Hoom

-2x4- built this great .

What might have been - the MOCs (Two Towers version)

I previously blogged Nuju Metru's (aka John Lennon's) series of Fellowship of the Rings sets. Now he's completed his series of Two Towers sets (these can be seen on Flickr and Brickshelf). BTW, he notes that he started this project back before LEGO even announced the license.

First up we see the Dead Marshes. With Frodo, Sam, Gollum, the Ring and some modular marsh bits, he imagines this at a $12 price point.

A cute feature of this set is the pop-up corpse from the Last Alliance.


Next up is Treebeard Encounter with Merry, Pippin and a brick-built Ent, all for $20. I have to agree that this is the huge missed opportunity in the actual sets that have been released so far. I still hope that we'll see a Treebeard in a future wave of sets, but it may be that they're done with sets from the Two Towers.

Note that hinges and ball joints give Treebeard great poseability.


Edoras as the 'big' set at $70. This includes the still-missing figs of Eowyn, Wormtounge and Gandalf the White.

With removable roof and modular construction, this Meduseld has great playability.


Warg Skirmish at $12. While I'm unhappy with Peter Jackson for creating this scene, Nuju Metru's LEGO rendition is superb. The Wargs are at a good scale and seem like something that could really appear in a set. Perhaps Legolas should be in this set, since he is nowhere else in this wave of sets from Nuju Metru.


Ruin of Osgiliath at $50. Another great rendition of a Peter Jackson fabrication. I really like the version of Faramir here, and that fell beast is amazing.

I assume there will be a fell beast in the Return of the King wave - surely in a set with Eowyn confronting the Witch King. I hope LEGO's version is brick-built (rather than being a single-use mold) and is as cool as this one.


Looking at this series as a whole, I do think there are a couple of obvious holes here if this were to be the actual run of Two Towers sets, in that Nuju Metru does not include either Helm's Deep, which was the focus of the official line, or Shelob (though a quick double check on Wikipedia reminds me that the movie version actually ended just before Shelob, which makes this version true to the movies). On the other hand, Nuju Metru includes Treebeard and Edoras, which don't seem to be part of LEGO's plans (again, I'm assuming that a fell beast will be in an upcoming wave of sets). I think a combination of Nuju Metru's sets and the official sets would be the ideal release. Again, LEGO, hire this guy as a set designer.

Here's looking forward to a Return of the King series from Nuju Metru!

Ent the earthborn, old as mountains

Brucey-wan presents Treebeard.

Labels for posts (1 of 3)

Just a quick post to help organize the labels I'll be using for posts. I'll actually have to break this up into pieces, since I can only have so many labels per post. Creations featured here will be organized in a few ways: By place: Shire, Eriador, Rivendell, Misty Mountains, Wilderland, Mirkwood, Lonely Mountain, Moria, Lothlorien, Fangorn, Rohan, Gondor, Mordor, Lindon, Beleriand, Valinor. Yes, some of these are subsets of others (e.g. the Shire is in Eriador, Moria is in the Misty Mountains, a whole host of places are within Wilderland, etc.), but in those cases I will only use the smaller subset to designate a place. For instance, a Hobbiton scene would get the tag Shire, but not Eriador, while a Bree scene would be labeled Eriador. By subject type: Location (for those MOCs primarily focused on a building or an exterior location), scene (for those MOCs depicting some action, even when it is at some location), characters and creatures (when people just make custom figs or build a Balrog or whatever). There will obviously be some overlap here - for instance, Shelob fighting Sam with the Tower of Cirith Ungol in the background - but I'll try to pick just one of these (scene in this example). By creation type: I won't put minifig scale, since most creations will be at that scale, but microscale, miniland, sculpture, mosaic By book: Hobbit, Fellowship of the Ring, Two Towers, Return of the King, Silmarillion. Scene MOCs are obviously tied to specific books. Location MOCs will be attributed to the first book (in publication order) where they were fully described. So Bag End would be linked to the Hobbit, even though it shows up in Fellowship of the Ring and Return of the King as well. Orthanc is mentioned in Fellowship, but is fully described in the Two Towers, so would be linked there. I'll do the same with characters, but characters in groups will be linked to where that group came up. So Gandalf by himself would go to the Hobbit, since he is first linked there, but Gandalf as part of the group of nine walkers goes to Fellowship. Allusions to characters in verse is the exception here. Beren and Luthien, Earendil and some others come up in songs in Lord of the Rings, but are fully described in the Silmarillion, and so would go there. Some characters are never really fully described, and so would go where they are first mentioned - for instance, I'd link Gil-Galad with Fellowship, since the Last Alliance is described as a matter of lore (or living memory, if you're Elrond) in Fellowship, but he's never a fully realized character anywhere else (hmm, is there anything in the HOME books? I can't think of any, but maybe in UT). Some others: metadiscussion, non-LEGO, contest, official theme news