Gandalf at Weathertop

Pif500 shows us Gandalf at Weathertop.

San Diego Comic-Con exclusive

It looks like this microscale Bag End is exclusively available to Comic-Con attendees. On ComicBricks I complained about exclusives, as they are pretty much impossible to get without paying outrageous prices on ebay, but this one doesn't bother me. The Bilbo fig is available in two sets already, and I think the micro Bag End could be reasonably approximated with most people's existing collections. So the only people who really need this set are completist collectors.

Barad-dûr

MSP! built Barad-dûr.

Middle Earth

Sharon Vance displayed this amazing Middle Earth at BrickWorld.

Long Expected Party

NaNeto built the Long Expected Party.

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.

Argonath

Someone (who?)John Gondol displayed this MOC of the Argonath at BrickFiesta.

Barad-dûr

Warhawk built this Barad-dûr. He shows it here next to his Orthanc - both built at the same scale, so you can see the vast difference between the towers.

The Argonath of Liberty

I didn't see this a couple of days ago, but for the Fourth of July, Automaton Pictures posted The Argonath of Liberty .

Three Hunters

Pif500 built the Three Hunters.

Rivendell

Kyle Peterson displayed this Rivendell recently at BrickWorld.

Slipping on the Ring

Digger1221 used camera tricks (NOT photoshop) to show Frodo Slipping on the Ring at the Prancing Pony.

Smaug

Sharon Vance displayed this wonderful mosaic of Smaug at BrickWorld. It's based on the painting Dragon's Lair by the Brothers Hildebrandt.

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.

Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug Trailer

I'm sure readers of this blog have already seen this, but today the first trailer came out for The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug. I really should include some LEGO content, so let's have some rampant speculation on upcoming LEGO sets. I just listened to a great analysis on the Tolkien Professor Podcast (find it on iTunes) that went through all of the footage that Peter Jackson has released up until this trailer, including the live web event that you needed a password to see. It's fairly clear that the second movie will follow the story of the dwarves from the Carrock, through Mirkwood, through Laketown, up until at least Bilbo's first meeting with Smaug. The speculation is that the film will end with Smaug leaving the Lonely Mountain and flying off towards Laketown (oops, spoilers, I suppose - c'mon, the book was written 75 years ago, you have no excuse). Then there is the 'Dol Guldur' storyline implied in the book and fleshed out a little bit more in the LotR Appendices, but changed in translation to the film. At the very least we will have further development, as Gandalf and Radagast go off to investigate, but many speculate that this storyline will come to a climax in film 2 as the the White Council put forth their power to attack Dol Guldur. Perhaps the big reveal of the identity of the Necromancer won't come until the end of film 3, though, to set the Hobbit up as a prequel to the LotR movies. Anyway, what sets does this film promise? We've already gotten two Mirkwood sets in the spider scene and the barrel escape, so I doubt we'll get more there - maybe a set focused on Beorn? Some Laketown set would be cool, but I anticipate this coming with the attack of Smaug, which should be at the start of film 3. We'll surely get a Smaug set, with Bilbo sneaking in. And the rest depends, IMO, on the Dol Guldur storyline. In the trailer below we see Gandalf and Radagst sneaking around some creepy ruins, anticipating a trap. Will they be attacked by Nazgul? If so, I'll bet that would be a set. And maybe a big 'Battle of Dol Guldur' set, which could be an expensive set and include at least a couple of members of the White Council. Perhaps some small set with dwarves being chased by orcs, as that seems to be continuing in movie 2, as seen in the trailer below. Anyway, what do you think? Or is it possible that we'll get mostly Lord of the Rings sets this year, and then lots of Hobbit sets in January, falling between the releases of movies 2 and 3.

Maps!

Bilbo "loved maps, and in his hall there hung a large one of the Country Round with all his favourite walks marked on it in red ink." - The Hobbit.

Here are some maps by Dodge, hermanblume and Legopard.

Dori

Pate-ketongu continues his series of dwarves with Dori.

Micros

I've been going through Thaler1978's photostream, and he's got a bunch of Tolkien micros.

Barad-dûr

I think that pretty much everyone who looked at pictures of the new set 79005, Wizard Battle saw that orange fig-head with printed Sauron's eye had the same idea - make this the top element in an appropriately micro-scaled Barad-dûr. Rgeiger even anticipated the set release by building a Barad-dûr, promising to replace the blank orange head with the new piece once he gets it.



The first person I've seen actually use this piece, though I'm sure we'll see others, is Thaler1978's micro version. BTW, he's also done a nano version.