Artistic Tolkien fans united on twitter this year for #Tolkientober to share new illustrations and representations of Middle-earth. Both fun and personal, the charge was led by Molly Ostertag who here pulls a small sample of the 1000’s of outstanding drawings.
EDITORS NOTE: Guest author Molly Knox Ostertag was invited to showcase the great artistic work done by fans worldwide for #Tolkientober. She is one of 2020’s Forbes 30 Under 30 media professionals, a NYTimes best-selling author and a leading illustrator for Disney animation.
A common theme of 2020 (besides mounting existential dread and the strange feeling that it’s lasted several centuries) has been people finding comfort in a return to their teenage passions. This is my sole excuse for why I have become as obsessed with Lord of the Rings this year as I was when I was 12 and would literally lie on the floor with giant speakers on either side of my head, playing the Return of the King soundtrack and crying about the Grey Havens.
I’ve been having fun drawing and writing and indulging this obsession, but there’s a limit to how much hobbit fanart a bored lesbian in lockdown can produce. Craving more content in much the same way Thorin & Co crave their ancestral treasure, I started a drawing challenge for October called #Tolkientober (I couldn’t think of a better name; please let me know if you come up with one). Each day had a theme, sometimes obvious things like ‘a dwarf’ and sometimes more interpretative, like ‘a guardian’. With weekends off, of course – no one better than Tolkien understood the importance of having periods of rest and healing in between efforts.
Our friends at Weta Workshop have their own Black Friday event starting November 24th and running through to December 1st. This event covers sales on their amazing 1:6th scale statues, mini statues, mini-epics, board games, props, and more. You can check out the page here to start checking out what is available and to also keep an eye out for their yearly auctions during this time. You never know when those might pop up.
One of the best artists on the planet, who just happens to have a license to do art from the world of Middle-earth, is having a sale right now. Our friend Jerry Vanderstelt’s Black Friday sale is happening right now through to November, 30th. You can get 20% off select items in his store via the code BFSALE2020. So if you’re looking for a great Middle-earth themed item to get the fan in your life this is a great place to go. Jerry’s work is amazing and I can assure you that the fan you know will love it.
As we told you a while back the folks at Diamond Select Toys are making action figures from The Lord of the Rings Trilogy. We’ve previously shared details and images of the figures Legolas and Gimli. Now we get to share with you Frodo and the Ringwraith. Just like the previous releases, these two figures each come in their own box with a piece of Sauron himself. That’s right! If you had forgotten you get to build Sauron with each release. These figures come in at 7 inches tall for figures like the Ringwraith and 4 inches tall for figures like Frodo all of them with 16 points of articulation. Fans can get their order in now for $59.98 with these awesome figures shipping in the spring of 2021.
TheOneRing.net would like to congratulate the team at Minecraft Middle-earth for celebrating 10 years of meticulously recreating an immersive The Lord of the Rings based world for gamers and adventurers alike.
If you have been living under a block (😂), Minecraft is a 3D world where users can explore and create entire worlds one block at a time. To then build the whole of Middle-earth is a historic task, and the team at Minecraft Middle-earth continue to succeed in this momentous undertaking. Check out the video below, a gallery of the the amazing areas created, and an excerpt from the PCMag interview with the creator. And of course, you can get involved their official website MCMiddleearth.com.
Vermeersch was first introduced to Minecraft when the sandbox was still in beta back in 2009, and like many others who played early on in the game’s development, he got completely hooked. As a moderator on a Dutch Minecraft server, the idea of building Middle-earth was something that had begun to float around the server’s community.
“I grew up with Lord of the Rings, like most people around 30 years old I imagine,” Vermeersch says. “We had people who were interested from the Minecraft forums, so we had this solid player base to start with. We began building the basic locations, like Bree and Hobbiton, then after publishing screenshots, people got hooked on what we were doing and started joining the project.”
Our friends at Weta Workshop revealed the new Cave Troll collectible at their Weta Workshop’s Comic-Con at home. It’s the next superb piece in their premium statue series, and it goes live for pre-orders on Wednesday, September 30th.
While this new sub-line of statues is new to Weta’s line of collectibles, at only 500 pieces, this statue won’t be lasting long. Collectors should log into their accounts before it goes live (times listed below) and be ready to be quick with the order button. We’ve been waiting for years to get another shot at the Cave Troll. Make sure you’re logged in and ready to go!
