The first entry in what is now The Hobbit trilogy is set to hit theaters later this year, but director Peter Jackson is still holding plenty of footage and characters back until the films' release.  One of the main characters that fans have been interested to see onscreen is the Goblin King, and we may now have our first look at Jackson’s grotesque take on the character.  The antagonistic role is being played by Barry Humphries in the feature films, and it looks like Jackson may be utilizing quite a few practical effects to bring the creature to life.Hit the jump to take a look at the images, though be warned that they may very well spoil what the Goblin King looks like.  The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey opens on December 14th, 2012, followed by The Desolation of Smaug on December 13th, 2013, and There and Back Again on July 18th, 2014.These leaked images come by way of some kind of card game (via TheOneRing.net).  Here’s the Goblin King and his minion, followed by a slightly spoilery character description (via a German action figure site):

The Goblin King is a huge, grotesquely bloated monster that in the years of his tyrannical rule over the miserable inhabitants of the Goblin town grew fat and flabby. The Goblin town is a collection of skew-whiff ramshackle huts deep in the caves of the Misty Mountains. He commands a bunch of foul, polluted, with scars and ulcers studded goblins.

Basically, they are bandits, they live by what they can pick up from passengers on the passes through the mountains. The Goblin King and his followers manage to capture Bilbo and the dwarves. The Goblin King is more wily and smarter than it seems. He takes pleasure in torturing his prisoners — he almost succeeds to finish off Thorin Oakenshield and his companions.

What seems to solidify the fact that this is what the Goblin King will look like is this screenshot from The Hobbit’s first production video, found by TheOneRing.net.  It definitely looks like some sort of animatronics will be used to bring the character to life, which is encouraging given that most filmmakers nowadays err on the side of CG or motion-capture.  Either way, we look to be in for a treat when the Goblin King pops up in the films.