Goblins and Fantasy on the Brain

Long have I been fascinated by fairies, elves, dwarves and their darker cousins the goblins. I remember watching as many fantasy movies as I could as a child and loving the artwork of Brian Froud and the creations of Jim Henson. Their work was so real to me, so detailed and full of life that I felt I could reach out and grasp a hold of any of the pixies and sprites either one created.

This past weekend I spent a lot more time in front of the television than usual, watching movies and recovering from a particularly strenuous work week. In a typical week I may only watch 2-3 hours of television, but I'd say over the past three days I've watched somewhere in the ballpark of 20 or so hours, thanks largely to a Lord of the Rings marathon on Saturday with the lovely and some of our friends. I had planned on watching the extended editions back to back (as I have yet to watch them at all and certainly not back to back!) but I had to be up at 5:30am yesterday, so there was no way we could have made it through.

In any event, while I could write an entire post about my love of Lord of the Rings I'll hold back, but watching of the trilogy put me in the mood for classic fantasy movies, wrought with epic adventure, evil, dashing heroes, chainmail and you guessed it, goblins. I started yesterday off watching Legend and drooling over a young Tom Cruise (why did he have to grow up and go crazy? *sigh*) and Tim Curry as Darkness. As cheesy as the plot is, I've always enjoyed the sets and makeup in this movie immensely. They built an entire forest to get the right feel and lighting, the unicorns were well done and don't even get me started on how amazing (and overlooked) the goblin Blix is! I also have a soft spot for the Tangerine Dream soundtrack this film is set to and can sing 'Loved by the Sun' with the best of them. Have you ever seen the director's cut of this movie? It has a different soundtrack and despite this being one of my favorite movies for 20+ years, I hate that version. It's not as good without the 80's soundtrack, trust me.

I followed that up with a viewing of Robin Hood: Men in Tights (completely devoid of Goblins) for it's jaunty humor and my adoration of all things Mel Brooks and the Lovely showed me 'Wizards' a movie from the 1970's that while animated uniquely and having a good amount of goblins and a decent fantasy storyline, was a bit too political for me to consider an awesome fantasy movie. It had all the makings of one too... epic backstory, two brother wizards one whom was pure and the other evil, peaceful fairy kingdoms, evil goblins but it lost me with the guns and nazis. Good, but definitely odd.

So last night I went to bed with visions of goblins and art ideas dancing in my head. When I woke up this morning I turned on Labyrinth (have I mentioned that I'm a huge David Bowie fan girl? No? Well, I am) and began to sketch out a goblin of my very own. He's somewhere between the grotesque goblins of Lord of the Rings and Legend and the cute goblins of Froud and the Labyrinth. After several nose shapes and lengths and a few ear tweaks, I inked him and cleaned up the pencil marks:

I typically don't ink before I watercolor, but I wanted to preserve the details of him as I worked and I have it on several authorities that micron pens don't bleed when painted over. *knocks on wood* I've saved a high resolution scan though, just in case. I have no idea what I'll do in terms of what exactly he's sitting on yet or background, but I will probably leave it relatively plain.

I'll share him again when he's gone green and is completed. I also have plans to do some sort of goblin sculpture in the future as well. In the meantime, I'll need more inspiration!

Tell me, what are your favorite fantasy movies? I don't care how cheesy they may be or if they are animated or live action, I only ask that you keep them specifically medieval/legend/fairy based fantasy. None of this science fiction or horror fantasy crossover business, please.

P.S... Princess Bride is next in que! While I normally dislike television, I'm enjoying my day off doodling and watching movies immensely!