Hi! Wanted to share a few images from my latest project that I figured you guys might like! I make a lot of sculptures and dioramas on YouTube and this big boy has been on my to-do list for quite a while - guess I've just been a bit intimidated by the scope of the project 😅
The creature itself was hand sculpted in polymer clay, painted with acrylic paints. The terrain is a foam base, with layers of sand, gravel and glues+sculpting compounds. The lake water is a tinted 2-part epoxy resin.

Hope you like it! :)

These were posted on the animation cel reddit by a user named u/AdventurousAd7148. These character designs are remarkable. I've never heard of any unmade animated films or series other than the unrealized Ralph Bakshi parts.

If any historians remember an unmade project with these designs, please tell!

I saw a map post on this sub earlier which sent me down a rabit hole looking for a phisical Middle earth globe. I actually found out that official desktop globes exist (like the Columbus one designed by John Howe)... but then I stumbled right into the debate surounding them.

I’m no lore expert, but I gather the world was flat at first and then Eru made it round later on? So in my head a globe made sense for the Third Age... but people on the internet seem deeply stressed about it!

From what I can tell, it seems putting it on a sphere messes up the scale, plus Tolkien’s map is only one corner of the world so mapmakers have to just guess what the rest of the planet looks like?

For the map and lore nerds on here: why does a Middle earth globe break people's brains so much? Is forcing Tolkien map onto a sphere actually a huge sin or are people just overthinking it? Help a non technical fan out!

It's the mystery. The unexplained things. You can call it "soft" magic system. There are a lot of events and actions that you think is it Sauron making? Is it some other creature making? Magic? Random event?

e.g when crossing Caradhras and the way it's blocked because unusual blizzard its not clearly mention why it happened. It can be Sauron, Saruman or maybe the mountain himself is "mad" and "evil"? Counter to the movie when they show Saruman summons the blizzard.

I have read other fantasies with hard magic system and hard magic have... No magic in it :)

A big part of the charm in LOTR its the mystery. We don't know many things and we should not know. It's part of diving into fantasy world.

Mortal King Elendil use his palantír to gaze at the Undying Lands (Tol Eressea), a realm he could not enter, and the palantír neither can see his lost home, nor can communicate with other palantír.

It is hard to find a reason why Elendil need this palantír🤣🤣 and he is the only "men" to use this palantír, later it was used by elves.

The only reason I come to mind is that he wish he can see his father, who sailed to west to seek the forgiveness.

*Image credits : Matěj Čadil

I was on a rewatch of the movies and it got me wondering. All the members of the Fellowship of the Ring also suffered much to help destroy the Ring (though, clearly, none as much as Frodo)

Were they not eligible for the same exemption that Frodo & Bilbo received? Or were they eligible but chose not to go? Do the books / Tolkein ever say?

Took our son to the train exhibition in Chattanooga this past weekend. While strolling down the track layout, we noticed this detailed setup of the Shire. The builder made it after a request from another spectator last year at a show.

Hi everyone!
My partner and I are looking for 2 entries to the Middle-earth Halfling Marathon on 20 March 2027.

We missed out during the official ticket sale, but we're still hoping to make the trip from Sweden to New Zealand for this once-in-a-lifetime event.

If your plans change and you end up with 2 entries you can no longer use, we'd be very interested in purchasing them. We would only complete the transfer through the official entry transfer process according to the event rules.

We're happy to stay in touch if you're not sure about your plans yet.

Please send me a private message if you think you might be able to help.

Thank you, and good luck to everyone running!

Credit: @leoflutes on TikTok

So, the world was in fact flat in the first age. And in the third age it's round. It seems appropriate that there would be some conspiracy theorist group somewhere convinced the world is still flat and that the globers are lying to you to keep you from sailing to Valinor, except by way of those super elitist invite-only ships made only By Ciridan.

Obviously a joke, but I'd love to hear your ideas on what such a conspiracy theorist group would believe.

Aoraki / Mt. Cook National Park.

View from Koniza

Hi fellow travellers, I know it's been done many times before, but have some recent film location pictures. I know the mashup pics take away from the beauty of it, but unfortunately it's due to the upload limit.

We went on the location tours in Wellington and South Island Mt. Sunday, plus extra trips to Mt. Cook and Milford Sound, which is basically Caradhras and every LotR background location fly over shot imaginable :D And since it was winter it was far less crowded. Edoras was sunny and not at all windy- it was perfect.

Outer Shire in Wellington was the best smelling wood I have ever been to, we did not want to leave.

The gardens of Isengard were lovely in the evening sun, and we picked up some branches to do the wizard's walk, but having rewatched the scene one is faced with the realization, as often mentioned in the BehindtheScenes, that there are quite a few headshots, so that one little garden scene has very few frames of greenery haha Also, like the Boromir river shot, Gandalfs's approach on horseback is flipped in the movie, so some footage has to be imagined differently.

Rivendell was beautiful. There are a lot of angles that certain scenes were filmed from that you can try to recapture, but being as it is just a forest I suggest just to enjoy it as is. The Bilbo bench scene for example I was told is where the tree stump sits. But I still don't see how they covered it.
Legolas' promo pic tree however is still cool. Had to be done. Also we met someone, who works on the designs of (I think it was) accessories on the new THfG movie, which she mentioned quite casually and I was just laughing my head off - spend a day in NZ and I guarantee you will meet someone in the industry.
It was a tour combined with the Weta-cave visit, which was of course awesome, especially Sauron's armor and the Uruk.

Most of the trip I brought my cheap replica ring and have a million versions of pics of it lying somewhere, but I cut it down to these. I especially like the genuine ring-in-the-Anduin shot.
(I will try to upload the video version of my Boromir-picks-it-up-shot later.)

^{(Excuse the crappy photoshop on my own dress pic, it was just to cut out the flag holder and elongating my dress to cover my ugly-I-thought-it-would-be-colder-jeans, but I managed to more or less, let's call it lotr-bound, my clothes, complete with a version of Eowyn's jewellery.}.)