For me one of the high points in attending the “Return of the Ring” event in Loughborough, England in August was the chance to hear a lecture by Dutch painter Cor Blok. There were also several original Tolkien-based paintings by Blok in the exhibition hall, and it was a pleasure to see those “in person.”
In recent years, Blok has become better known to fans. HarperCollins took the unusual step of publishing two calendars in a row, 2011 and 2012, featuring his work. The release of A Tolkien Tapestry in 2011 gave us a nearly complete look at Blok’s paintings.
One intriguing aspect of Blok’s career is that he showed five of his paintings to Tolkien back in the early 1960s, and Tolkien admired them enough to buy two of them (as editor Pieter Collier explains in the foreword to A Tolkien Tapestry). These were “The Battle of the Hornburg” and a version of “The Dead Marshes.” In writing to Blok and requesting to buy the paintings, Tolkien remarked, “I think it is very kind of you to consider selling any of your pictures. If they were mine I should not be able to bear to part with them whether in need or not.” (This 1962 letter is reproduced on p. 6 of the book.) Blok gave Tolkien a third painting, “Dunharrow,” as a present. These are all still in the Tolkien family or with the Estate.
Interestingly, Tolkien found the paintings appealing specifically as paintings. He wrote to his editor, Rayner Unwin, “I thought them most attractive … I should very much like to see some more, in the hope that some more will be as good as ‘The Battle of the Hornburg.’ The other four I thought were attractive as pictures, but bad as illustrations.” (Quoted p. 6 of A Tolkien Tapestry.) Continue reading “An Appeal for Help Locating Some Cor Blok Paintings”
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Last week, the artisans at Weta announced 19 amazing items for The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, including the Key to Erebor, Thorin’s Map, Thorin Oakenshield statue, Gandalf The Grey statue, Bilbo Baggins statue, Art Prints, Map replicas, and much more. All of the items are up for Pre-Order now with several of them being in-stock ready to arrive to your collection. To celebrate the arrival of these great items, TheOneRing.net and Weta teamed up to give away two of them: Thorin’s Map and the Key to Erebor. Both contests were highly popular with entries hitting the 500 mark for each. It was obvious by all these emails that fans wanted to get one of these amazing collectibles shipped and on the way to their house. We’re happy to announce that the winner of Thorin’s Map is C. Bull of Australia and the winner of the Key to Erebor is B. Sprinkle of Virgina. Congratulations to you both!
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TODAY, in just 10 minutes actually, my guest on the *live* webcast TORn TUESDAY is none other than the great-grandson of J.R.R. Tolkien, Mr. Royd Tolkien who will share his delightful energy and perspectives on this whole Hobbity phenomenon, with our host, Clifford “Quickbeam” Broadaway! World traveler, bon-vivant, handsome raconteur, Royd Tolkien is also a blossoming indie film producer with an angle on show business from many sides. Join us live at 5:00pm Pacific Time and be part of the show! Bring your questions to our *live* Event Page right here and interact with us at theonering.net/live !
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Living in the wastelands of Angmar these Snow Trolls would adorn themselves with the furs, bones, and skulls of their victims. The most recent statue from Sideshow Collectibles The Lord of the Rings statue line comes to us not from the movies, but from last years awesome game The Lord of the Rings: The War in the North. While not from anything Tolkien wrote himself the game does allow fans of Middle-Earth to venture into events that could have happened during The War of the Ring.
The game takes place during the events of The War of the Ring, but you’re not playing as the Fellowship, you play as one of three characters: Eradan the ranger, Farin the Dwarf or Andriel the Elf, as you aide the Fellowship in stopping Sauron’s plans to take the North, making things much harder for Frodo to complete his quest. During your trek through the North, and the beauty in that area of Middle-Earth, you battle numerous Orcs, crazed Men, and of course Trolls. One of the variations of Trolls you will come across as you play the game is this Snow Troll. Sideshow Collectibles in conjunction with this game was asked to create one of these Trolls for collectors to add to their Middle-Earth collections.
Continue reading “Collecting The Precious – Sideshow Collectibles Snow Troll Statue Review”
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“If you had dusted the mantelpiece you would have found this just under the clock,” said Gandalf, handing Bilbo a note (written, of course, on his own note- paper). Bilbo Baggins, like many hobbits, wanted to live a quiet life and go about his business doing whatever he wanted whenever he wanted. Well, that all changed in The Hobbit! The next prop replica from The Noble Collection is the Bilbo Baggin’s Deed of Contract. This replica, 10.75″ (27.3cm) closed, and an amazing 60″ (152.4cm) when opened, is intricately detailed and a steal at $39 SRP. The contract will be on The Noble Collection website early next week and ready to ship by October 15th! Stay tuned to TORn for more details as they come in! [The Noble Collection] (See higher res images after the break).
Continue reading “Collecting The Precious – The Noble Collection’s Bilbo Baggins Contract”
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Jerry Vanderstelt is known by many fans of The Lord of the Rings for creating beautiful works of art capturing some of the coolest moments in the trilogy. Soonl, fans around the world will get a chance to start capturing his amazing art work for the trilogy of films for The Hobbit. That’s right! Jerry will be creating art for the trilogy starting with The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey this December. If you want to see more on Jerry’s work and get to know more about him you can check out his official site and his official Facebook page.
Jerry also has a statement he wanted to pass on to fans of Middle-Earth:
“Hello fellow Middle Earth fans, Jerry VanderStelt here. As some of you know, I am a Licensed artist with New Line Cinema and Warner Brothers studios in the creation of the Lord of the Rings art reproductions. Now, I have expanded my fine art program to include The Hobbit!
My first Hobbit art piece is a montage that encapsulates key moments, characters and locations seen in the first film. After that, I plan to continue exploring new pieces that focus on either beautiful landscape scenery, character-centric pieces, or specific characters or groups of characters in various environments.
I hope to have my first Hobbit piece out of the gate by the Dec.14 in time for the film’s release. Soon, I’ll be announcing the pricing and sizing as well as the different edition options I plan to offer here in this thread. Feel free to ask any questions that may come up as we go along!”
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