Tag Archives: Lord of the Rings

LEGO began releasing official Lord of the Rings sets in 2012, followed quickly by LEGO Hobbit sets, but LEGO builders have been recreating the people and places of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle Earth for just as long as there have been books and bricks. Relax in the Shire or battle Saruman and his Uruk-hai army at Helm’s Deep and the Tower of Orthanc, but wherever your LEGO journey takes you, beware the watchful eye of Sauron!

The LEGO Balrog shall not pass!

The LEGO Balrogs we’ve featured here on The Brothers Brick over the years have been large and monstrous, with flames flying and wings flying everywhere. Jonas Kramm takes a subtler approach with a considerably smaller Balrog built almost entirely from black. The black only serves to make the creature more sinister, making the contrasting orange flames on the Balrog’s back and his flame-whip even more striking. The Balrog is an ephemeral creature wrapped in darkness and fire, and the absence of explicit wings also adds to the evil look of this creature from the depths of Middle Earth.

While rather more gaudy, you might also enjoy the massive LEGO Balrog by Chak hei Mok and a looming Balrog by Aaron Newman.

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Now for wrath, now for ruin, and the red dawn

LEGO microscale is typically reserved for contemporary buildings like skyscrapers and pizza delivery shops, but recently Issac Snyder has been building one amazing tiny medieval model after another. Check out his microscale Dwarven workshop and his tiny walled port town. However the micro-masterpiece is surely this gorgeous Edoras from the second installment of The Lord of the Rings films.

If this MOC would look nice sitting on your desk or shelf, then you’re in luck! Isaac donated his lovely creation as a prize in the 2017 Middle Earth LEGO Olympics (MELO 2017) contest over on MOCpages. The first round of the contest runs through May 21, 2017, so you’ve got nearly a month to enter the fray.

The battle of Helm’s Deep is over. The battle for Middle-earth is about to begin.

When Saruman sends his orc army to knock on your front door, you have to be prepared. Lucky for LEGO King Théoden and the rest of the Rohirrim, Classical Bricks has constructed an impressively massive and rather sound-looking fortress. This walled stronghold is built right into the mountainside (using some interesting rockwork techniques) and it looks like it came straight out of J.R.R. Tolkien’s classic novel.

The diorama is 6.3 feet long (nearly 2 meters), and includes about 200 minifigures. Despite its size, the scene certainly doesn’t lack detail, with the fortress integrated with rockwork built from angled plates.

Lord of the Rings: Search for the One Ring

This dark creation explores a fourth instalment of LOTR that we will never see on the big screen. The question posed by Jaden Ho‘s creation is… what if the evil Nazgûl tried to go back for the One Ring? He also playfully adds Frodo’s greed to retrieve the One Ring in his attempt to fish it from the pits of Mount Doom while the Eye of Sauron watches in distress over yonder.

In collaboration with photographer Daniel Yang, Jaden gives the scene atmospheric feeling that puts some sense of gloom into the cleverly constructed boiling lava. We all take comfort in knowing that the One Ring has been destroyed forever …or has it?

The way is shut. It was made by those who are Dead

11inthewoods has used an interesting combination of newer minifig parts and accessories to create an excellent LEGO version of the Dead Men of Dunharrow from Tolkien’s Lord Of The Rings. Zombie heads, Ninjago spirit “legs”, Nexo Knights armour, an Avengers Ultron jaw-piece, and a crown nicked from The Witch King of Angmar himself — it all comes together brilliantly to create an eerie army of oathbreaker ghosts.

I’d like to see these guys in a full build now, please — guarding the entrance to the pass at Dunharrow, or maybe gathering around the Stone of Erech?

Into the woods with Tom Bombadil

While Tom Bombadil is an overlooked character in the Lord of the Ring films, this LEGO rendition of his home is too good to let slip by without mention. legostrator has given us a colorful woodland scene, with the character in question front and center. The house itself is quite wonderful and full of color.

The combination of finger hinges and minifig hands gives a nice texture to the roof, while the different methods for the siding on the house make it visually interesting. Barrels in the corners are easy to miss! I particularly love the spindly tree to the right of the house. The lady’s dress is lovely, too!

One LEGO Balrog to rule them all

The Balrog is a difficult creature to create with LEGO as it’s a being of fire, smoke and shadow. And none of those elements lend themselves to the perfectly engineered plastic brick. Luckily Aaron Newman was up to the task and has created not only an impressive rendition of the Balrog, but a striking LEGO creature in its own right.

While I almost always suggest checking out the builder’s photostream for more angles, it’s even more important here so you can see more of the beast. We previously featured another Balrog, and while it did do the fire and flames better than this one, it’s visually more noisey and complex.

Rhosgobel: The home of Radagast the Brown from The Hobbit & LOTR

One of my favorite minor characters in J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings books is Radagast, a wizard like Gandalf and Saruman who cares for the plants and animals of Middle-earth. I really kind of hated how Peter Jackson blew up The Hobbit into a bloated monstrosity of a movie trilogy, but I did deeply enjoy the extended screen time that Radagast had. Who can fault a sled towed by a team of enormous rabbits, handled by a man with birds’ nests in his hair? Real-life Middle-earth resident David Hensel recently built this enormous version of Rhosgobel, the house in Mirkwood where Radagast lives, for the Christchurch Brick Show this weekend.

The largest LEGO creation he has ever built, David says that the build includes twenty to twenty-five thousand LEGO bricks, and measures 77 cm (30 inches) on each side.

Click through to see more of this amazing LEGO model!

The Golden Hall of Rohan

Remember the Golden Hall scene from The Lord of the Rings movie? Well kingdomviewbricks built it. Look closely and you’ll see that this build doesn’t use any traditional “studs up” building techniques. Instead, the walls and floors are built “studs not on top” (SNOT) and the columns are built upside-down. By using these unusual building styles, the builder was able to seamlessly incorporate two impressive mosaics into the scene: a rider of Rohan tapestry and a cobblestone floor with a hidden message.

I love the various textures in this build. Also, I particularly like the close up photograph below showing Gandalf revealing himself as Gandalf the White to Saruman and Grima Wormtongue. That lighting is phenomenal and the image perfectly captures an iconic moment in the Lord of the Rings storyline.

This is a Hobbit-hole, and that means comfort

Tolkien’s fantastical cities and landscapes have always fascinated me, perhaps none more so than Hobbiton. I’ve seen several LEGO versions of Bag End over the years, but Wookieeawarrior‘s most recent build, refreshingly, isn’t the iconic home of Bilbo Baggins. Instead, this cozy Hobbit hole belongs to one of his lucky neighbors.

The overall shaping of the hill and exposed brick walls make for a very lovely composition. I particularly like the small, dark tan bricks that stick out just a bit more than the rest of the bricks, the cobbled-looking chimney, and the beautiful, round front door.

A windswept hobbit escape

This diorama by TBB’s own contributor Jen Spencer depicts the scene from The Fellowship of the Ring at the Prancing Pony Inn just after the wraiths swoop in and stab the beds that the Hobbits are supposed to be sleeping in. The windswept atmosphere and dishevelled room is beautifully illustrated by the thrown-open window with curtains blowing, the overturned stool, pictures awry and—my own favourite part—the mattress that is askew.

This diorama really captures the imagination. Even if you have not seen this scene in the movie, it is clear that someone has left the room in a hurry and something sinister is going on. Jen’s diorama is actually an entry into the 2016 Middle Earth Lego Olympics over on MOC pages. Good luck to all the competitors currently flexing their Middle Earth muscles!

With LEGO, you can make the Balrog from LOTR even scarier

Although LEGO has been making officially licenced Lord of the Rings sets for some years now, there’s been a noticeable gap in the product line: Durin’s Bane, the infamous terror of Moria and slayer of Gandalf, the Balrog. While we did get a digital version in the LEGO Lord of the Rings videogame, it’s been up to fans to create it in the brick. Chak hei Mok is happy to oblige with this rendition which is decidedly menacing.

At the (literal) center of the build is the printed chest piece which completed the monster from the set 70316 Jestro’s Evil Mobile. While everyone seems to be buying Nexo Knights sets for the new pieces accompanying the knights, it’s great to see the parts from team bad guy getting some love too.