician in some lavish city of men like some bagdad type place out in khand or near harad, he enjoys his creature comforts and the finer things in life, but i tend to think if anything his job is actually more dangerous, those places being more directly under sauron's control, and he has perhaps at many ocasions had to do battle with powerful, mordor backed, jafar-esque sorcerors (possibly black numenoeans like the mouth of sauron, or even on occasion one of the nazgul; while drawing this piece the idea came to me to do a fanfic about some mid third age, never-heard-of-in-the-west great battle on the steppes, where the free people of the east, aided by the blue wizards, defeated the forces of evil lead by khamul the ringwraith)
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Β Well SOMETHING (or more likely a great many Someones) must have stopped all those wretched Wainriders Volk-wandering into the West and its nice to imagine the Boys in Blue had something to do with it! (I'm also tremendously fond of the mental image of a Ringwraith that looks more like Disney's Jafar than a Mad Monk).
Β I am also indomitably convinced that The Wandering Wizard on the Left sounds EXACTLY like the late, great Mako when he speaks!Β Β
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i think you mean on the right but yes
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Β Dagnabit, that's what happens to a perfectly good post when you let your attention wander even a little - typos creep in like Taxmen on a profit!Β
Β I do beg your pardon Master Mohan, for such sloppy typing.Β
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