Srbandrews

I keot seeing Orthanc going low on stock on the online store and thought I couldn't risk it going permanently out of stock. Just love it; best lego set I've ever owned.

My assumption regarding Doctor Who was that there must be some kinds of rights conflict to deal with as Character Building already makes a line of official Doctor Who products. Doesn't Three-beard make a cameo in the Mos Eisley cantina?

Ah, now I didn't recall the name from the book (I only reread it a couple of months ago too). Of course nothing that he's done so far in the released movies has any connection with his very brief appearance in the book so I didn't connect the two. That would explain why people might want a figure of him, though.

I'm slightly surprised to read about how many people want a Bolg minifig. I confess I had to look up who he was. To me he was just another 'orc with lines' like that one from the seige of Minas Tirith. Not trying to be obnoxious, but I'm genuinely interested in why people would like a minifig of him.

Well regardless of how literal you want to take me or SirGareth, I think it's nevertheless an unnecessarily confrontational approach to take. I think it demonstrates one of the sadder aspects of market economics (and, yes, most aspects are sad) that people think they can simply demand that they are provided with something they want. Campaigns and petitions like that should be catalysts for positive change in the world, not ways of getting material things that you want. I'm sorry if that sounds moany but, well, I just think it's the wrong position to take on the matter.

I just can't believe what I'm reading. Never mind crashing Lego's servers; my brain just crashed trying to resolve the intention to commit borderline cyber-terrorism with a bellicose insistence on Lego sets. I'm afraid to say I really don't think that plan is an especially good one.

The trouble is, I'm not sure any amount of support on ideas will be enough to convince Lego to revive the LOTR line if the company already has experience of lacklustre sales behind it. It's no mystery that Tolkien has an extremely enthusiastic hardcore following, but Lego are probably looking for a broader audience. They will probably be informed by their past experience with the brand how well 10,000 supporters will convert into gross sales and that simply may not be enough. Considering there are already sets out there on the market, surely the best thing someone can do to show Lego that the LOTR/Hobbit line has legs is to go out and buy those products.

A collapsing bridge, surely!

On the contrary, I would imagine that the chief differences between an AFOL and a younger user on Ideas in terms of discriminating sets would be realism and practicality. It's easier for an adult who perhaps has a more acute eye for economics, brand identity and strategy to imagine what Lego might realistically produce. I haven't backed a single thing that I thought had no chance of being developed, regardless of how impressive the build was. That giant Minas Tirith is impressive and beautiful, but it's an impressive and beautiful MOC; it's just not a Lego set. Interesting thought actually: all of the big money now seems to be in epic, long-running, big budget television shows. The work might fit that format better?

Wow, those Silmarillion sets are beautiful but of course they would never be made. Really stunningly designed though. Makes me feel a bit ashamed of my Silmarillion-inspired MEC entry. Would love to see this creator do Gondolin or Alqualonde. I think I'd rather see Elven/Human/Dwarven locations in general - I suppose because I feel places like Valmar ought to be too magestic and ethereal to depict in lego.

Thanks! I'm definitely considering doing some more in the same scale. Railway locomotives seem to make more acceptable display pieces for 'normal' houseguests than Lord of the Rings and Star Wars models.

Thanks all! Personally, I'm not very happy with the photographs but, well, I suppose they must not be all that bad. I could do with a real camera though.

Hi guys. I recently discovered a project I really loved on the Lego Ideas page of a narrow gauge steam locomotive (https://ideas.lego.com/projects/35520) Which gave me the idea of doing a little, boxy diesel shunter for 2-wide rails. It's intended to be a kind of a cross between the little tractory-type diesels you get on narrow gauge lines and the mainline diesel shunters like the British Rail class 08 (my favourite locomotive of all time). It's the only train-type build I've ever done but I'm quite happy with how it turned out - feedback and suggestions however would be very welcome.

I recently bought the 75038 Jedi Interceptor. I was initially torn between that and the 75048 Phantom and I went with the Interceptor in the end because it seemed quite a bit bigger. I was really pleased wit it - first jedi interceptor set I've built and I thought it was a pretty good build and the minifigs - especially the new R2 - are really nice. However, I just couldn't shake the feeling that I still wanted the Phantom so I went and bought that too. After building it the one thing I was surprised by was that it actually feels slightly bigger than it seems on the box, and is hardly any smaller than the interceptor when its wings are open. It's a really nicely designed ship and feels quite reminiscent of both a Y-wing and a Lambda shuttle.

This is a really great build and probably the best Rhosgobel I've seen. Did you repaint the friends hedgehog's face to make him look less cartoony?

Thanks for the comments guys. I've made a couple of additions that make it more of a 'set' including a new minifig and an option of hair for a helmetless Earendil.

Totally brilliant. I love the mixed scales - makes it look really epic. Even though it's pretty simple and there's not really a lot going on, this is probably my favourite cat C entry so far. Great work.

I can see your reasoning. I based my suggestion on the fact the Sci-Fi forum is described as 'From Jules Verne to...' which to my mind suggests that it encompasses historical Sci-Fi.

Is it possible they were already planning the Jurassic World sets when designing Smaug? His torso might make a passable dinosaur of some kind. EDIT: Or it could just be for general playability purposes. They may have just appreciated the fact that a fair number of people will want to try sitting a minifigure on a dragon's back at some point.

Which one in particular did you mean, Alcarin?

Thanks! I got it from bricklink and didn't know what it was from until i just looked it up. It's from the Mandarin from an Iron Man set. The only category this would be eligible for is the Bilbo's stories one and there were already about a dozen that were substantially better than this entered into that category before it even crossed my mind.

Thanks. In general, some of my favourite lego sets have been vehicles and the LOTR theme hasn't really leant itself to vehicle building. I just thought it would be quite cool to have this as a vehicle set.

Thanks for the comments, everyone. TheLegoDr, I originally built the middle section of the tower in white - even went as far as ordering the arch pieces from bricklink - but when it was built it just looked overwhelmingly white and not quite as I'd hoped. If I had the pieces I probably would have rebuilt it in dark tan. With regard to the tower, this was really my first moc since childhood and the idea would never have got off the ground if I hadn't been visiting my parents when I first conceived of it and been able to dig out those old white Fabuland arches from their granary. They pretty much made the whole thing viable and the tower would have looked pretty dull without them.

This is beautiful. Really great work on both the ruined house and the robot. Have you applied some kind of lighting effect to the photo of the robot? One thing though - I do wonder whether the sci-fi forum might be a better place to pist this?

This is a MOC I've been working on for a little while, just slowly adding bits and pieces as the mood takes me. As you can see, it's based on the Council of Elrond set; I liked the style that they used for the little pavilion part that I bought a couple of extra cheap 'no-minifig' sets on eBay and expanded it a bit. I added a custom Glorfindel figure as, though he doesn't appear in the movie, he is present at the council in the book. For his figure, I was influenced by the fact that Tolkien had at one time considered Glorfindel for one of the blue wizards before he decided that they would all be maia. I really wish I had a better camera for this one: More images in this album