Tag Archives: Tolkien

Not to be hasty, but this might be the best Ent build I’ve seen

It may take a long time to say anything worth saying in Old Entish, but you can describe this LEGO Ent by brickbuiltjosh in just one word: impressive. Treebeard (aka Fangorn) of The Lord of the Rings carries Merry and Pippin on his shoulders, probably a few stanzas deep into a really long song about leaves or something. His bark-like skin is captured in a wonderfully organic way, full of whips, curved elements, and dinosaur tails. His hands are handlebars, allowing for his fingers to spread. Each piece is arranged into an asymmetric whole that just works. Treebeard’s pose conveys a ponderous sense of weight and motion. According to the designer, large ball joints form the knees, hips, and shoulders, while his elbows are brick-built double hinges.

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The last (tiny) homely house east of the sea

Rivendell – the mention of the name already evokes a feeling of home. A location in J.R.R. Tolkien’s famous books The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings trilogy, it appears as a sanctuary, a last respite to characters who are on a journey into “the wilderness.” Builder Elias (Brickleas) built the Last Homely House in all its peaceful glory in microscale in just 100 LEGO parts. While the elven buildings are tiny among the large cliffs, they are instantly recognisable thanks to clever parts usage.

Rivendell

I love the way Elias uses books as the angled roofs, and one stickered book is actually very fitting here. It is the Red Book of Westmarch, the book that Bilbo Baggins wrote during his retirement in Rivendell. The battle droid torso also works very well, since its skeletal nature represents the open-air feel of those buildings. I found the small waterfalls very impressive, using Hero Factory claw pieces which perfectly hug the large wedge used as a cliff. Elias perfectly demonstrates that when building something with a small number of parts, use the best parts.

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Cloudy with a chance of Minifigures

It’s nice to take break from huge builds and enjoy a LEGO creation that’s zoomed in a bit more. Hubba Blöoba invites to visit Middle Earth in this nifty little vignette. The Iron Forge 2021 seed part of the minifigure torso inspired this build, appearing as windows and…clouds? Sure, why not? The rolling green hills are also well executed, as is the forced perspective from the gate in the foreground leading to the seemingly distant burrow.  Other cool details are the ox horns framing the front door, and the grill tile forming the slats in the fencing. Careful, though. This sort of creative part usage can be hobbit forming.

#3: In a hole in the ground, there lived a Hobbit...

Jonesin’ for more Tolkien-esque goodness? Check out some other featured builds!

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Ugly never looked so cute

Orcs are probably one of the ugliest creature in all of fantasy fiction. But this little guy created by Jme Wheeler is stinkin’ adorable as all heck. How can you not smile when you look at that face? I’d like to think of him as an innocent baby, who does not yet know evil. But I guess there is just something about the Brickheadz style that lends to the “cute” factor. Whatever the case, my favorite part of this particular build is definitely the loincloth.

Orc

Have an afinity for BrickHeadz? We’ve got lots of them in our archives!

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Lond Daer, the Númenorean shipyard in Middle Earth

There have been many great LEGO creations from The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit franchise over the years, including a recent epic collaboration which we were proud to feature here on TBB. The other ages mentioned in the book, however, tend to be overlooked. Well, there is a new collaborative project underway and Barthezz Brick has built an amazing model of the Númenórean ship-building port of Lond Daer.

Lond Daer - by Barthezz Brick

This model has so many details worth mentioning, including some very nicely built arrow slits in the tall tower in the back, which starts with a fairly common technique using cheese slopes but repeats the pattern in an interesting way. The buildings on the right also show a neat architectural design for the arched windows made from loosely connected plates, and this minifig neck bracket to attach tiles on top. Click to see more of Lond Daer

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Happy Birthday, Bilbo and Frodo! It’s Hobbit’s Day!

Bilbo and Frodo Baggins were born 78 years apart, but with exactly the same birthday, on the 22nd of September. It is their birthday today and thus they make a mark on our Gregorian calendar – declared as Hobbit Day! And to commemorate the festivities, builder Thorsten Bonsch gifts us with a vignette that’s worthy of a weary hobbit to rest and unwind with a warm and cozy corner of home tucked in a corner of the Shire. Thorston’s clever techniques with 1×1 plates for the arc of the fireplace and a tessellated centrepiece for the floor using an assortment of cheese slopes in a variety of colors, all lit with perfect lighting, makes this a breathtaking and picturesque scene.

Happy Hobbit Day everybody!

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In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.

At the far end of Bagshot Row at number 10 is the house of Fredregar “Fatty” Bolger, the son of Odovacar Bolger and Rosamunda Took. Patrick B. has captured Fatty with his wife and a furry friend outside his beautiful house at Bag End — another Shire creation for his “ExploringTheShire” project he started a year ago.

Bagshot Row 10 (Hobbiton)

Like many a member of the online LEGO community, Patrick has credited fellow builders in the comments on Flickr to acknowledge where he has “borrowed” Jonas Kramm’s cobble design and appropriated the watering can design from Simon NH. I love how the online LEGO community reminds me very much of Hobbiton in more than a few regards.

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In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.

Last summer, we featured a lovely microscale LEGO hobbit hole by Austrian builder Patrick B. Recently, he’s shared a full-size minifig-scale version of Bag End, full of verdant landscaping and lovely touches like a beehive and snail.

Bag End

See more details and the interior of this LEGO Bag End

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A hobbit-hole, and that means comfort.

Following quickly on the tiny heels of the excellent microscale Rivendell, Austrian LEGO builder Patrick B. has crafted the Hill from The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings trilogy, also in microscale. Patrick’s tiny scene is complete with Bag End under a large tree and Bagshot Row beneath. Each of the round doors has a unique color, and the path leads across a bridge to the Green Dragon Inn, which Patrick also built in minifig-scale recently. I particularly love the fences, but don’t miss the tiny boat built from a paper minifig hat.

Hobbiton

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A woodland home with Tolkien’s bear essentials

Thorin and Company, along with Gandalf, seek the aid of Beorn after their Misty Mountains adventure — calling in at Beorn Hall, on the western borders of Mirkwood. Paul Rizzi has based his LEGO version of Beorn’s Hall on the description and illustrations from J.R.R. Tolkien’s writing rather than anything seen on the big screen. There’s a lot of detail in this huge build, the beehives on the far left, the tall oak trees, and the landscaping around this woodland home.

Beorn's Hall

A closer look shows some of the detail used to give a lot of character to the Hall. There are different textures represented with the wooden main structure, a stone opening, the green landscaping, and vegetation on the roof. It’s no surprise to learn Paul won a prize for this creation at Brickfair Virginia earlier this month.

Beorn's Hall

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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.

Balrog

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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Typical day in Laketown – everyone just chilling

Despite mixed reviews of what happened to Tolkien’s beloved stories, the trilogy of Hobbit movies still served up some eye-popping visions of Middle Earth. One of the best, to my mind, was of Laketown — the city of wooden huts built over the Long Lake in a doomed attempt at protection from dragonfire. Marcel V. must have liked the movie version too, as he’s built a wonderful slice of it in LEGO bricks. Trans-clear tiles as icy water creates an appropriately chilly atmosphere, and the house on stilts is good enough to make me wish Marcel had built more of the town. And don’t miss the imaginative parts usage — minifigure ice skates as ladder rungs, and skeleton and minifigure limbs to create the twist of smoke rising into the frigid air.

Laketown

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