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Subject: 
Re: Middle Earth Ramblings (loooong)
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.castle
Date: 
Mon, 7 May 2001 02:11:11 GMT
Viewed: 
1405 times
  
Being a HUGE Tolkien fan, I'd like to provide some input.

*Please note that I favour John Howe's paintings of Tolkien's work the most,
so I will give links to his paintings.

Check out more LOTR, Silmarillion, and Hobbit paintings/drawings over at:
http://fan.theonering.net/rolozo/

In lugnet.castle, Bill Jackson writes:
> As some of you might know, I just came out of my Dark Ages.  As my post-Dark
> Ages masterpiece, I'm going to build a replica of J.R.R Tolkien's Middle
> Earth, very very microfig-style.  However, I want to build Barad-Dur
> (Sauron's MASSIVE tower in Mordor) and Rivendell (Elrond's home in Mirkwood)
> in minifig-style.  I'd like to know how some of you would handle recreating
> Middle Earth's races with LEGO minifigs.  Here's some of my ideas:

Nitpick: Rivendell (A.K.A. Imladris, The Last Homely House) is actually on
the West foothills of the Misty Mountains.

> 
> Wizards:  Well, we're out of luck here with the current colors of the wizard
> hats.  Gandalf was a Grey wizard before reincarnation and a White one
> afterwards.  Saruman's title is "of Many Colors", so no luck there.
> Radagast is a Brown Wizard.  There are two other wizards but I haven't heard
> too much about them.  Anyways, it would be easy enough to paint a Majisto
> Brown, White, and Silver or Chrome for Saruman.  I'll probably use the
> space-themed Ice Planet old man head for Gandalf, as the huge eyebrows fit

him.

Also remember that Gandalf most likely also wears some sort of robe/cloak.

Reference:
http://fan.theonering.net/rolozo/images/howe/gandalf.jpg

> 
> Dragons:  Though there were virtually no dragons in Middle Earth near Lord
> of the Rings, I want a full Middle-Earth environment here, not one from one
> particular time period.  Normal Lego dragons won't work here, I'm afraid, as
> Middle Earth's dragons are massive and crazy.  I'll build Ancalagon the
> Black out of black, obviously, using the stickers from the old Aqua-Raiders
> sets as perfect eyes.  If I get around to it, Smaug will be made from red
> bricks with an underside of painted gold bricks.  I don't really have an
> interest in making Glaudrung--two dragons are enough work.

Before you even start thinking about building LEGO dragons, check out these
two fine masterpieces:
Anthony Sava's "Tel'Karak Zrahl":
http://www.geocities.com/savatheaggie/BlackDragon/dragon.html
Pawel Nazarewicz's "War":
http://web.utk.edu/~pnazarew/verneer-chronicles/dragon/new/10.html

> 
> Orcs:  Thinking about using the Bull shields for them, as it suits them
> well.  I'll either use the trans-green heads from the old Alien sets or the
> Jar-Jar Binks heads for the orcs.  I think the trans-green would be more
> realistic, and it looks like an orcish green when put in a helm.  For the
> Black Orcs, I could again use the black Alien head.  They'll probably wear
> the dragonmasters Centurion helms, as they look best, I think.  Also,
> instead of riding horses, I'll probably mount them on the backs of those
> orange Star Wars creatures, though not many orcs ride.

Sounds good!

References:
http://img-fan.theonering.net/rolozo/images/howe/uruk.jpg
http://img-fan.theonering.net/rolozo/images/howe/mordor.jpg

> 
> Nazgul and Black Numenoreans:  The higher echelon of Sauron's evils will
> sport the Fright Knights shields and will have the heads from the old
> Stingray sets, as they look very very evil.  The Nazgul can either ride
> Winged Beasts that I actually BUILD for them, or I can take the Pterodactyls
> from the Adventurers sets and color them black.

I suggest you actually build the winged bird/reptile-like beasts they ride
out of pieces, instead of painting the Advendtures Pterodactyls. Also, buy
nine Lightsabe Duel sets (http://guide.lugnet.com/set/7101), so you can get
those nifty capes and hoods...

Reference:
http://img-fan.theonering.net/rolozo/images/howe/eow.jpg

> 
> Khand, Harad, and all of them:  All of the races of the south that are
> barely mentioned in LOTR will wear a tan, brown, black, and red motif, and
> will probably use the Dragon Masters shields and flags.  I don't know how to
> make elephants for them, so I'll probably end up using the grey Triceratops
> from Adventurers, though it isn't big enough to have a howdah on its back.

Toshiaki Mukai once hade a pictures of an elephant he made out of LEGO on
his site, but now it seems to be gone. Anyways, elephants can be made out of
simple of bricks.

Reference:
http://img-fan.theonering.net/rolozo/images/howe/mumak.jpg

> 
> Ents:  Easy stuff here--use the brown wall\tree pieces included in the old
> Forestmen and Dark Forest sets, construct arms out of brown hinges, joints,
> and plates, and stamp a set of sticker eyes from some set on them.

Good luck findings brown hinges, turntables, amd etc.

> 
> Elves:  Not as easy as most people think.  I'll be using the original
> Forestmen figs--NOT Dark Forest, with their more roguish and Wolfpack-like
> theme.  Since elves are magnificent, I'll probably give them all silver
> weapons including painted bows.  It doesn't seem like there's anything
> currently out that can truly embody the Elves the way JRR wanted them to be
> embodied.

Why Forestmen? Not all of Tolkien's elves wear green raiment. Just imagine
how silly Elrond would look during the his Council in Rivendell wearing
green! ;-)

Stick with white and other bright, and "fair", colours

> 
> Hobbits and Dwarves:  No idea, but Dwarves will use the Majisto beard and
> grey Halberds with the bottoms cut off.

Impossible...

> 
> Riders of Rohan:  Brown spears, brown horses, grey armor and visor
> helms--standard knights.

I don't remember any mentions of visors? Anyways, whatever goes...

> 
> Gondor and such:  A more holy look and feel than the Riders of Rohan--white
> horses and flags--they'll probably use the Royal Knight shields.

Right on, however, the whole prospect of using Royal Knight's, or any other
LEGO themed shields kinda makes me feel uncomfortable.

Reference:
http://img-fan.theonering.net/rolozo/images/howe/tirguard.jpg

> 
> I'm shooting for these numbers:
> 
> Riders of Rohan:  30 knights, all mounted with spears
> Elves:  70 soldiers, most with bows, only about 3-4 on horseback
> Gondor and the other forces of Men:  70 soldiers, about 15-20 on horseback.
> Hobbits and Dwarves:  Only about 4 hobbits, and probably around 20 dwarves.
> Harad, Khand and the South:  about 70 soldiers, 15-20 mounted (2-3 elephants)
> Mordor:  Nine Nazgul, around 15 Black Numenoreans, and about 120+ orcs


Good luck! ;-)

> There's the first part of my rant, here's the next:
> 
> 
> BARAD-DUR construction
> 
> Barad-Dur is the greatest bastion in all of Middle Earth, and it should be
> built as such.  My vision of this place is to build it in mostly black, with
> a bit of red, light grey, and dark grey when necessary.  It will be a
> fortress with countless towers and bastions, so it won't follow the
> traditional wall-with-a-keep build.  I want it to be about 6 feet wide by 6
> feet long and 5-7 feet tall.  I don't want to use spires and stuff to
> stretch it to 7 feet either--it will be pure, sturdy construction all the
> way to the peak, which will probably be the size of the gatehouse of the
> Royal Knights Castle.  It won't have a drawbridge, but instead a massive,
> gothic iron bridge built over a very large water-less moat about 4 or 5
> BURPS high.  On the end of the bridge will be a fortified gatehouse about as
> big as, say, the Firebreathing Fortress, and a fortified wall will encircle
> the entire perimeter of the land across the moat.  I'm going for a horribly
> evil, gothic look here.I won't be starting soon, though--first I need around
> 10,000 black bricks of various shapes and sizes, probably 100 black castle
> walls, a huge amount of the smaller doors (or maybe I'll use the gate-style
> door of the Firebreathing Fortress), an amazingly large amount of both the
> straight and curved castle stairways, around 3000 black roof tiles and a
> small amount of red ones, close to 100 BURPS, a large amount of grey\black
> baseplates, and to top it off, 2000 grey and dark grey bricks.  These are
> only estimates.  But the sacrifice will be worth it to build this huge
> thing--in fact I think I'll build the base of it in LDraw rignt now.

<whistles>

Dang!

Reference:
http://img-fan.theonering.net/rolozo/images/howe/dtower.jpg

Why not make Barad-Dur in micro-fig scale?

Seems much more feasible...

What about:
Minas Tirith
Minas Morgul
Rivendell
The Shire --> Bag End
Mines of Moria
Lothlorien
Isengard --> Orthanc
Edoras
The Grey Havens

Anyways, I wish all the best luck to you on this "project", even though it
is going to be quite difficult to pull it off...

I myself thought about doing something similar, but then quickly realized
that I wasn't going to get far since I only own 3-4 Castle sets... ;-)

Oh well, I'll settle for building mecha, spacecraft, and hovertanks...

Mladen Pejic, over and out!
http://members.attcanada.ca/~milovan/index.htm



Message has 1 Reply:
  Re: Middle Earth Ramblings (loooong)
 
Wow, that was some really good constructive criticism there and that gallery should help alot. Although I didn't realize who it was by, that painting of Barad-Dur was what I was going to base my model off of. I don't quite know if I can make (...) (25 years ago, 7-May-01, to lugnet.castle)

Message is in Reply To:
  Middle Earth Ramblings (loooong)
 
As some of you might know, I just came out of my Dark Ages. As my post-Dark Ages masterpiece, I'm going to build a replica of J.R.R Tolkien's Middle Earth, very very microfig-style. However, I want to build Barad-Dur (Sauron's MASSIVE tower in (...) (25 years ago, 6-May-01, to lugnet.castle)

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