There are the MOCeurs who create according to their inspiration, their budget and their attention to detail without taking into account the technical and commercial constraints that LEGO imposes on itself to design its official sets and there are the others ... Those who try to produce MOCs by trying to respect the usual codes of the manufacturer in terms of price / content ratio, finish and marketing / financial compromise ...

Nuju Metru has embarked on an ambitious project that began long before the official announcement of the LOTR range by LEGO: To propose a series of MOCs, or rather alternative sets, which could form a range of products marketed by the manufacturer. The result is astonishing: We find the spirit of the sets in the range System, with its ends of walls, its pieces of places and its functionalities intended to bring the essential playability to the whole.

Each of the six sets is skillfully thought out and very well done. We find there the usual techniques of the manufacturer with the obvious choices that must be made to ensure a certain commercial realism.

Some will find these MOCs disappointing because of their simplicity, but this style exercise should not be viewed as a simple attempt to create micro scenes in the universe of Lord of the Rings. The sacrifices that are made here have obviously been well thought out.

To discover all the sets of this parallel range, go to the flickr gallery by Nuju Metru. It's full of great shots featuring these mini scenes that all compare to the official LEGO Lord of the Rings range.

LEGO continues relentlessly uploading presentations long awaited minifigs from the Lord of the Rings range. On the menu these days, Gollum, that I had shamefully forgotten, a Nazgal ou ringwraith and Uruk-hai. 

The more I see these 3D renderings, the more I tell myself that in the end, all this teasing is very well organized to make customers' mouths water. Between the mini sites, video animations, 3D renderings, catalogs and box design, LEGO knows how to highlight its products, at the risk of creating a kind of general mini-disappointment when unpacking the set.  

If we look in detail at the visuals of the boxes of the Lord of the Rings range (This is also valid for the other ranges), we quickly realize that the substance of the staging has a lot to do with the staging. value of plastic. Once on the shelves of your favorite stores, attracted by these ultra-luscious visuals, you buy a staging, with all its possibilities, and its part of dreams ...

But admit that the Mines of Moria on the living room table with its pretty red and white checkered tablecloth or Helm's Deep on the blue low-pile carpet in the bedroom, it immediately makes you feel worse ...

In short, marketing is obviously king, and over the months of cleverly conducted teasing, a product is visually printed in its most idealized form.

Unpacking the long-awaited set is a bit like a hangover after an evening of drunkenness: It's hard and sometimes we regret having committed some excess ....

Moreover, this is my question of the day: Have you ever been frankly disappointed after buying a set and waiting for more, without really knowing what, than the few bits of plastic it contains?

Clarence, a young American student who posts on flickr under the enigmatic nickname Grant Me Your Bacon! Currently offers excellent customs on various themes, including Lord of the Rings.

In contrast to the achievements ofartwalker_ts, his creations are imbued with more realism. It will please or not, but we must admit that the result is artistically very successful. We are far from the polished aesthetic of some custom minifigs and the violence and roughness of the fighting in Tolkien's universe is cleverly suggested.

To see more and discover many other creations of Grant Me Your Bacon!, It's certain his flickr gallery that it happens.

The teasing continues from LEGO with 3 new presentation sheets added to the official website thelordoftherings.lego.com.

Obviously, they are in English, but everything is easily understandable with a good translation, since it is intended for a young audience who does not necessarily know the characters of the Lord of the Rings universe. the summaries are very well done, and each character is presented in a synthetic way without adding any more. 

With all due respect to the so-called geeks who still believe that having seen the Peter Jackson trilogy makes them apart, LEGO popularizes Lord of the Rings and thus makes it accessible to its potential customers: The children. And this is a good thing. Lord of the Rings, and more generally literature heroic fantasy ou medieval-fantasy, is often put forward by some to claim to be a caste of people apart ...

But LEGO fortunately has the gift of bringing things back to their true value as was the case with Star Wars and making them accessible to everyone for what they are: Literary or cinematographic works that have become reference points like so many others in our culture, geek or not ...
When we see that the least penguin who could afford an iPhone or who plays Call of Duty like a few billion people claims to be geek, we understand a lot ... My 7 and a half year old son loves Darth Vader as much than any nostalgic thirty-something and he appreciates old Gandalf and grumpy Gimli just as much as those who have spent part of their life learning Elvish languages ​​....

So on the menu for these new files, Haldir, eomer and Berserker Uruk-Hai. the minifigs are digital renderings and not the ABS plastic versions we are entitled to.

PS: To all the children who read me, and I know thanks to your numerous emails that you are more and more numerous, know that this blog is also made for you, geeks or not, AFOLs or not ... thank you parents also.

On the way to a beautiful series of custom minifigs made by artwalker_ts. The recipe is simple: LEGO pieces, house decals, Brickarms or Brickwarriors accessories and a little imagination ...

Not all of these creations are created equal, but the overall result is interesting and well worth a look. A nice and creative series to discover on the flickr gallery de artwalker_ts.