What did you imagine characters looked like before the films were out?

And how closely did the films match that?

Legolas and Gimli for me were quite different. Not alarmingly so, but enough to the point that I couldn't recognise them from my imaginings.

More like this, with a longer, thinner face to that seen in the films, notably the long chin, probably higher ears and so forth.

For hobbits, I imagined them like Martin Freeman's Bilbo much more than that of Frodo, Sam etc. The LotR group seemed a bit... stockier.

Aragorn was quite a lot like what I thought he'd be like, only I imagined him with a dark hood on almost all the time after that initial description from Bree.

Gandalf? Nailed it. Spot on.

Yeah, Gandalf could not have been closer to how he was in my head. Aragorn was completely different though, I had him as not particularly attractive whereas Viggo Mortensen's Aragorn was a full-blown hottie.