Andy Bailey of Andymation has a dream. Or rather, he has a fantasy. He wants to make “the flipbook to end all other flipbooks.” How is he going to do that? By making “the one flipbook to rule them all.” He’s embarked on a massive undertaking to recreate the first film in Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy with more than 120,000 drawings. But just like Frodo needed help on his mission, Bailey wants yours turning The Fellowship of the Ring into “The FlipBook of the Rings.”
As if that wasn’t reason enough to lend a hand (drawn set of images), Peter Jackson himself fully supports this project.
Two things are true. The first is that you can never watch or read The Lord of the Rings enough. The second is that there’s no wrong way to celebrate J.R.R. Tolkien’s seminal fantasy series. Now Andy Bailey is going to let us do both of those things. And he’s doing so in a way we doubt anyone else even considered.
He calls his gigantic enterprise “the world’s largest community flipbook project.” Without knowing much of anything about the flipbook community we’re going to say that must be true. We’re confident in that because we definitely would have heard a similar endeavor by now. How could we not have when Bailey is aiming to bring the nearly three hour theatrical cut of Jackson’s movie to life with 120,000 hand drawn images?
That’s obviously an epic amount of work, which is why he asked for other artists to help him. No surprise, there are lots of talented and eager Middle-earth fans out there. So far more than 1,000 people have contributed to the project. As of a month ago Bailey said him and his fellow artists have completed 1/5th of the movie. And while many scenes are already claimed, he makes new ones available so you can still try to partake. If you’re lucky enough to join just know Peter Jackson himself will see your work. Bailey has heard the director and his team know about the flipbook and love it. Jackson will definitely be watching when Bailey premieres the finished flipbook.
If you do sign up please make sure you say, even if it’s just to yourself, “And my pencil!” with your best Gimli voice. Whether onscreen or in a flipbook, it’s still our favorite quote from The Fellowship of the Ring.