Video game update

FBTB reports a release date of October 10 for the Lord of the Rings video game. Lord of the Brick shares this ad, which I assume will be the cover art for the game.

Lord of the Rings video game

This is probably no surprise to anyone, but it is nice to get confirmation. Will over at Brick Heroes notes that the back of the Shelob Attacks box confirms an upcoming Lord of the Rings video game by Travelers Tales (the same people who brought us the Star Wars/Batman/Indiana Jones/Harry Potter games). Actually, it was commenter Sub533 who saw this 25 seconds into this video review by DoctorBrikDaddy. BTW, one other cool thing from that video review is that you get three Rings (for Elven kings?) in the set. That's nice to know since that is a cool new piece that I can see being useful for all kinds of different things in addition to Lord of the Rings.

Orthanc

DecoJim made this amazing Orthanc that he recently displayed at BrickBash 2012.

The Hobbit

Michael Kringe has an ongoing project to illustrate The Hobbit. The first six episodes take Bilbo from his cozy hobbit-hole past the encounter with the trolls.

Here we see the dwarves' tale of how Smaug drove them from the Lonely Mountain:

Here Bilbo goes running from his home without so much as a pocket handkerchief:

Three Hunters

Xccj shows us the long dash across northern Rohan in a red sun rises.

Last from Blake - Amon Hen

One last Tolkien MOC from Blake (until he makes more). This was a collaborative build with Jack Bittner and was first shown last year at Brickfest (I think): Amon Hen.

More from Blake - Hobbiton

Okay, that rounds out Blake's series of CCC entries, but that's not all of the Tolkien stuff he's done. I've previously blogged his great fell beast, and here let's take a look at his Hobbiton.

The Clouds Burst

Blake made a warg for the 'mythical creature' category of the CCC with The Clouds Burst.

Gathering of the Clouds

For the 'siege weapon' category of the CCC, Blake made a trebuchet in the Gathering of the Clouds.

Fire and Water

The people of Laketown suffer Smaug's wrath in Blake's 'wooden fortress' entry for the CCC: Fire and Water.

Never laugh at live dragons, Bilbo you fool!

Blake Baer's 'hidden treasure' entry for the CCC takes Bilbo through the back door into Smaug's lair to find some Inside Information.

Warm Welcome

Blake's 'medieval holiday' entry for the CCC was Warm Welcome, where Torin and company arrive at Laketown. His justification for the category was that he said this was at the time of the Yule feast, but Bilbo actually celebrated Yule at Beorn's house on his way home. They arrived at Laketown in late September. BTW, this site does a great job of pulling together all of the suggestions from the Hobbit (which, unlike the Lord of the Rings, does not have an official canon chronology) to give a calendar consistent with the few dates given and other clues.

Barrels out of Bond

Blake Baer made Barrels out of Bond as the third piece in his 'knight's quest' CCC entry.

Old Tomnoddy, all big body, Old Tomnoddy can't spy me!

Blake Baer made Flies and Spiders as part of his 'knight's quest' entry for the CCC. This may well have been my favorite build of the whole contest. That spider solution is amazing.

Queer Lodgings

For the 'hermit's hovel' category of the CCC, Blake Baer made Beorn's home. Some great details here like the wolf's head over the door and the beehive.

What has roots as nobody sees, Is taller than trees Up, up it goes, And yet never grows?

Next in Blake Baer's Hobbit series is Riddles in the Dark. As a contest entry, I thought it missed the mark, as this was included with two other scenes in the 'knight's quest' category, and it's really hard to call Bilbo a knight. As a build I really like all of the unique combinations for the rocks, and the black water is striking.

Dawn take you all, and be stone to you!

I'll follow book order in our exploration of Blake Baer's award winning Hobbit series is Roast Mutton. This was entered in the 'bandit's raid' category of the Colossal Castle Contest and is particularly apt for the category, since the trolls are bandits, but also this is when Bilbo first sets out to prove himself a burglar. Some great builds here on the trolls and the vegetation. I particularly liked how he captured them in the process of turning to stone. The solution for the sacked dwarves is great. I see Bilbo hiding in the bushes, but not Gandalf, so that is a small oversight (or maybe he's behind those trees in the back and doesn't show up at this camera angle).

Baer and Back Again

I didn't post these when they went up since they were entries in a contest I was judging. But now that the results of that contest have been long announce, I've been remiss in not posting here that Blake Baer/Blego7 won the Classic-Castle Master Builder title for his series of MOCs based on the Hobbit. Our first image wasn't even an entry, just a teaser. I love the perspective here showing the road that goes ever on, down from the door where it began.

Helm's Deep set - the wall does blow up

I previously noted that I would have expected an action feature in set 9474, Battle of Helm's Deep. It seems obvious to include some sort of mechanism to make the wall explode, but it had not been mentioned in some of the Toy Fair coverage that I'd seen. On the Brick Show they included a video from Toy Fair that shows that there is indeed such a feature. At 11 minutes 46 seconds into the video this is described. BTW, is the person at Toy Fair Steven Combs of the old Bricks in my Pocket podcast? The voice sounds very familiar. Anyway, it's nice to get confirmation of this feature. BTW, I ran across the link to the Brick Show feature at Lord of the Brick, where today Will is featuring another video you should watch, TXsamwise's great Battle for Helm's Deep brickfilm.

Missed opportunity, Hobbit legs

In my last couple of posts I looked at what might have been in terms of official sets. One other missed opportunity I see lies in the figs. Yes, there are many characters missing, but we may yet see Saruman, Eowyn, Arwen, Elrond or others in future sets (I'm certain we'll at the very least see an Eowyn vs the Witch King set in the presumed upcoming Return of the King wave). That said, my biggest disappointment with this line is that we did not get articulated short legs. This license was the most obvious argument for LEGO to create a new leg element, given the prominence of hobbits and dwarves (especially when you consider that the Hobbit movies will have almost exclusively short-legged main characters aside from Gandalf). Official licenses have long been the impetus for LEGO to come up with new molds. For example, look at all of the molded heads in the Star Wars line. This is especially surprising given that LEGO has come up with one-time-use leg elements for other things, like the Genie in the Collectible Fig line, where articulated short legs would be generally useful for children across all themes, Gringotts Goblins or House Elves if they did additional Harry Potter sets, dwarves in non-license sets (see the Collectible Figs and the Fantasy Era Castle line), etc.

Short legs have been a long dilemma when making Tolkien themed MOCs. Back before 2002, we had to come up with our own options. I've seen people use something as simple as a 1x2 brick, as in this by exo-pilot, but that's pretty unsatisfactory.


When I started my own Tolkien project, I chose to use headlight bricks, because I liked how the little projection at the bottom suggested toes, but of course these have holes in the kneecaps.


I also briefly tried using 1x2 hinges, since these would allow for some articulation (see the hobbit in grey seated by the fire).


Using plates can give you some color variation, as here by jj481012.


Even with taller figs, getting good seated poses is tough, and even more so with shorter legs. Here Ru Corder made a great seated hobbit


Ever since 2002, though, the default has been to use the shorter legs that AFOLs call stubbies. Interesting to note, these were first introduced based on licenses, as the first figs to employ them were the Gringotts Goblins and Dobby from Harry Potter, and the young Boba Fett and Ewoks from Star Wars (they were then also included in a train set that year for a child, but my recollection is that that one came out later as a Christmas set).


These legs are fine as far as they go, but they don't bend. Also, at first they were only available in a few colors, and the color palette is still much more limited than the normal legs. Some have built articulated short legs, like this by MrTS ...


... and this by Shadow Viking.


By far the best solution has been by MooseBot. I can't find the photo of how he did this, but he took a pair of long legs and carefully cut them just below the rounded part at the bottom of the waist. Then the really clever part is that those 1x1 plates for feet are stuck into the holes that are normally on a fig's rear end. You could imagine doing this with different color plates for shoes, or even the "tooth plate" for pointed shoes.


Anyway, I really think LEGO missed an opportunity here. If they're going to make special molds for single usages, like the longer legs used for Woody and Jessie in the Toy Story sets (and never used again, though you could imagine them for giants or basketball players) (and that raises the special spring-loaded legs for those basketball sets, though at least they made a bunch of those), why not the much more useful short legs, that would be used for tons of characters in the Tolkien license, also for other licenses, and just in general for children? MooseBot's design shows that this could be done fairly easily and still look very much like LEGO's normal aesthetic.