Micro Rivendell

Marcel Vei built Rivendell.

MELO Round 5

In the fifth round of the MELO, the remaining four builders had to come up with MOCs based on characters from Return of the King.

Graham Gidman faced off against Dunedain98 to build creations based on Sauron. Graham built a micro version of the climax of Return of the King with Sauron looking on. Dunedain built the scene where Luthien and Haun come to rescue Beren from Tol-in-Gaurhoth. We don't get enough Silmarillion builds, so I'm happy to report that Dunedain98 won the Barad Dur bracket and went on to the MELO finals.



Joseph Olson faced off against Andrew JN to build creations based on Gollum. Joseph's scene at the foot of the stairs going up to Cirith Ungol really suffered from poor photography. He tried to use low light for effect, but it makes the scene hard to see, so I'm showing below the picture with full light but without the figs to show the great build he has here; the bridge to the right is the road towards Minas Morgul. Andrew JN showed Gollum leading Frodo and Sam through the Dead Marshes and won the Orthanc bracket and went on to the MELO finals. In a cool detail, Andrew made a mosaic of Gollum in the water, but I have to admit I find it hard to see.

MELO Round 4 Barad-Dur bracket

Round 4 of the MELO challenged each pair to face off based on characters from the Two Towers. Here is the Barad-Dur bracket.

Captain Nemo went up against Graham Gidman to build MOCs based on Treebeard. Graham Gidman advanced to round 5.



Tim W went up against Dunedain98 to build MOCs based on Eowyn. Dunedain98 advanced to round 5.

MELO round 1 - I See Fire

I See Fire inspired a lot of entries into the MELO round 1. Here are some of my favorites. Perhaps predictably, most of the entries were Smaug-centric, either his original attack on Erebor, or the destruction of Lake-town.

My favorite of these was actually very different. Finn Tegotash's Fate of Merry and Pippin shows Strider, Legolas and Gimli coming to the smouldering remains of the Uruk-hai, and perhaps, they fear, their friends as well. Finn advanced.


Here are some of the best (IMO) depicting Smaug's assault on Erebor. Caleb Walker advanced with his entry.


Jamie Hampton showed the breaching of the gates. Nice idea, but it did not advance.


Thomas' entry, on the other hand, did advance.


Dunedain98 is the first of my favorite Lake-Town entries. This advanced.


Brick Madness also advanced.


Zach Lucia also moved forward with this entry. Frustratingly, none of his photos really do justice to both his dragon creation and the building.

MELO round 1 - Song of the Lonely Mountain

I'm kind of surprised that Song of the Lonely Mountain did not inspire many entries in round 1 of the MELO. It seems like you could have legitimately built any scene that is set in or around Erebor, or keyed off of one of the lines in the song to make something else altogether. For instance, the stanza "Some folk we never forget, Some kind we never forgive, Haven't seen the end of it yet, We'll fight as long as we live" could easily be invoked to build a great scene of the Battle of Azanulbizar. Oh well, here were my two favorites based on this song.

Vladimir van Hoek made the Golden Anvil.

A nice MOC by itself, but it opens up to reveal a stage for the loudest dwarfmetal band in Middle Earth. He advanced.


Luc Johannesen built a nice micro of Erebor and Dale but did not advance.I have to think that better photography might have helped here.

Grey Havens

Mark McPeek built the Grey Havens.

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.

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.

Rivendell

Kyle Peterson displayed this Rivendell recently at BrickWorld.

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.

Micros

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

Bridge of Khazad Dum

TK-5487 built the Bridge of Khazad Dum. He mentions this is for a contest - I'll post details on that when I find them.

Argonath

PuCCi0 posted this great rendition of the Argonath.

Window display

Torresmr recently had a chance to display his work at his local LEGO Brand Store, and he featured Minas Tirith and Bilbo meeting Gollum.

Smaug the golden! Smaug the magnificent! Smaug the ... tiny.

Julius No made this amazing micro Smaug.

Ta-runda runda runda rom!

My third round entry to the MELO was the Ents' Marching Song.

We come, we come with roll of drum: ta-runda runda runda rom!
We come, we come with horn and drum: ta-runa runa runa rom!
To Isengard! Though Isengard be ringed and barred with doors of stone;
Though Isengard be stong and hard, as cold as stone and bare as bone,
We go, we go, we go to war, to hew the stone and break the door;
For bole and bough are burning now, the furnace roars - we go to war!
To land of gloom with tramp of doom, with roll of drum, we come, we come;
To Isengard with doom we come!
With doom we come, with doom we come!



Fourth-wall commentary - Well, here my little twist of illustrating poems didn't lead me in any more interesting directions. The judges' description of the category (March of the Ents) pretty much asked for Ents attacking Orthanc, and the only relevant poem was pretty much just that. I was fairly happy with the articulation of my ent:



And also the forced perspective trick:



I was particularly pleased with how my micro Orthanc came out, and will be keeping that together.



The weak point of the MOC was obviously the ent's head, and perhaps the overall shaping of his body in general. My opponent Jacob Nion's ent was significantly better than mine, and he got the win. I'll be sure to feature his MOC when it's available. Over all I was quite happy with the contest. It really helped get me back into building and I'll probably illustrate more of Tolkien's poems in the future.

Release the River!

Julius No made this great Orthanc scene.

Micro (hah!) Minas Tirith

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

Helm's Deep

George G made this amazing rendition of Helm's Deep.