Welcome to The Great Hall of Poets, our regular monthly feature showcasing the talent of Middle-earth fans. Each month we will feature a small selection of the poems submitted, but we hope you will read all of the poems that we have received here in our Great Hall of Poets.

So come and join us by the hearth and enjoy!

If you have a Tolkien/Middle-earth inspired poem you’d like to share, then send it to poetry@theonering.net  One poem per person may be submitted each month. Please make sure to proofread your work before sending it in. TheOneRing.net is not responsible for poems posting with spelling or grammatical errors.

Continue reading “The Great Hall of Poets”

One of my favorite Orc designs from any of the Middle-earth films got the Weta Workshop statue treatment late last year. We originally knew him as Azog, then Bolg, and eventually he became The Torturer of Dol Guldur, beating Gandalf the Grey up during The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies Extended Edition. This guy is just brutal to look at, with metal on his face, armor made of bones, a massive mace, and blood all over. It’s an absolutely savagely superb piece! Sculptor Sam Gao, who we’ve come to know as someone who can brilliantly sculpt monsters, did it again. I hope you enjoy the review and I hope you get this piece, which is limited to an edition of only 500 worldwide.
Continue reading “Collecting The Precious – Weta Workshop’s The Torturer of Dol Guldur Review”

Over the weekend, our friends at Weta Workshop surprised us with not one but two pre-orders. Not only was this out of the blue, but it’s also a very special kind of pre-order.

One of the coolest moments from The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies was during the fight sequence at the end of the film, when elves and dwarves join together. Fans can now add this to their collection, in either the Mirkwoord Elf statue or the Dwarf Soldiers of the Iron Hills statue. Both statues come in an edition size of 750 pieces, with a price tag of $449 (USD).

If you’re so inclined, you can order a special Elf and Dwarves two pack, which includes both statues with matching numbers (for numbers 2 through 150). What makes this two pack so special is that you can remove the elf from its base, and place it on one of the dwarves’ shoulders, to recreate the jumping scene from the movie. The two pack comes in at $898 (USD), and is part of the 750 edition size of each piece. I would ‘jump’ on this unique two pack now, and make space on your shelf for them in August of this year. You do not want to miss one of Weta’s most unique statue ideas!

If you were lucky enough to be at Emerald City Comic Con, you got to see our friend Jerry Vanderstelt paint a large version of this at the Weta Workshop booth. Now fans can add a giclee version of this image to their collections. This fantastic piece gives you a great portrait look at The Balrog, one of the coolest creatures in all of Middle-earth.

Do not wait too long to order this, as it is limited to only 2000 pieces worldwide. As always, Jerry’s work is available in multiple options, such as a paper giclee at $80, canvas giclee for $225, and the canvas giclee with gallery wrapped for $325. No matter what option you go with, this is yet another outstanding work of art from Vanderstelt Studio.

It seems that, with those Tolkien biopics gradually approaching, more and more people are taking an interest in the biographical details of Tolkien’s life.

If that’s your thing, you might enjoy this pretty solid overview from Simon Whistler. (I didn’t know about the tarantula incident, for example, a minor controversy that you can get more background on over on Tolkien Gateway.)