Well, August truly is the month of art challenges. And, as you well know, we love a good dragon as much as the next guy. So today, we bring you another roundup, this time of Smaugust. Please enjoy this Smaugust and Smaugust-adjacent art. Just look at these dragons. LOOK AT THEM.
(a small warning that, yes, here be dragons. But also other beasties that look like bugs, mushrooms, or something else you might not like to look at. Proceed with caution, fellow traveler <3)
Alright so u know the scene where Smaug opens an eye under the treasure and it’s all the party can see of him bc he’s sleeping under there.
This is what sand boas look like. And they burrow under the sand and are ambush predators. And they are reptiles. Like Smaug. Do you see where I am going with this
I don't know about you guys but i really miss seeing "high fantasy" dragons in media, high fantasy dragons are like Smaug (The Hobbit), Draco (DragonHeart), Saphira (Eragon) and Spyro (Spyro the Dragon games franchise) for example, they have their own free will and cannot be controlled, they are highly intelligent and capable of speaking and even writing or drawing. It seems the version of dragons that has taken over is the animalistic and realistic version, that are basically huge dogs that can breath fire, bring back intellectual dragons that like to make riddles to fool intruders, bring back grumpy dragons that live isolated from everyone but they are actually lonely and in need of a friend, bring back the loyal and brave dragons that are willing to sacrifice themselves to save the ones they love, dragons that will talk to you about the mysteries of the world and the universe, JUST BRING BACK HIGH FANTASY DRAGONS GODDAMIT
I appreciate how The Hobbit films took the opportunity to turn Thorin's greatest liability as a leader as the one that also flips the figuratively switch on his crazy plan to save them at the end of DoS.
Dwalin: "The plan's not going to work. These furnaces are stone cold."
Balin: "He's right - we've no fire hot enough to set them ablaze."
Thorin (a dwarf who has for two films has impressively pissed off just about every being they've encountered) thinks to himself the Dwarvish equivalent of "Hold my beer. My time has come".
Proceeds to insult Smaug into such a rage that the dragon tries to kill them all by lighting everything around them on fire, including the furnaces that will help them attack and hopefully incapacitate Smaug.
The theme was: mushrooms + each other favorite scene from Tolkien's books. Here goes Bard and Smaug with mushrooms growing on poles around the Lake-town :) I tried to use gouache paints.... it is so hard to do space in traditional media! Everything I render seems so flat compared to sketch ×_×
I think Smaug had the right idea, the ultimate weighed blanket of thousands upon thousands of pounds of gold laying on top of you as you sleep, like shit I’d take a sixty year long nap too man
“And so comes snow after fire, and even dragons have their endings.”
New automata 1/3!
Going back to my nerdy roots here. Reading The Hobbit is one of my earliest memories; I have a tattoo from it and wrote my college admission essay on the unlikely heroism of Bilbo Baggins. I’ve been dying to make something with Smaug for a while!
These could easily be customized with a different quote/dragon color to fit Game of Thrones, House of the Dragon, etc, or hell even stuff like Pern or Fourth Wing for the book folks. Lots of dragons out there 🐉