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Man Shows How “The Lord Of The Rings” Characters Were Supposed To Look According To Book Descriptions (7 Pics)
Interview With Artist
You might be aware of the fact that characters in movie adaptations do not always look like those described in a book. Sometimes the cast is chosen merely because of their popularity, acting skills or general vibe, leaving aside their looks. Fortunately, there are people who can help those dying to see a precise visual representation of their favorite book personas by illustrating them according to their original descriptions.
An artist named Ivan Rebikow decided to use artificial intelligence to recreate characters from The Lord of the Rings. He chose an independent research lab called Midjourney to produce images from textual descriptions. Scroll down to see what Gandalf, Balrog, Sauron, Nazgul, Gimli, Frodo and Aragorn would look like according to J. R. R. Tolkien!
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Gandalf
Image credits: ivanrebikovnow
Gandalf in the movie
Gandalf, later known as Gandalf the White, and originally named Olórin, is a protagonist in J. R. R. Tolkien’s novels The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.
He is an Istar (Wizard) and the leader of the Fellowship of the Ring.
Balrog
Image credits: ivanrebikovnow
Balrog in the movie
A Balrog is a powerful demonic monster in J. R. R. Tolkien’s Middle-earth.
Sauron
Image credits: ivanrebikovnow
Sauron in the movie
Sauron is the primary antagonist of J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, where he rules the land of Mordor and has the ambition of ruling the whole of Middle-earth.
Nazgul
Image credits: ivanrebikovnow
Nazgul in the movie
The Nazgûl, also known as the Black Riders or simply The Nine are fictional characters in J. R. R. Tolkien’s Middle-earth. They are the dreaded ring-servants of the Dark Lord Sauron in Middle-earth.
Gimli
Image credits: ivanrebikovnow
Gimli in the movie
Gimli is a Dwarf of the House of Durin and a member of the Fellowship of the Ring. He is a dwarf warrior, the son of Glóin, who fought alongside Elves in the War of the Ring against Sauron at the end of the Third Age.
Frodo
Image credits: ivanrebikovnow
Frodo in the movie
Frodo Baggins is one of the protagonists in The Lord of the Rings. He is a hobbit of the Shire who inherits the One Ring from his cousin and undertakes the quest to destroy it in the fires of Mount Doom in Mordor.
Aragorn
Image credits: ivanrebikovnow
Aragorn in the movie
Aragorn is a protagonist in J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. He was a Ranger of the North, first introduced with the name Strider and later revealed to be the heir of Isildur, an ancient King of Arnor and Gondor.
Ivan told Bored Panda that he was impressed by Midjourney’s response to the text descriptions. “I noticed that it produces the most interesting work on the extended description of the object.
The longer the description, the more unpredictable the result was. I chose the characters from The Lord of the Rings because each of them had an entire description of their appearance. So I wondered how Midjourney would draw them.”
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What do you think ?
RafCo (he/him) 2 years ago
I have some issues with these. First, Gandalf is described as having a long grey beard and particularly long bushy eyebrows. Frodo is 50 years old when he leaves the shire, not 13, and taking into account that hobbits age a bit slower than humans a 50 year old hobbit would be like a 30-35 year old human. And finally, the Nazgul are walking shadows. They cannot be seen unless you yourself are also a wraith, or wearing the one ring. All you see are their black cloaks. But I suppose this is what you might see if you were a wraith. As to Sauron, in the books of LOTR Sauron has no physical form, but is described always as a "mind" and sometimes an "ever searching eye". The orcs of Mordor have the Red Eye of Sauron painted on their shields. Okay, I'm done being a nerd now. Still, these are cool
Trond Øien 2 years ago (edited)
I agree. The Peter Jackson trilogy pretty much nailed it imo.
Load More Replies...
Colin Timp 2 years ago (edited)
I don't know where they got some of these. First off, Gandalf's is supposed to have massive bushy eyebrows. The Balrog doesn't really have a defined shape. It's shadow and flame. The Nazgul aren't visible to those not wearing the ring. Frodo is between 33 and 52 during the events; not 10.
Josh Fisher 2 years ago
See, that's the thing. The characters looks were only described in words. I don't believe Tolkien ever did any graphic art to show the characters, only words, which makes the reader have to visualize it in their head so one persons interpretation of a characters description is not exactly going to match what someone else pictures in their head. Similar, yes, 100 percent the same for ever reader? Absolutely impossible as everyone. Is going to picture some attributes differently then others which is why the books are almost always better than any movies/tv shows based on those books. It's up to your imagination to fill in some of character's looks instead of someone else's interpretation. That is unless the writer is also a graphic novelists which really does give more insite into the creators true vision like comic book movies for example. The characters looks have already been established by decades of comics in multiple ways. The same is not true for the LOTR.
Load More Replies...
Loki’s Lil Butter Knife 2 years ago (edited)
I find it so fascinating that AI has such an incredible amount of trouble rendering eyes-- I wonder why that is. I find the AI's interpretation of the Nagzul witch king is pretty cool though.
B.Nelson 2 years ago
My thinking is that it takes a 3D AI to properly figure out where the eyes should be located and what they would look like under different lighting. I think these are based on more 2D look which is why areas with depth (eyes, nose) look strange and wonky.
Load More Replies...
Appalachian Panda 2 years ago
This is very underwhelming. So many great artists have depicted these characters over the years; I'll stick with them.
Šimon Špaček 2 years ago
It's long time since I read LOTR, but I don't remember Gimli being allergic to peanuts.
Amelia Bee 2 years ago
Why are there eyes so messed up? And enough of this AI BS! I'm so sick of it! This isn't close to "what they looked like", they're nightmare renditions of a computer who can't possibly have any concept of things like nuance, character, or mood.
Irene Salmakis 2 years ago
The Balrog is amazing. Thinking about the power of the text they gave that machine, what it spat back out is a magnificent and beautiful dance between humanity and its creation.
Issey 2 years ago
No, sorry. These are terrible. Not only are art AI's getting really boring (especially since all of them screw up eyes), but these just ignore facts from the book. Frodo is not a CHILD when he leaves the shire, he is in his 50s. Also Sauron was described as a "dark lord", but never really showed up as some dude in a black armor. The movies took some artistic liberties there, but that doesn't make it a fact.
Loki’s Lil Butter Knife 2 years ago (edited)
Hobbits age slower than humans so a hobbit in their fifties would likely be the equivalent of a human in their early to mid thirties. Still, I totally agree that Frodo looks like a child in the AI. In the Silmarillion, Sauron was a shapeshifter and took on the forms of a serpent, wolf, vampire, and Annatar the Gifter. This was the only description I good find from J.R.R Tolkien's "Unfinished Tales": Sauron should be thought of as very terrible. The form he took was that of a man of more than human stature, but not gigantic. In his earlier incarnation he was able to veil his power (as Gandalf did) and could appear as a commanding figure of great strength of body and supremely royal demeanour and countenance.” (Letter 246, The Letters of JRR Tolkien)
Load More Replies...
Virgil Blue 2 years ago (edited)
"An artist used AI to visualise..." Hold right there, unless you used the AI suggestion as a rough guide and painted/drew etc the end result yourself you are not an artist. You are merely entering keywords into a database until it spits out something you like. It's about as creative as a mandlebrot generator and a lot less interesting.
HannibalBarca 2 years ago
So the original description for Gimli is Brendan Gleeson's Menelaus from Troy (2004)?
Sherry Lee 2 years ago
Just NO. Tolkien’s middle earth was not full of teens. The eyes are wrong. The ages are wrong. It’s just NO.
Pan-Panda 2 years ago (edited)
Don't these apps/software also plagiarize from others artwork? If I remember correctly, they are relying on the artwork in their databases, which is mostly the internet, which means they are taking from even copyrighted material. Personally, though I believe that some AI artwork can be beautiful and unique, the majority is stealing and combing other people's hard work and calling it your own.
Tsunami_The_Seawing 2 years ago
Bro it probably doesn't fit the description at all, Aragorn looks to young
Brian Vrba 2 years ago
Okay, just saying, but the Balrog basically looks like a fully realized demonic form of Carnage...anyone else?
Justin Sched 2 years ago
Aragorn didn't have facial hair. Tolkien confirmed this in the 1970s—in response to a fan letter that was written in Elvish. 🙂
Karina Ribeiro 7 months ago
I guess this is the best one can get from AI: terrible rendering and misinterpreted characters. Support real artists like Krabat or Elena Kukanova for real and accurate art.
Rufus 1 year ago (edited)
Now I wanted to revisit the armors in the movies as they are complete nonsense in the movies and must have looked very different than what was shown in the movies, especially the dwarven and Rohirrim armors. Because the mere fact that the armor would work in real life as shown in the movie is completely false. And there is no need to talk about the height, hair and eye colors and armor of the elves in the films.
Rufus 1 year ago
Not even the Peter Jackson movies have the characters of J.R.R. Tolkien's world correctly represented. Aragorn is said to have been beardless, had light gray eyes (and yes, by gray eyes is actually meant gray eyes and not bluish gray eyes) and black, slightly longer hair. Gandalf the Gray had WHITE hair, a gray beard and a BLUE pointed hat (which had no crease). Frodo, like Bilbo, had brown hair (probably a bit dark). Sam will probably have had reddish hair. Legolas isn't further described in the books and as for the rest of the elves in the Peter Jackson films, he doesn't even need to be mentioned. The only ones that did reasonably well are Galadriel, Elrond, and Arwen (although they don't fit the book 100% visually either). The orcs were portrayed too "monstrously" in my opinion, as were the trolls and the balrog. The Balrogs and the dwarves look very different in the books.
Leon Kokorev 1 year ago
I don’t like these kinds of lists, surely you can’t expect to cast actors that look exactly like the book counterparts
Tjoori Vids 1 year ago
If that had been an actual artist creating the images - ok. But all of them are AI churned out, and... nope. Any idiot can "create art" that way. (Adobe Stock Library is already filled with that stuff!!!)
Inga Viviane 2 years ago
Sorry, what is the sense of this post? The graphics add nothing to the movie characters. The movie characters are really well casted and brilliantly put together, you just made new versions of them. Others explained it better, but this is just boring.
LeilaOdinis 2 years ago
I find reading a book, I get the character in what I think they look like. Others' interpretations make for wonderful conversation. Interesting imagery.
Debi Gallagher 2 years ago
I think the movie did a good job incorporating the book descriptions into the actors, make up and costuming. I mean, really, nobodies perfect anyhow.
Michael Dopp 2 years ago
Was the neural Network trained ONLY in the officel Tolkien books+Letters, or is it also influenced by movies, novel books, Internet, ... because that would explain, why the movie Looks so much Like the Pictures, as the Pictures are BASED on the movie, Not the books
Loki’s Lil Butter Knife 2 years ago
Renown fantasy artist, Alan Lee, has done some absolutely gorgeous illustration for the books based on some of Tolkien's descriptions. His work is know for its muted, natural colours and he has done some wonderful renditions of the characters and the landscapes. He was also consulted for the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit movies. I had no idea but he also played one of the Nazgul! Alan-Lee-6...235df1.jpg 
Virgil Blue 2 years ago
So the casting and design was practically spot on OR your AI buddy mined loads of Lotr and fantasy pics from the Internet and used those to generate these dead eyed portraits. I hate AI "art" with a passion. It's essentially sampling the art if thousands to cludge it together with filters to match keywords. We are going to see a lot of this kind of deadfull overdetailed generic look in movies in the future I think since AIs are cheaper than anyone with actual inspiration
Steve McCrea 2 years ago
What a crock! Gandalf has "bushy eyebrows that stick out beyond the brim of his shady hat! This guy hardly has eyebrows at all! Frodo looks like he's 16 or so. The Nazgul's faces were INVISIBLE! And Tolkien never describes what Sauron looks like at all. This isn't artificial intelligence, it's artificial stupidity!
Siege Thezar 2 years ago
If you want to hear of all the other unfitting things, just read the other comments, they just about nailed it. I’m just surprised though that Frodo being bilbos cousin slipped by. Frodo is his nephew! And, besides all of the inaccuracies, I love how people are willing to dedicate time to make things like this. Cool!
Jesse Markus 2 years ago
Frodo looks like a child in this illustration but he's 51 years old when he gets the ring. So i call b******t on this whole article. "According to the description in the books" my a*s.
Josh Jones 2 years ago
Aragorn doesn't have a beard per Tolkien to a woman who asked him point blank.
liam newton-harding 2 years ago
Least these AI portraits don't all look like one another, as is usually the case, but the algorithms still have a long way to go to actually make them look distinctive.
Steven Liston 2 years ago
These idiots never read the books Aragorn was Dunedin and they don't have beards.
Caleb Brown 2 years ago
Main issue here apart from some minor cosmetics is that Aragorn did not have a beard in the books. When you see the art endorsed by JR's son, Aragorn is beardless. Thats because being raised by elves, he kept himself clean shaven. This is a clickbait article.
Richard Henderson 2 years ago (edited)
“Man” did not recreate the characters, software did. The Nazgûl looks good but not much else.
GenericPanda09 2 years ago
I'm probably just rather cynical of all these people suddenly calling themselves 'artists' since things like Midjourney came along and before it did all their social media is the usual shots of them facing a sunset and trying to look a bit cool. It all got real old real fast fellas......... and you missed the cool wave of it.;
Load More Replies... RafCo (he/him) 2 years ago
I have some issues with these. First, Gandalf is described as having a long grey beard and particularly long bushy eyebrows. Frodo is 50 years old when he leaves the shire, not 13, and taking into account that hobbits age a bit slower than humans a 50 year old hobbit would be like a 30-35 year old human. And finally, the Nazgul are walking shadows. They cannot be seen unless you yourself are also a wraith, or wearing the one ring. All you see are their black cloaks. But I suppose this is what you might see if you were a wraith. As to Sauron, in the books of LOTR Sauron has no physical form, but is described always as a "mind" and sometimes an "ever searching eye". The orcs of Mordor have the Red Eye of Sauron painted on their shields. Okay, I'm done being a nerd now. Still, these are cool
Trond Øien 2 years ago (edited)
I agree. The Peter Jackson trilogy pretty much nailed it imo.
Load More Replies... Colin Timp 2 years ago (edited)
I don't know where they got some of these. First off, Gandalf's is supposed to have massive bushy eyebrows. The Balrog doesn't really have a defined shape. It's shadow and flame. The Nazgul aren't visible to those not wearing the ring. Frodo is between 33 and 52 during the events; not 10.
Josh Fisher 2 years ago
See, that's the thing. The characters looks were only described in words. I don't believe Tolkien ever did any graphic art to show the characters, only words, which makes the reader have to visualize it in their head so one persons interpretation of a characters description is not exactly going to match what someone else pictures in their head. Similar, yes, 100 percent the same for ever reader? Absolutely impossible as everyone. Is going to picture some attributes differently then others which is why the books are almost always better than any movies/tv shows based on those books. It's up to your imagination to fill in some of character's looks instead of someone else's interpretation. That is unless the writer is also a graphic novelists which really does give more insite into the creators true vision like comic book movies for example. The characters looks have already been established by decades of comics in multiple ways. The same is not true for the LOTR.
Load More Replies... Loki’s Lil Butter Knife 2 years ago (edited)
I find it so fascinating that AI has such an incredible amount of trouble rendering eyes-- I wonder why that is. I find the AI's interpretation of the Nagzul witch king is pretty cool though.
B.Nelson 2 years ago
My thinking is that it takes a 3D AI to properly figure out where the eyes should be located and what they would look like under different lighting. I think these are based on more 2D look which is why areas with depth (eyes, nose) look strange and wonky.
Load More Replies... Appalachian Panda 2 years ago
This is very underwhelming. So many great artists have depicted these characters over the years; I'll stick with them.
Šimon Špaček 2 years ago
It's long time since I read LOTR, but I don't remember Gimli being allergic to peanuts.
Amelia Bee 2 years ago
Why are there eyes so messed up? And enough of this AI BS! I'm so sick of it! This isn't close to "what they looked like", they're nightmare renditions of a computer who can't possibly have any concept of things like nuance, character, or mood.
Irene Salmakis 2 years ago
The Balrog is amazing. Thinking about the power of the text they gave that machine, what it spat back out is a magnificent and beautiful dance between humanity and its creation.
Issey 2 years ago
No, sorry. These are terrible. Not only are art AI's getting really boring (especially since all of them screw up eyes), but these just ignore facts from the book. Frodo is not a CHILD when he leaves the shire, he is in his 50s. Also Sauron was described as a "dark lord", but never really showed up as some dude in a black armor. The movies took some artistic liberties there, but that doesn't make it a fact.
Loki’s Lil Butter Knife 2 years ago (edited)
Hobbits age slower than humans so a hobbit in their fifties would likely be the equivalent of a human in their early to mid thirties. Still, I totally agree that Frodo looks like a child in the AI. In the Silmarillion, Sauron was a shapeshifter and took on the forms of a serpent, wolf, vampire, and Annatar the Gifter. This was the only description I good find from J.R.R Tolkien's "Unfinished Tales": Sauron should be thought of as very terrible. The form he took was that of a man of more than human stature, but not gigantic. In his earlier incarnation he was able to veil his power (as Gandalf did) and could appear as a commanding figure of great strength of body and supremely royal demeanour and countenance.” (Letter 246, The Letters of JRR Tolkien)
Load More Replies... Virgil Blue 2 years ago (edited)
"An artist used AI to visualise..." Hold right there, unless you used the AI suggestion as a rough guide and painted/drew etc the end result yourself you are not an artist. You are merely entering keywords into a database until it spits out something you like. It's about as creative as a mandlebrot generator and a lot less interesting.
HannibalBarca 2 years ago
So the original description for Gimli is Brendan Gleeson's Menelaus from Troy (2004)?
Sherry Lee 2 years ago
Just NO. Tolkien’s middle earth was not full of teens. The eyes are wrong. The ages are wrong. It’s just NO.
Pan-Panda 2 years ago (edited)
Don't these apps/software also plagiarize from others artwork? If I remember correctly, they are relying on the artwork in their databases, which is mostly the internet, which means they are taking from even copyrighted material. Personally, though I believe that some AI artwork can be beautiful and unique, the majority is stealing and combing other people's hard work and calling it your own.
Tsunami_The_Seawing 2 years ago
Bro it probably doesn't fit the description at all, Aragorn looks to young
Brian Vrba 2 years ago
Okay, just saying, but the Balrog basically looks like a fully realized demonic form of Carnage...anyone else?
Justin Sched 2 years ago
Aragorn didn't have facial hair. Tolkien confirmed this in the 1970s—in response to a fan letter that was written in Elvish. 🙂
Karina Ribeiro 7 months ago
I guess this is the best one can get from AI: terrible rendering and misinterpreted characters. Support real artists like Krabat or Elena Kukanova for real and accurate art.
Rufus 1 year ago (edited)
Now I wanted to revisit the armors in the movies as they are complete nonsense in the movies and must have looked very different than what was shown in the movies, especially the dwarven and Rohirrim armors. Because the mere fact that the armor would work in real life as shown in the movie is completely false. And there is no need to talk about the height, hair and eye colors and armor of the elves in the films.
Rufus 1 year ago
Not even the Peter Jackson movies have the characters of J.R.R. Tolkien's world correctly represented. Aragorn is said to have been beardless, had light gray eyes (and yes, by gray eyes is actually meant gray eyes and not bluish gray eyes) and black, slightly longer hair. Gandalf the Gray had WHITE hair, a gray beard and a BLUE pointed hat (which had no crease). Frodo, like Bilbo, had brown hair (probably a bit dark). Sam will probably have had reddish hair. Legolas isn't further described in the books and as for the rest of the elves in the Peter Jackson films, he doesn't even need to be mentioned. The only ones that did reasonably well are Galadriel, Elrond, and Arwen (although they don't fit the book 100% visually either). The orcs were portrayed too "monstrously" in my opinion, as were the trolls and the balrog. The Balrogs and the dwarves look very different in the books.
Leon Kokorev 1 year ago
I don’t like these kinds of lists, surely you can’t expect to cast actors that look exactly like the book counterparts
Tjoori Vids 1 year ago
If that had been an actual artist creating the images - ok. But all of them are AI churned out, and... nope. Any idiot can "create art" that way. (Adobe Stock Library is already filled with that stuff!!!)
Inga Viviane 2 years ago
Sorry, what is the sense of this post? The graphics add nothing to the movie characters. The movie characters are really well casted and brilliantly put together, you just made new versions of them. Others explained it better, but this is just boring.
LeilaOdinis 2 years ago
I find reading a book, I get the character in what I think they look like. Others' interpretations make for wonderful conversation. Interesting imagery.
Debi Gallagher 2 years ago
I think the movie did a good job incorporating the book descriptions into the actors, make up and costuming. I mean, really, nobodies perfect anyhow.
Michael Dopp 2 years ago
Was the neural Network trained ONLY in the officel Tolkien books+Letters, or is it also influenced by movies, novel books, Internet, ... because that would explain, why the movie Looks so much Like the Pictures, as the Pictures are BASED on the movie, Not the books
Loki’s Lil Butter Knife 2 years ago
Renown fantasy artist, Alan Lee, has done some absolutely gorgeous illustration for the books based on some of Tolkien's descriptions. His work is know for its muted, natural colours and he has done some wonderful renditions of the characters and the landscapes. He was also consulted for the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit movies. I had no idea but he also played one of the Nazgul! Alan-Lee-6...235df1.jpg
Virgil Blue 2 years ago
So the casting and design was practically spot on OR your AI buddy mined loads of Lotr and fantasy pics from the Internet and used those to generate these dead eyed portraits. I hate AI "art" with a passion. It's essentially sampling the art if thousands to cludge it together with filters to match keywords. We are going to see a lot of this kind of deadfull overdetailed generic look in movies in the future I think since AIs are cheaper than anyone with actual inspiration
Steve McCrea 2 years ago
What a crock! Gandalf has "bushy eyebrows that stick out beyond the brim of his shady hat! This guy hardly has eyebrows at all! Frodo looks like he's 16 or so. The Nazgul's faces were INVISIBLE! And Tolkien never describes what Sauron looks like at all. This isn't artificial intelligence, it's artificial stupidity!
Siege Thezar 2 years ago
If you want to hear of all the other unfitting things, just read the other comments, they just about nailed it. I’m just surprised though that Frodo being bilbos cousin slipped by. Frodo is his nephew! And, besides all of the inaccuracies, I love how people are willing to dedicate time to make things like this. Cool!
Jesse Markus 2 years ago
Frodo looks like a child in this illustration but he's 51 years old when he gets the ring. So i call b******t on this whole article. "According to the description in the books" my a*s.
Josh Jones 2 years ago
Aragorn doesn't have a beard per Tolkien to a woman who asked him point blank.
liam newton-harding 2 years ago
Least these AI portraits don't all look like one another, as is usually the case, but the algorithms still have a long way to go to actually make them look distinctive.
Steven Liston 2 years ago
These idiots never read the books Aragorn was Dunedin and they don't have beards.
Caleb Brown 2 years ago
Main issue here apart from some minor cosmetics is that Aragorn did not have a beard in the books. When you see the art endorsed by JR's son, Aragorn is beardless. Thats because being raised by elves, he kept himself clean shaven. This is a clickbait article.
Richard Henderson 2 years ago (edited)
“Man” did not recreate the characters, software did. The Nazgûl looks good but not much else.
GenericPanda09 2 years ago
I'm probably just rather cynical of all these people suddenly calling themselves 'artists' since things like Midjourney came along and before it did all their social media is the usual shots of them facing a sunset and trying to look a bit cool. It all got real old real fast fellas......... and you missed the cool wave of it.;
Load More Replies...
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