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.

MELO semi-finals

Okay, I really have to go back and feature earlier rounds, but here is the semi-final round of the Middle Earth LEGO Olympics.

In one bracket the category was 'Flies and Spiders', with Bilbo and the dwarves in Mirkwood. Jacob Nion built his entry. Unfortunately his opponent Kyle Ransom had to withdraw from the competition, so Jacob advances to the final.



In the second bracket the category was 'Black arrow, fail me not' with Smaug's attack on Laketown. Here we were treated to amazing entries by Disco86 and Martin Geistefeldt. The judges had a difficult decision, but they opted for Martin's work, so he advances to the finals against Jacob. The new category will be announced tonight.

Rivendell

Here are two views of Rivendell, one from Disco86 and another from Legopard.

Weathertop

Borda built the attack on Weathertop.

Two Towers

One of the MOCathalon category is 'bookends', and TMM was inspired to build the Two Towers.

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.

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.

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.

Put that in your pipe and smoke it

Astralstate built Merry and Pippin at Isengard.

SeaLUG collaboration

Members of SeaLUG put on a display at Emerald City Comiccon this weekend, including a collaborative build of the Shire. Here's a series of overview pictures.





Here Dave Fraslund has close-ups of his section:

Release the River!

Julius No made this great Orthanc scene.

Harlond Shake

Harlem Shake enters Middle Earth, by Brotherhood Workshop.



And another by Kevin Du.

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.

Glamdring

I've previously noted Cole Edmonson's awesome full scale replica of Sting. Now he's gone even further and made Glamdring, complete with scabbard. He can even wield it.

Smeagol, the cover model

Klimography has started project | The Lord Of The Rings, with only two photos so far, but these are so cool I hope this project continues.

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.

Elvish Valentine

Elvish Valentine by Brotherhood Workshop

2013 sets posted

I know that some of these have been available online previously, but I avoid linking to images leaked from dealer catalogs. Now, however, LEGO has publicly displayed (and allowed photography) at the New York Toy Fair. Toy News International has photos and there are also videos going up at Brick Show. FBTB has a correspondent there, so expect a full report from them in due course.

79005 – The Wizard Battle - Great way to get the two wizards for cheap. Love the Palantir with the Eye - obvious MOC is to put that Eye at the top of a microscale Barad Dur


79006 – The Council of Elrond - Yes, as a Tolkien fan I appreciate the inclusion of Elrond and Arwen. I'm a little annoyed that they chose to highlight one of the points in the movie where Gimli is treated as comic relief. Most exciting to me, though, is the inclusion of a new gothic arch piece. As a castle builder I really appreciate this more than anything else. Orange leaves, new printed tiles, and great torsos make this (IMO) generally useful set for castle builders.


79007 – Battle at the Black Gate - While I haven't linked them, of course I'd already seen the leaked pictures of the Black Gate, and knew it would look cool. I'm pleasantly surprised with how good the Eagle looks here. I think the previously leaked image included an unfinished prototype.


79008 – Pirate Ship Ambush - Again, I'd seen the leaked image, and this looks even better. I was most excited to see good pictures of the ghost warriors, and they look great. Those six shields on the ship will make for a nice army faction as well. My main complaint here is that they dumbed down the name of the set.