Attention cosplayers! TheOneRing.net is pleased to announce a new weekly feature: The Week in Tolkien Cosplay. We know there are many creative fans in the Tolkien community, and we would like to showcase some the amazing costumes out there. They can be from the books or movies, just as long as they are Tolkien-related.  We’ll be posting a few of our favorites each Friday, starting January 29th.

Please send your photo and the following information to cosplay@theonering.net:

  • Name (can be a nickname if you’d rather not have your secret identity revealed)
  • Who you are cosplaying as
  • Photographers name (if known)
  • A short bio (such as: who made the costume, how long it took to make, and any other details about it you’d like to share)

 

The talented Janette has been gracious enough to share her amazing Thorin as an example:

Thorin Oakenshield - Photograph by NV-Us Photography
Thorin Oakenshield by Janette Jolman- Photograph by NV-US Photography

“The picture above took about a year to make and has over 700 handmade pieces of clay for the brigandine armor. It consists of about 5 layers ranging from velvet to leather and utilized materials such as foam, wood, vinyl, resin and leather.   This was a challenging build for me as all my previous costumes for the last decade, had been primarily armor builds and this required learning how to use a sewing machine and was also a first for making prosthetics.   I’ve been doing costuming for about 13 years. One of my earliest cosplays was actually a second age elf from the prologue of LOTR.”

 

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By submitting your photo and information, you give TheOneRing.net permission to publish it to our website, as well as social media sites (Facebook, Twitter, etc..)  Submission does not guarantee your photo will be published.

 

UnexpectedBookletTrilogy The journey is now finally over, with the Special Extended Edition of The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies available on DVD and BluRay. However, some fans still hold a small grudge: once again, there is no booklet included in either of the multiple versions of BOTFA EE.

If you recall the times of The Lord of the Rings SEE: each box contained a beautiful little book with parchment-like pages which not only contained stylish pencil sketches by John Howe and Alan Lee, but also held some useful information. Not only was there a chapter list with new and extended scenes specifically pointed out; there was also a navigation help through tons of the bonus materials structured in complex tree-like submenus. Even the BluRay version of LOTR SEE still contained these booklets. Not The Hobbit, however. Continue reading “The Unexpected Booklet project releases Battle of the Five Armies EE fan booklet”

BoromirReadingYeats_RevWelcome 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”

The long-awaited second installment of the article about Tolkien’s special hidden realms has arrived! In Part One, which you can read here, C.E High explored the hidden realms of the First Age. In Part Two, he continues on to consider hidden realms of the Second and Third Ages. Enjoy!

In the second and third ages the devices that Tolkien uses with his realms blossom into more complex symbolism with a diversity of outcomes. As men grow and diversify, this creates new problems for the other races of Middle-earth leading to a variety of realms that grow out of need and out of want. There is also that pesky Sauron, Morgoth’s second in command in the elder days, and in the absence of his master he arguably surpasses him in malice and evil deeds in the land of Mordor.

No longer do we have three hidden elven kingdoms of a similar making, we now have a variety. Eregion and Lothlorien are, at first, settlements of the displaced Noldor, which quickly become refuges against the evil now located in the east of Middle-earth. Rivendell, and the Woodland Realm to the north of Eregion and Lothlorien, round out the retreats of elves from battles with Sauron. Last, but not least, we have the newest and most intriguing hidden realm of them all: The Shire, a realm founded in the third age.

Continue reading “Tolkien’s Hidden Realms and their Meaning: Part Two”

ThorinReadingWelcome 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”

Our friend, C.E. High, has penned another interesting article about Tolkien’s special hidden realms. From Gondolin to Doriath, Part One explores the hidden realms of the First Age. Enjoy!

J.R.R. Tolkien had a fascination with hidden kingdoms and cities. As one reads through his works they can be seen everywhere, throughout the ages and in a variety of forms. Many things these hidden realms have in common and all have their own symbolism; many are bastions of hope against an ever present dark foe, others are places that are ignorant of any darkness and simply exist in bliss and wonder and are overlooked. Some are tucked away in a valley or at the base of a mountain range; while others are deep in dense and impenetrable forests either with natural or supernatural defenses. Some are carved straight out of the stone or delved deep into the earth, and others…well a few even existed right out in the open.

Tolkien’s love of things being tucked away and only talked about in rumor or in private circles is fascinating. He wove it into almost all of his stories and made the reader feel like they were in on a secret that no one else was. Almost everything that was hidden for Tolkien was noble and good; by contrast everything that was evil was right out in the open. Tolkien made a situation where evil was ever present and out in plain sight, things that were good needed to be kept hid and held onto tightly; and many of his stories involved characters whose actions were motivated by wanting to save or destroy these precious hidden things.

Continue reading “Tolkien’s Hidden Realms and their Meaning: Part One”