One of my favourite Dwarves has finally gotten his barrel rider statue. Bofur the Dwarf, who was such…
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One of my favourite Dwarves has finally gotten his barrel rider statue.
Bofur the Dwarf, who was such a great character during the films, joins Bilbo, Oin, and Bombur as the fourth barrel rider.
This fantastic little piece is sculpted by Gary Hunt who you will get to know better through several reviews that are coming up.
Bofur comes in with a price tag of only $65 and is in-stock shipping from the New Zealand warehouse.
Round 1 is in the history books, as Middle-earth March Madness continues to capture the attention of Tolkien fans worldwide! In our first round, we had over 190,000 total votes cast, with the most contentious match-ups recieving nearly 10,000 votes! Voting for Round 2 starts now! (Vote below).
Round 1 didn’t have many close match-ups, but there were definitely a few surprises.
The most contraversial seems to be (11) Thranduil taking down (6) Thorin Oakenshield in The Hobbit division. As the 2014 Middle-earth March Madness champion, Thranduil seems to have a dedicated and loyal following that should help him through his next match-up with (3) Beorn. (Or will fan backlash against those Thranduites push Beorn through?!)
In The Lord of the RIngs division, (8) Arwen was able to take down The Dark Lord himself, (9) Sauron. Will she make it past (1) Galadriel to possible match-up against (4) Aragorn?!
In The Others division, (2) Father Christmas was knocked off by (15) Legolas of Gondolin, obviously taking advantage of the name recognition of another famous Elf.
There are a lot of intriguing match-ups in round 2, which I’m sure some TORn staffer will highlight in an article this week. Maybe you want to highlight your favorite match-ups in this round? Submit an article to spymaster@theonering.net with your display name and a small bio, and we’ll see if we can post it!
Voting in this round will remain open until March 26th at 10pm ET. Vote Now and tell your friends! [Round 2 Download] [Round 1 Results] [Round 1 Download]
Continue reading “Middle-earth March Madness – Round 2! Vote Now!”
The 2015 edition of Middle-earth Madness officially starts today! We’ve split our field of 64 characters and objects into four divisions: The Silmarillion,The Hobbit,The Lord of the Rings and The Others.
This is a brand new format for the competition this year – implemented to encourage interesting match-ups, intriquging final four and ultimately education on the breadth of works from our favorite author, J.R.R. Tolkien.
A note on how the bracket combatants were determined. TheOneRing.net created a document containing all combatants, sub divided into divisions. We asked staff to cast sixteen votes per division, with the votes having a weight of 1-4. Each staffer cast four 4 votes, four 3 votes, four 2 votes and four 1 votes in each division. We then totalled all the votes from each division to determine their rank, and ultimately placed those into our bracket for seeding.
As you can imagine, our staff is diverse and the results were very interesting! What was very exciting when creating the bracket was the realization that we have some amazing and story related match-ups in this first round.
Voting in Round 1 will remain open until March 21st at 10pm ET. At that point, we’ll calculate the winners and post the next round on March 22nd. Follow after the break for a complete bracket image (download it), and to vote on all of our Round 1 match-ups! [Round 1 Bracket]
Continue reading “Middle-earth March Madness – Round 1 Bracket – Vote Now!”
Yes folks, Middle-earth March Madness is back for 2015! If you are new to TheOneRing.net, Middle-earth March Madness is our adaptation on the popular NCAA Basketball tournament that takes place every March/April in the United State. It is our chance to have some fun matching up middle-earth power players against each other. Past winners include Samwise Gamgee, Gandalf, Thranduil.
Based on feedback from our past years, we are switching things up a bit to include the entirety of J.R.R. Tolkien’s works. So in reality, this could be called J.R.R. Tolkien March Madness!
This year, our four divisions will be representative of a book (or series of books):
The Hobbit
The Lord of the Rings
The Silmarillion
Other Works (Lost Tales, Father Christmas, Children of Hurin, etc)
This allows each division to crown a champion for each book, and then they all face off against each other in the final four!
Our staff are sorting out the field of 64 combatants now, and we’ll be posting the first bracket and polls very soon. Stay tuned to the front-page of TORn for the announcement to start voting, and follow along on Twitter and FB with #middleearthmarchmadness @theoneringnet
The latest member of Thorin’s company has landed! Bifur the Dwarf is the eleventh of the company to be produced in statue form.
Bifur was sculpted by the insanely talented Lindsey Crummett who did a fantastic job of capturing one of my favorite looking Dwarves.
Bifur is limited to just 1000 pieces worldwide, with a price tag of $249. If you’re like me and hate waiting, then you’re in luck, as he is an in-stock item and is ready to ship to your collection now.
List of some of the Auction and Raffle prizes:
Here are some of the items we will have available for the silent auction and raffle, including something for the Non-Attending Supporters of our Indiegogo campaign. We have some rather big ticket prizes, numerous autographed items, and some original artwork for you, and at least one item offered for a Charity Auction. Everything on this list will be split fairly evenly between the silent auction and the raffle, giving everyone a chance to walk away with something very cool. This is not a complete list, things are still arriving, but it will give you an idea of what you will have a chance to either bid on or try and win in a Chinese style raffle drawing.
Artwork –
Gollum Stained Glass Window – handmade
Prancing Pony Mug – handmade
Green Dragon Mug – handmade
Bilbo’s Teacups – handmade
Mallorn Leaf Serving Plate – handmade
Signed Items –
Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King “For Your Consideration” script – signed by numerous LOTR cast and crew
DOS Bilbo Poster – signed by numerous Hobbit cast and crew
DOS Cast Poster – signed by numerous Hobbit cast and crew
TOPPS Autograph Cards – One each for Cate Blanchett, Liv Tyler, Billy Boyd, Sean Astin and Elijah Wood.
Big Ticket Items –
Sideshow Artist Proof of Sauron statue
Sideshow Artis Proof of Galadriel
One note for those of you not attending the party, two of the Signed TOPPS cards, the Sam and Frodo cards, will be raffled off for the Non-Attending supporters during our Live Stream of the party.