C7's Oaths of the Riddermark Cover

The next cover I painted for C7's The One Ring line, and it was all about the Meduseld, the Golden Hall of Rohan during a ritual featuring the king, his bodyguards, a girl offering up a chalice, and some warriors bowing, offering their weapons to the king and preparing to drink from the chalice when it was their turn.

Possibly the biggest challenge was handling the gold. What did it mean? Surely not a hall covered in gold, that didn't feel right for the setting. I settled on a play of light and rich fabrics to give the impression of gold, but I still wanted a hint of greens present because, after all, this is Rohan. But... how much green? And with green and gold, how do I find room for the hotter colours the characters would need in order to stand out? I ended up spending most of my sketch time playing with colour, since I was fairly confident in how the lighting, the tones, would play out.

Anyway, here's my painting (these cover pieces always require a little extra room around each edge so that there's room to play with the final placement when it goes to print):

And of course, here's the final version after Paul Bourne had applied some TOR-themed graphics to it (this is what you'll see when you buy the book):

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Middle-earth, The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and the characters, items, events and places therein are trademarks or registered trademarks of The Saul Zaentz Company d/b/a Middle-earth Enterprises and are used under license by Sophisticated Games Ltd and their respective licensees. 

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