Wondercon logoConvention season is upon us, and the first big shindig on the TheOneRing.net Calendar is Wondercon in Anaheim. Tickets are still available if you find yourself in So Cal this weekend, so head on over to the Wondercon site and register to attend. There is a full schedule of panels, screenings, an artist alley to visit, the exhibitors hall for all your geeky shopping needs, and plenty of cosplay going on. We will be reporting on the Warner Bros. panel on Saturday morning, so follow our tweets for live reporting from the con, and a post later that afternoon for any and all Hobbit details. TheOneRing.net will have it’s first big panel of the year on Saturday afternoon at 5:30pm in Room 300DE.

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For the collectors out there, don’t miss some of the wonderful exclusives that will be at Wondercon throughout the weekend. You can find the list at Wondercon Exclusives where you will see TORn’s own Wondercon Dragon shirt and Badali Jewelry’s Gold plated Dwarven battle axe. TORn’s booth is #1504 and Badali is just two booths away at booth #1404. And there are some wonderful exclusives offered by a number of other vendors as well, so happy shopping.

 

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One RingSauron created the One Ring in secrecy, so little is known of how he created it. Gandalf was able to do research in the libraries of Gondor to determine the nature and look of the One Ring, but not much more on it’s forging. Luckily, our good friends at Badali Jewelry are much more forthcoming in how they make this very special item. Below is a video of just what goes into making the One Ring, minus the Malice of Sauron being added to it.

Now that you have seen the process, we asked the artisans at Badali what kind of timeline it takes, and here is the response from Janelle Powell:

From start to finish it takes us about a week to make each item, but that is because we are doing each step in batches to maximize our work time.  The actual time spent on each One Ring of Power is approximately 3-4 hours of hands on work time (meaning its in the hands of a jeweler and actively being worked on).  This does not include time for the investment to set up (approximately 1 hour), time in the burn out ovens (an overnight process), cool down time (15-20 minutes), time in the pickle (varies), time in the ultra sonic cleaner, and time in the tumblers (anywhere from 1hr to overnight).  If the item in question is one of our Gollum Gold 24k Gold Plated One Rings these are sent out of house to be plated which takes about a week and a half.  Once they come back from the plater we inspect each ring to make sure that the plating was done properly, string them on a chain and pack them in their draw string pouches.  If there is any enamel or paint work to be done on the ring, this adds anywhere from 10 minutes – 2 hours of time as well.  All and all, it’s a lengthy back breaking process, but the results are well worth it and ensure that we produce the highest quality items for our customers.

Badali Jewelry will be at Wondercon this coming weekend, and can be found at booth #1404, just a few spaces over from TORn’s booth at #1504. Make sure to stop by and say hello, check out their amazing work, and enter their drawing for some free jewelry. You can also visit them on the web right here.

 

RA B&WWith the Home Video release of The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (which becomes available this week in Australia, Brazil and parts of Europe), Richard Armitage has been busy giving interviews, as we’ve been posting over the past week or so. He found time to sit down again with staffer greendragon, and they chatted about finding Thorin’s voice one last time, what he’s working on now, and what it was like to fill (literally!) those mighty dwarven boots… Here’s what he had to say:

Continue reading “EXCLUSIVE – Richard Armitage chats with TheOneRing.net”

RichardArmitageDigitalSpyInterview01 Richard Armitage is really doing the rounds pressing the flesh lately and chatting with journos. Here’s another interview, this time with Joe.ie.

A couple of interesting quotes:

If you look at the detail on the Lake-town set (in The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug) some of the glasses have specific carvings into the glass and the cutlery –- it’s astonishing and the camera sees it all.

…even the title, the Battle Of The Five Armies, suggests something that is going to be pretty epic. When I saw the model of the battle ground, which was in a little secret room that you could sneak into and take a look at, something made me realise that Tolkien’s description of that battle is quite limited to where Peter has expanded it to.

Continue reading “Armitage talks Hobbit, the Battle of the Five Armies, Into The Storm, Schwarzenegger and more”

memadness2014-champion-fb The results are in! After three weeks of intense competition we can finally crown a winner! In the end, Thranduil — the Sindarin king of the Woodland Realm — has taken the crown in our 2014 Middle-earth March Madness contest!

We received more than 20,000 votes in the final, and Thranduil (Thrandy to his nearest and dearest?) soundly defeated his worthy opponent Legolas (aka Leggy) with 64.18% of those votes! I guess it is good to be king!

We’d like to thank you all for participating in this year’s event and hope you had a fun time discussing the finer points of your favourite Middle-earth characters and objects, regardless of whether you viewed the contests as a physical battle, a game of wits, or a popularity contest (all valid ways to vote!). It’s also a neat way to explore what makes these characters such interesting and vital parts of Tolkien’s Middle-earth.

Continue reading “Congratulations to our 2014 Middle-earth March Madness champion: Thranduil!”

DoSThorin01 Chairman Tobias M. Eckrich of the German Tolkien Society (Deutsche Tolkien Gesellschaft) recently chatted with Richard Armitage about his time on the Hobbit set. What he says about the Erebor interior scenes in the confrontation with Smaug being shot inside nothing but a great green box is interesting — one wonders whether a theatre background helps with the adjustment to such an absence of visual cues.

Don’t forget to follow the link at the bottom for the complete interview. You can find the English transcript immediately below the German translation.

Continue reading “Richard Armitage chats with the German Tolkien Society”

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.