Lord of the Rings Revisited

My first venture into the Non-Sport card realm were "Lord of the Rings" cards, and in fact if you go back and read my first blog entry you'll see that a Michael Duron "Gandalf" sketch was my first sketch card purchased on Ebay. Unfortunately the last Topps "Lord of the Rings" set (Masterpieces II) came out in 2008, so there's basically no new product coming into the marketplace. Still, I have an Ebay search saved so whenever an auction is listed with the words "Duron sketch" in the title, I get an email and a link. And I'm constantly looking for more of Mike's Lord of the Rings sketches. That's where I picked up the Gimli sketch pictured to the right. Classic Mike with the big nose and little dots for eyes, but also I like the crosshatching in both the beard and the background. Cool sketch. As for the Sam sketch, well I lucked out and pulled it at the Philly show back in May! Technically my nephew pulled the sketch, but from a box that I bought- so I'll give him credit for the pull.. but it's mine ALL MINE! My precious...

That's all for now, so thanks for reading...

Luke, R2, and a Chick with a Gun..

I picked up these two cards a while back and haven't gotten around to posting them. The Luke and R2D2 sketch is from "Galaxy 6" and the Aurra Sing is from "Clone Wars: Rise of the Bounty Hunters". The Aurra Sing was actually pulled from a pack out of a box of cards at the Philly show back in May- one of two Durons that I got out of boxes at that show. It was a good show! I won't say how much I paid for the Bounty Hunter box- but it was obscenely cheap- and pulling a color sketch by Mike was an added bonus. I picked up the Luke and R2 card on Ebay, and I must say I really like Mike's hatching and cross hatching shading work from this set. One of my other favorite Artists, Patrick Richardson, did some amazing cross hatching work on sets like Star Wars Galaxy 4 and Indiana Jones Masterpieces- check out his stuff if you get a chance (you can go to sketchcollectors.com, click on "Collectors Gallery", then under the "Select Artist" dropdown pick Patrick Richardson). I actually got 2 of Mike's "Lord of the Rings: Masterpieces II" sketches recently, so hopefully I'll be doing a post about them soon. Stay tuned.. and as always, thanks for reading...