Ted Nasmith

Ted Nasmith (born 1956) is a Canadian artist, illustrator and architectural renderer. He is best known as an illustrator of J. R. R. Tolkien's works The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion. Tolkien praised and commented on his early work, something that encouraged him in his career.

Early life

In 1972, Nasmith mailed photographs of some of his paintings to J. R. R. Tolkien, including his gouache of The Unexpected Party.

In October 1996, Nasmith was asked by Tolkien's publishers to provide the artwork for the first illustrated edition of The Silmarillion, during which time Ted developed a strong working relationship with Christopher Tolkien. The illustrated edition was published in 1998; in 2004, a second edition was published featuring many more paintings by Nasmith.

In early 1999, representatives for Peter Jackson and New Line Cinema invited Ted Nasmith to join John Howe and Alan Lee to work as a concept artist for The Lord of the Rings film trilogy. According to Nasmith, and has a close friendship with Caspar Reiff, one of the founders of The Tolkien Ensemble.

In latter years, he has illustrated a deluxe 2-volume limited edition of George R. R. Martin's A Game of Thrones novel. It took about three years to complete the set of over 80 illustrations, most in pencil, with six in colour. He is among the illustrators of the book The World of Ice and Fire, an encyclopedia of the fantasy realms of George R.R. Martin's epic novels. Ted worked closely with the Ice and Fire author to design castles according to the author's specifications. They were featured in the 2011 Song of Ice and Fire calendar.

Nasmith was commissioned by the video game developer Turbine and later the spin-off studio Standing Stone Games to create the 'key art' of the major updates for the online game based on Tolkien's work, The Lord of the Rings Online in 2015 and 2017. His artwork is being used as promotional materials, on the website and within the game as loading screens, notably for the Mordor expansion in 2017.

Personal life Nasmith lives just outside Toronto with his wife Donna and three children.