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Hugs

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Few people can get Nûrzgrat to show his gentle side. He cusses and brawls with the best of them, and he isn’t exactly great with kids, but he tries. He’d hate for the young’uns to feel threatened by him. Ilsa was afraid of his temper at first, but he always adored her. And he gives great hugs.
He’ll be an awesome dad.

Nûrzgrat and Ilsa are two of Zoop’s many amazing Uruk-hai on Fanfiction.net. (Ilsa wasn’t… er, “born” in Isengard. No more spoilers.)
Misfire of Global Proportions: [link]
(sequel) Hookup of Epic Proportions: [link]

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This took way longer than I expected. I was trying to use Nûrzgrat’s reference pic on Zoop’s site, and to interpret how his expressions might change or how he’d look in different lighting. But I have a hard time drawing from my mind. I just make and tweak lines until I like them. Nûrzgrat’s appearance here turned out as a surprise to me, partially due to my usual method of guessing my way through a picture and partially because of the new trick I learned to get that mottled texture for his skin. Nûrzgrat is really dark in the stories, and my first couple of run-throughs on his skin kept turning out too light. I figured I’d experiment with the texture while I was at it.

He looks way calmer in this picture than I typically imagine him to be. At first I wanted to squeak in some of that “grumpy old bastard” look, because nothing pleases me more than drawing grumpy Orcs, and Nûrzgrat is practically the poster boy of Orcish grumpiness. But for obvious reasons, it wouldn’t fit too well with the concept. So he ended up looking a little choked up, which doesn’t happen every day.

Ilsa was tricky to figure out, too. She’s a pretty girl, and I wanted to draw her with a unique kind of prettiness. I was constantly afraid of making her look like an elf (and of what Nûrzgrat would have to say about such a transgression. XD)

EDIT: Moved to scraps because this looks weirder every time I see it. :iconohfuckplz:
Hoping to make a better version as soon as I can, though I've had a ton of other fan pic ideas lately. Don't expect anything before the holidays are over, though.

-Love and kisses
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© 2012 - 2024 missingsock25
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AnikiraDaimao's avatar
:squee: Nûrzgrat and Ilsa! Such a precious image, especially for such a usually-grumpy Uruk leader. :giggle: It's nice to have an image to go along with great fanfics. :heart: