More Melo round 1

More selected entries from MELO Round 1, again illustrating riddles from the Hobbit riddle game.

Matthew B's Bilbo Fishing illustrated the fish riddle, and brought him on to round 2.


David FNJ showed us wind, and went on to the next round.


Finn Tegotash advanced with Dark, showing Radagast's glimpse of the Necromancer.


Time all things devours, including, sadly Arwen. Stuart Lucas' Arwen's sepulchre was a lovely MOC, and also an alternate build of the Elrond's Council set, but sadly did not quite make the cut for round 2.

MELO Round 1

Okay, I've been really remiss in not focusing much on the Middle Earth LEGO Olympics, or MELO, which started in late 2013 and led into the first part of this year. The first round was wide open, and anyone was invited to build creations based on the Riddles in the Dark. There were 68 initial entries, the top 32 went into a single-elimination tournament. I can't focus on all of the round 1 entries, so I'll pick out a few of my favorites over the next few days.

Alive without breath. David Alexander Smith brings his unique silhouette/woodcut style to Fish.


A box without hinges. Aaron L unfortunately did not advance with his scene of a young Smeagol teaching his grandmother to suck eggs, but I like his take on a hobbit-hole.


Grant Davis got one of the highest scores and easily advanced with his Lothlorien. He took a little bit of liberty with the egg riddle - his take is the golden wood is the golden treasure, and there's no lid on a forest. Whatever - it's an awesome MOC.


Finally for today, David Hensel had one of the other highest scores with his Dark of Mirkwood - Radagast's home as an interpretation of Dark.

Beauty and the beast

Luís Baixinho is working on a Tolkien-themed display, including the Mirror of Galadriel and the .

Leaving Lothlorien

Legopard built Leaving Lothlorien. A really cool aspect that I didn't realize when I first saw this is that he turned a mountain baseplate upside down, and the boats are really floating.

MELO Round 2 - Orthanc bracket part 2

Here's the rest of the Orthanc bracket from round 2 of the Middle Earth LEGO Olympics.

Grant Davis was pitted against Nathan Oh with the category Balin's Tomb. Grant advanced.



Matthew Oh was pitted against Lee Muzzy with the category You shall not pass!. Matthew Oh advanced.



I was pitted against John Daniels with the category The mirror a Galadriel. I advanced.



Finn tegotash was pitted against Jacob Nion with the category The Breaking of the Fellowship. Jacob Nion advanced.

Frodo's Lament

My round 2 entry for the MELO was Frodo's Lament.


When evening in the Shire was grey
his footsteps on the Hill were heard;
before the dawn he went away
on journey long without a word.

From Wilderland to Western shore,
from northern waste to southern hill,
through dragon-lair and hidden door
and darkling woods he walked at will.

With Dwarf and Hobbit, Elves and Men,
with mortal and immortal folk,
with bird on bough and beast in den,
in their own secret tongues he spoke.

A deadly sword, a healing hand,
a back that bent beneath its load;
a trumpet-voice, a burning brand,
a weary pilgrim on the road.

A lord of wisdom throned he sat,
swift in anger, quick to laugh;
an old man in a battered hat
who leaned upon a thorny staff.
He stood upon the bridge alone
and Fire and Shadow both defied;
his staff was broken on the stone,
in Khazad-dum his wisdom died.


And here's the whole thing:

Fourth-wall commentary - In round 2 of the MELO we were paired up in head-to-head competitions. My category was 'The Mirror of Galadriel'. I considered going with a literal depiction of that scene, but I'd already done that. Plus, I'd already decided that I wanted to try to illustrate poems. The only poem in that chapter is Frodo's Lament. Perhaps my main nitpick here is that the bridge of Khazad-Dum is broken on the wrong side. I went back and forth on that - given the flow of Gandalf from the Shire past the Lonely Mountain, on to Moria and over the bridge, Gandalf should have broken the bridge behind him, but I thought that didn't fit the flow of the MOC. I debated including the Balrog, but decided against it, as that would have made the focus more on Gandalf's death than on his life. Also, I didn't include Sam's additional verse as I didn't think it fits Frodo's poem.
Due to the current problems on MOCpages, I can't feature my worthy opponent John Daniels' entry right now (I can't find him on Flickr or Brickshelf), so I'll get back to that later. His was gorgeous, and I think if I'd just done a straight-forward rendering of the scene he would have won, but the judges seemed to like my twist on the category.

Lothlórien

Paul Vermeesch made this vig of Lothlórien.

Caras Galadhon

Elander, who was featured a couple of days ago, has other great Tolkien MOCs, like this Caras Galadhon.

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