LOTR Project: The Fellowship of the Ring

[Im a brickmaster.]

Actuly I quite liked the flaming head on the black body. Makes it look like a dark shadowy creature!

[Mencot]

Very good crew and ideas. TLG could borrow some ideas of you to make the LOTR sets even more awesome

[Praiter Yed]

I've been quite looking forward to seeing these ever since you posted your custom figures in the MCW. I like them all and think they look very believable as Lego sets, but my current favourite has got to be 'The Mines of Moria'.

Edited March 22, 2012 by Praiter Yed

[LEGO Family]

Wow, never came across this post even though i thought that ive read your Two towers post correctly ( Which i obviously hadnt cause i havent seen the link till today. )

These sets are good stuff. I seriously dig them more than the originaly LEGO LOTR sets. And you got that ring spot on ;)

Just wanted you to know that i really really like how you put sets together, and your pictures.

Very very well done. :)

Edited May 17, 2012 by LEGO Family

[KristofBD]

Excellent work! I especially love your smaller sets as they show that you can convey a lot of the atmosphere with just a few bricks. Well done!

Edited May 17, 2012 by KristofBD

[jed_barabrian]

Love the Black Rider and Bag End. Great work!

[Nuju Metru]

Very good crew and ideas. TLG could borrow some ideas of you to make the LOTR sets even more awesome

I almost hope they don't, just so that my sets will stay unique... but thank you!

Wow, never came across this post even though i thought that ive read your Two towers post correctly ( Which i obviously hadnt cause i havent seen the link till today. )

These sets are good stuff. I seriously dig them more than the originaly LEGO LOTR sets. And you got that ring spot on ;)

Just wanted you to know that i really really like how you put sets together, and your pictures.

Very very well done. :)

It was easy to miss. I guess I should advertise better, when the time comes to make my "Return of the King" sets. I appreciate your support.

Excellent work! I especially love your smaller sets as they show that you can convey a lot of the atmosphere with just a few bricks. Well done!

Yeah, the ideal I was striving for was creating definite atmosphere in as - well, I don't want to say stingy - in as conservative a way as possible, to mimic the LEGO style. The more expansive the environments were, the less realistic the sets thereby became.

[ThePyroMaster]

Wow these are great!

[coolguy2323]

Very nice! I especially like the modularity feature in Weathertop, and the bridge in Moria. Does the bridge collapse?

[Deathleech]

I absolutely love all the sets you have made. Your Balrog encounter and Amon Hen set are almost exactly what I imagined. Your Black Rider set is unique and would be a great way to beef up your Nazgul count and reach 9 total for fairly cheap. I really like your Weathertop set, so much in fact I prefer it over the official Lego version we got. These sets could easily pass as real Lego sets.

Now, with that said, my only critique would be to make some bigger sets! I understand if you did this to keep your cost down, but if this were ever to become an actual wave, your sets are pretty lopsided in terms of price point. You have four under 25 dollars, and your most expensive is only $65. I know there aren't a ton of huge scenes from the Fellowship of the Ring movie, but I think you could squeeze out a few. Maybe a huge $130 Rivendell set where the Fellowship forms? And maybe make Orthanc into a full fledged tower for around $80? Just some suggestions.

Also for the Mines of Moria set, I would love to see the Balrog ever so slightly bigger. I know you did these before Lego announced/released their LotR sets, but since they did you could also ditch the brown gate piece in your set, the well, and the tomb and maybe drop the price down to $49.99-59.99 (depending how big you make the Balrog). As for the Bag End set, I would personally like to see more hill/home with the set, Bilbo instead of Gandalf, and maybe increase the price to $29.99. Of course these are really just personal preferences rather than actual criticisms.

My suggestions would give you a much nicer price span and something almost identical to Legos first wave:

$13 - The Black Rider

$25 - Weathertop Ambush

$30 - Bag End

$40 - Ambush of Amon Hen

$60 - Mines of Moria (Balrog set)

$80 - Orthanc

$130 - Rivendell

Other than that, I really think you did an amazing job on these sets so kudos to you sir!

Edited July 4, 2012 by Deathleech

[Nuju Metru]

Very nice! I especially like the modularity feature in Weathertop, and the bridge in Moria. Does the bridge collapse?

Indeed it does!

I absolutely love all the sets you have made. Your Balrog encounter and Amon Hen set are almost exactly what I imagined. Your Black Rider set is unique and would be a great way to beef up your Nazgul count and reach 9 total for fairly cheap. I really like your Weathertop set, so much in fact I prefer it over the official Lego version we got. These sets could easily pass as real Lego sets.

Now, with that said, my only critique would be to make some bigger sets! I understand if you did this to keep your cost down, but if this were ever to become an actual wave, your sets are pretty lopsided in terms of price point. You have four under 25 dollars, and your most expensive is only $65. I know there aren't a ton of huge scenes from the Fellowship of the Ring movie, but I think you could squeeze out a few. Maybe a huge $130 Rivendell set where the Fellowship forms? And maybe make Orthanc into a full fledged tower for around $80? Just some suggestions.

Also for the Mines of Moria set, I would love to see the Balrog ever so slightly bigger. I know you did these before Lego announced/released their LotR sets, but since they did you could also ditch the brown gate piece in your set, the well, and the tomb and maybe drop the price down to $49.99-59.99 (depending how big you make the Balrog). As for the Bag End set, I would personally like to see more hill/home with the set, Bilbo instead of Gandalf, and maybe increase the price to $29.99. Of course these are really just personal preferences rather than actual criticisms.

My suggestions would give you a much nicer price span and something almost identical to Legos first wave:

$13 - The Black Rider

$25 - Weathertop Ambush

$30 - Bag End

$40 - Ambush of Amon Hen

$60 - Mines of Moria (Balrog set)

$80 - Orthanc

$130 - Rivendell

Other than that, I really think you did an amazing job on these sets so kudos to you sir!

I'm glad you liked my sets! Regarding pricing: The "Fellowhip" movie is mostly made up of small-scale scenes as you said, relative to the second two movies: there are no massive battles or fortresses. The movie, as such, lent itself more readily to me in smaller sets. The full tower of Orthanc was something I considered; however, both my lack of black parts and initial apprehension about the project stopped that idea in its tracks. I decided to rather take the most active scene there and make it a small set.

The same is true of Bag End, in a sense: since there is not a lot of principal action that takes place there, and not many characters interact in that setting, I also made it a smaller set. I figured it wouldn't be realistic to have there be a very large non-violent set in the line, too.

Rivendell was in my original plan of sets, actually. I tried to build it, believe me I tried, but I found that its lighter-than-air, hugely curve based architecture was impossible for me to capture with my selection of (by their general nature) rectangular bricks. It was a daunting prospect, one which I abandoned to focus more heavily on my Moria set.

Insofar as that one went, it was originally going to be a good deal smaller. I conceived my "Fellowship" sets before I saw TLG's official ones, which is why our Morias and Weathertops ended up so differently; however, our shared decision to implement the Tomb of Balin in our respective sets is something I understand and am glad I did. It's an integral and iconic part of the Moria location; including it to a degree was important to me. And, since Moria is the headliner of this movie's sets, I made it as big as I wanted, then gave it the price point that fit.

I like your set suggestions - if I'd had the same patience and confidence to make them then as I now have for my upcoming ROTK stuff, I think it would have been a perfect wave. Thanks for the ideas!

[Waylander]

It was always the dream wasn't it of LotR Lego sets. I must say you're done a terrific job and the figures are also great. Love Bag End.

[Deathleech]

Fair enough, and just to be clear I really do like your sets! I like them so much in fact I think they could easily pass off as official LotR sets. That's also party why I commented on the price/size so much. The sets individually could totally be official sets, but as a whole wave they just seem to be off in price/scale a little.

Lego generally has 5-8 sets per wave, and they range in price from six bucks all the way up to $130+. They usually only have one or two sets at each price point too. Granted you may not have been trying to structure your sets as an official wave, but everything else seems so professionally done I figured this could be too!

Anyways, great work and I can't wait to see what you come out with for the RotK sets. Do you think you will also do your own Hobbit inspired sets as well when those films get released, or after you are done with the RotK stuff?

[Nuju Metru]

Fair enough, and just to be clear I really do like your sets! I like them so much in fact I think they could easily pass off as official LotR sets. That's also party why I commented on the price/size so much. The sets individually could totally be official sets, but as a whole wave they just seem to be off in price/scale a little.

Lego generally has 5-8 sets per wave, and they range in price from six bucks all the way up to $130+. They usually only have one or two sets at each price point too. Granted you may not have been trying to structure your sets as an official wave, but everything else seems so professionally done I figured this could be too!

Anyways, great work and I can't wait to see what you come out with for the RotK sets. Do you think you will also do your own Hobbit inspired sets as well when those films get released, or after you are done with the RotK stuff?

With some consideration and planning and etc., my ROTK sets should hopefully be more realistic as a group of priced sets.

I don't plan to do any Hobbit sets. My original plan was to make the three LOTR movies as "sets"; when TLG announced their intention to do the same, I had already started my own project, so I resolved to finish it. Since I had already made plans, and TLG only overlapped with my sets in a few areas, I figured it'd be interesting, at least, to see how our creations would turn out differently. TLG has such an opportunity to do such a full job with the Hobbit sets, and so trying to compete with them wouldn't make sense.

Besides, maybe I'll go back and fill in some of the gaps in my own line once I've finished... Making "The Hobbit" sets isn't really compelling to me, since TLG will do so well with them.

[Lego lover]

You should work for TLG, my friend. I love what you made, and I want more from you.