The 2013 Tolkien calendar naturally features ‘The Hobbit’ this year including the work of Alan Lee and John Howe. To celebrate, the Weta Cave in Miramar, Wellington, New Zealand will host Lee this Sunday to sign this and others of his works.
Lee and Howe have been working on concept art for Peter Jackson’s three-part ‘Hobbit’ movie, headed for a mid-December release but found time to produce some new work for this calendar.
The calendar features 14 paintings, including some created exclusively for this calendar by Alan Lee and John Howe, the two artists whose work has defined the look of Middle-earth over the last 25 years.
This is their first-ever collaboration since the official Tolkien Calendar began publishing 40 years ago.
Each month depicts one of the most famous scenes from The Hobbit, including Bilbo outside Bag End, Smaug the Dragon, the Great Goblin and Bilbo’s Front Hall. As well as classic illustrations from bo
th artists’ celebrated portfolios, the 2013 calendar includes brand new paintings, created by John Howe and Alan Lee exclusively for this calendar.
When: Sunday 9 September, 1-3 pm
Where: The Weta Cave, Miramar, Wellington
A range of Alan’s other titles including The Lord of the Rings Sketchbook will also be available in store. For more details including a map, click here.
Posted in:
Share:
Some cool news for sword-replica fans. Sword and knife retailer BUDK tells us they will be the exclusive premier dealer for United Cutlery’s licensed movie replicas of weapons used in The Hobbit movie trilogy.
The Hobbit line will consist of dwarven and elven weapons and arms replicas, along with iconic items such as the staff of Gandalf, Sting, and the sword of Thorin Oakenshield, Orcrist.
Each collectible will be replicated from the actual film props created by Weta Workshop for the film production. Sting and Orcrist swords and scabbards, and the new Gandalf Staff will debut in late 2012. Continue reading “Replica swords from Hobbit trilogy coming soon”
Posted in:
Share:
Since the Hobbit film trilogy began shooting principal photography 18 months ago, the production has played its very cards close to its chest, and Stone Street Studios has proved more leak-proof than the White House.
In light of this, speculation on the films — whether pertaining to structure or content — has the hallmark of paleolithic archaeology: not only are large inferences having to be made from an extremely small amount of evidence, but the legitimacy and relevance of the evidence itself is by no means certain.
With all this in mind, I’ll try and draw some tentative conclusions about the trilogy’s plot and structure — with particular attention to any evidence of departures from the book — from what we understand to be official biographical notes that will accompany the character figurines from The Hobbit.
While it is impossible to confirm that the descriptive information released with these figurines accurately reflects the film-makers vision, they are detailed and idiosyncratic enough to suggest there is a high degree of alignment.
Note that some of the biographies (Kili, Fili, Gloin and Dwalin, for example) are left out here. Where this occurs this is because, in my view, they offered no insight on the trilogy plot, structure, or departures from the source material. And if spoilers and speculation aren’t your thing, best to stop reading now. Continue reading “Playing Sherlock: a few Hobbit plot deductions from the figurine character biographies”
Posted in:
Share:
“May the hair on his toes never fall off!”
-Thorin talking about their burglar Bilbo Baggins
Comic-Con 2012 brought us the first look at many things for this December’s release of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. This was a chance for a company like Gentle Giant to show off just some of the items they will be bringing to collectors. The exclusive from Gentle Giant was the second mini-bust in the 1:6th range of busts from The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. The character chosen to represent the bust line at Comic-Con was the leader of the Dwarven party: Thorin Oakenshield.
Thorin was one of many dwarves of the Lonely Mountain driven into exile by the dragon Smaug in the year 2770 of the Third Age. During the Battle of Azanulbizar, Thorin had his shield shattered. He grabbed a large oak branch as a replacement — the source of the name “Oakenshield”. Later, a chance encounter in Bree with Gandalf The Grey eventually led to Thorin and his company visiting the hobbit Bilbo Baggins. There, they began a long, arduous quest to reclaim the Lonely Mountain. The mountain was ultimately reclaimed, but not without cost. Continue reading “Collecting The Precious: Gentle Giant Thorin Oakenshield mini-bust review”
Posted in:
Share:
A bunch of Hobbit merch — mostly mugs right now — has popped up on play.com, and it seems as though there’s more to come.
One stand-out is the mug with a close-up of Gandalf’s g-rune scribed on the bright green door of Bag End (see image at right). Another shows Gandalf travelling somewhere in the dark with only his staff for light. I seem to recall the latter image was in the trailer.
Anyway, go check them all out. I guess you could consider the images minor spoilers.
[More]
Posted in:
Share:
Some new images of Richard Armitage’s Thorin Oakenshield have popped up online over at RichardArmitageNet. The images come from newly released children’s movie tie-in book The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey Annual 2013. It also provides a backstory of sorts to Thorin’s character, although it contains little that wasn’t already known from The Hobbit, or the part of the LoTR appendices about Durin’s folk.
More, including the pictures below the cut. So if you’re not keen on spoilers, best turn away now. You can pick up the Almanac/Annual at your favourite bookstore now. Continue reading “New Thorin images in Hobbit 2013 Annual!”
Posted in:
Share:
