Middle Earth

Sharon Vance displayed this amazing Middle Earth at BrickWorld.

Citadel of Minas Tirith

Members of the Czech group Kotsky.org are putting on a massive display that will be up for the next couple of months. If you are anywhere in central Europe you should try to check it out. There are a ton of amazing castles and other MOCs, but the reason for being on this blog is this huge Citadel of Minas Tirith.

What may yet be - Return of the Kings set ideas

I'm not sure how I missed blogging these when he posted them last fall. We've already seen a couple of sets based on the Return of the King, with the Pirate Ship Ambush and Battle at the Black Gate sets (and arguably the Shelob Attacks set - the movies break at a slightly different point than the books), but we'll surely get at least another wave. There's so much more action around Minas Tirith to be covered, and we'll probably get some 'Cracks of Doom' set with Frodo and Gollum. Anyway, last fall John Lennon/Nuju Metru posted a series of Return of the King set ideas.

First up is the Paths of the Dead. This would include Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli, and the ghostly king. He includes action features to throw the king off his platform, and also to launch skulls at the three heroes.


Next is the Witch King Demise, with Eowyn and Merry battling the Witch King. I think this is a pretty obvious set, though I think when LEGO does it they will include the Fell Beast (I realize that Nuju Metru already built a Fell Beast in one of his other set ideas, which is probably why he didn't do it here).


Finally there is Minas Tirith itself, which Nuju Metru proposes as a huge set with lots of heroes and villains (btw, he's also put this up as a Cuusoo project). I don't know if LEGO would build the set this big (but who knows? the Orthanc set is huge, and the Star Wars theme has huge sets like the Death Star and Imperial Star Destroyer). I'd suspect that instead they would do a series of sets that could all go together to depict the battle outside the walls. I'd do four sets - one of the main gate and Grond, one of a section of wall (that connects to the gatehouse on either side, so you could buy multiples) along with a catapult or siege tower, an Oliphant set, and the Witch King vs Eowyn set with the Fell Beast. Orcs, Haradrim, Gondorian soldiers, mounted Rohirrim, and principle characters would be spread through these sets so you have to buy them all. Of course, it was always my idea that LEGO would do different sections of the Death Star as separate sets that hook together, but instead they did one huge set, so they may well go that way with Minas Tirith.

BrickFair NE

Here are some Tolkien MOCs from last month's BrickFair gathering in New Hampshire. I've previously noted Steve Morrison's (aka ShayDeGrai's) Argonath, but he's updated it, adding river and landscaping around the base. Somehow I've never featured his Minas Morgul or his Minas Tirith, so here they are from his Flickr stream. As a bonus, here's Greg Titcomb's set mod of Gollum's cave.

Fell beast

Captainsmog just posted this completely amazing fell beast.

Paths of the Dead

PuCCi0 made the entrance to the Paths of the Dead.

Into Mordor

General Magma built Sam and Frodo in disguise, traveling into Mordor.

Paths of the Dead

Legopard built the entrance to the Paths of the Dead.

MELO round 1 selected MOCs - TT and RotK

Here are some more selected MOCs from the qualifying round of the Middle Earth LEGO Olympics focused on the Two Towers and Return of the King.

Jackson Williams made a great rendition of Meduseld. Be sure to follow the link, as there is no one photo that shows all of the great details of this MOC.


If you're going to do a Rohan MOC, almost everyone is going to go with the Battle of Helm's Deep, or if not that the hall of Meduseld. I really appreciate that Josh Walters went for the non-obvious with Simbelmynë. Ever has it grown on the tombs of my forebearers.


Martin Geistefeldt went for the obscure, with Haleth, Son Of Háma, a boy created by Jackson at Helm's Deep.


Grant Davis gives us a Jacksonian scene, Lighting the Beacons.


Chris Stone's Do you remember, Mister Frodo? is quite evocative.


Lee Muzzy showed us the climactic confrontation in Mount Doom.

MELO octafinals - Orthanc bracket

Now let's look back at the Orthanc bracket of the MELO octafinals.

Kyle Ransom was paired off against Jackson Williams with the category Gollum and Smeagol. Kyle advanced.



LukeClarenceVan The Revanchist was paired off against Toa Infernum with the category Wraiths on Wings. IMO this was the toughest pairing to judge in this bracket, as both fell beasts were amazing, but LukeClarenceVan The Revanchist advanced.



Grant Davis was paired off against Matthew Oh with the category King of the Golden Hall. Matthew Oh advanced.



I was paired off against Jacob Nion with the category March of the Ents. Sadly, Jacob advanced, though as I noted previously, I can't disagree with the judges here. The fact that Jacob has gone on to the finals makes me feel that at least if I had to lose, I lost to one of the best.

MELO - quarterfinals - Orthanc bracket

And here are the entries from the quarterfinals in the Orthanc bracket.

Kyle Ransom was paired against LukeClarenceVan The Revanchist to build in the category 'Paths of the Dead'. Kyle advanced.



Matthew Oh was paired against Jacob Nion to build in the category 'Mount Doom'. Jacob advanced.

MELO - quarterfinals - Barad Dur bracket

So the category has been announced for the MELO finals - One Ring to Rule them all and in the darkness bind them! It will be interesting to see where Jacob and Martin take this - maybe the forging of the Ring, maybe the battle on the slopes of Mount Doom at the end of the Last Alliance, maybe Isildur considering the Ring in Gondor, or dying at the Gladden Fields? How about the finding of the Ring by Deagol? Or the Riddle Game? Or Bilbo hiding from Lobelia Sackville-Baggins? Or, of course, just about any event between Bag End and Mount Doom on Frodo (and Sam's) journey with the Ring. I'm looking forward to seeing what they come up with.

In the meantime, as long promised, let's go back and look at how we got here. I'll go in reverse order. Yesterday I looked at the semifinals, so here I'll look at the Barad Dur bracket of the quarterfinals.

Buurli Burri (aka Simon S) paired off against Disco86 with the category 'We could take them to her...', focused on the events in Cirith Ungol. Disco86 advanced to the semifinals.



Martin Geitstefeldt paired off against Dodge with the category 'The Siege of Gondor' (actually, I had thought that this might be the category for the finals). Martin advanced with his entry that essentially combined four different scenes from the retaking of Osgiliath the the arrival of Aragorn.

The Road Goes Ever On

I've been wanting to post a lot of the great Tolkien MOCs that have been created as part of the Middle Earth LEGO Olympics, but have been frustrated by MOCpages' current problems. I know, many of these are posted here and there on Flickr and Brickshelf, but rather than hunt around I'll just wait until MOCpages is healthy again. In the meantime, though, I'll feature my own entries, as I also have them on Flickr. My qualifying round entry was The Road Goes Ever On.

The Road goes ever on and on
Out from the door where it began,
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
Let others follow it who can!
Let them a journey new begin,
But I at last with weary feet
Will turn towards the lighted inn,
My evening-rest and sleep to meet.

Fourth-wall commentary: As a challenge to myself I decided to illustrate poems for all of my entries. Many people skip over the poems in Tolkien, which I think is a mistake. They often help set the mood, or give important historical background to the action. Here, for instance, Bilbo brings an end to adventures and perhaps looks ahead to his own death. I was pretty happy with how this came out, in that I thought I achieved what I was looking for with a weary hobbit coming to the inn at the end of a day's journey and warm light coming out of the doorway. The inn is vaguely based on the Prancing Pony, in that Tolkien describes an arch leading to a courtyard between the wings of the inn and the door to the common room off to the left. My courtyard became more of a stable area, and there's only one side to the inn. Plus I've got a dragon insignia, so it must be another inn. Two stories, though, so it must not be in the Shire.

Emblems

The members of OneLUG just displayed their amazing Orthanc at an event in Los Angeles. They also brought along some new work, a series of emblems of Gondor, Rohan, and Saruman, by Brandon Griffith, Remi Gagné, and Bruce Lowell, respectively. I was particularly blown away by the detail on Remi's horse. Via FBTB.

Micro (hah!) Minas Tirith

Thomas Reyes had this massive Minas Tirith on display at the recent Brick Roundup gathering in Calgary.

Fell Beasts

Over in the Middle Earth LEGO Olympics builders LukeClarenceVan and Toa Infernum were paired up and challenged to build Fell Beasts. Both turned in awesome MOCs, but there could be only one winner, and Luke advanced.

Storming the gates

DecoJim made this great version of the gates of Minas Tirith during the Battle of the Pelannor Fields. It's currently on display in Troy, Michigan.

Fell Beast

∆TMM∆ made this amazing Fell Beast.

Barad-Dur

Caylin won this great trophy in a building competition at the Kansas City Legoland Discovery Center.

Osgiliath

TMM presents another version of the battle in Osgiliath.