Huw Millington from brick set was present at the London Toy Fair and due to the lack of photos of the latest novelties exhibited at the show, he delivers some important information:

The ring is in Chromium Gold with a hole large enough for Frodo to carry it in his hand. The 7 sets of the range were on display and we will be entitled to a new version of the LEGO horse whose rear legs will be articulated.

Concerning the sets, some changes in the minifigs since the estimations according to the preliminary visuals:

 9469 Gandalf Arrives - 2 minifigs: Gandalf & Frodo, a cart, a horse, in short nothing more than what we saw in the preliminary visuals.

9470 Shelob Attacks - 3 minifigs: Frodo, Samwise & Gollum. Gollum is hunched over articulated arms that resemble those of LEGO skeletons. The spider is apparently successful.

9471 Uruk-Hai Army - 6 minifigs: Eomer, Rohan Soldier & 4 Uruk-Hai. A small piece of wall that can be connected to that of set 9474.

 9472 Attack on Weathertop - 5 minifigs: Frodo, Merry, Aragorn & 2 Nazgulhs (or Ringwaiths) on horseback.

9473 The Mines of Moria - 7 minifigs: Pippin, Gimli, Legolas, Boromir, 2 x Orcs & Cave Troll

9474 The Battle Of Helm's Deep - 8 minifigs: Aragon, Gimli, Haldir, King Theoden, 5 x Uruk-hai 

 9476 The Orc Forge - 5 minifigs: 5 x Orcs

Already a first visual of the characters of the LEGO Lord of the Rings range scheduled for mid-2012 with Frodo Baggins, Samwise 'Sam' Gamgee, Peregrin 'Pippin' Took, Meriadoc 'Merry' Brandybuck, Aragorn, Boromir, Legolas Greenleaf, Gimli and Gandalf the Gray.

We therefore discover the whole happy troop of hobbits accompanied by key characters from the LOTR universe. The screen prints are top notch, the hair is also very successful and the ring is finally represented in its final version.

Photo credit blogomatic3000

As you probably already know, LEGO is hunting images of preliminary versions of sets that are published on the internet as soon as a retailer leaves his catalog lying around in the hands of AFOLs anxious to share their findings. Often times, LEGO is accused of organizing these leaks intentionally, it is not, it is an urban legend. The leaks come exclusively from these catalogs intended for resellers and which allow them, long months before the official release of the products, to organize their supplies.

In general, when such images are published, LEGO community eaters Jan Beyer et Kevin hinckle take care of informing you by email that the images you publish are stamped with the CONFIDENTIAL seal and ask you, sometimes politely, to remove them without delay from your flickr space, your blog, etc ... Do not kid yourself, denunciation is obviously in order. A certain number of AFOLs consider that the publication of these images is prejudicial to the manufacturer and do not hesitate to warn these community managers or the LEGO Ambassador in France, who will also send you an email in French asking you to remove the visuals concerned under penalty of being prosecuted if you do not comply as soon as possible. The competition between the different sites or blogs dealing with LEGO news is also a determining factor in the process of denouncing the neighbor who publishes images that will generate a very large audience.

If you do not act quickly, then LEGO will shift into high gear and mandate the law firm Hogan Lovells to inform you via a formal notice that you are breaking the law by posting these images and that you expose yourself in order to the closure of your site / blog, legal action for infringement and a request for compensation on behalf of LEGO for the damage suffered. At the same time, your host is warned that you are committing a serious offense and is threatened with being held responsible, or in any case an accomplice, for the damage suffered by the manufacturer. Is. It is fair game, even if I refute the arguments used by the lawyers of Hogan Lovells concerning industrial injury.

But where all this gets more dangerous is that the same law firm informs you that you do not have the right to publish anything that relates directly or indirectly to LEGO products: Logo, official visuals and audiences, instructions, photos of sets, minifigs, parts, etc ... The simple act of posting a LEGO set visual exposes you directly to infringement proceedings.

If we stick to the arguments developed by master Marie-Aimee de Dampierre, lawyer at Hogan Lovells in charge of the case and who signs the formal notice that was communicated to me, it is impossible to talk about LEGO products, in any form whatsoever, without exposing yourself to legal proceedings. It is forbidden to publish the logo of the company, to speak about the products by mentioning the brand explicitly and the posting online of visuals of the products yet in the catalog of the toy manufacturer and presented in thousands of online shops is under an offense punishable by criminal penalties.

Should we take this legal argument seriously? I wouldn't take the risk of checking it out, Hogan Lovells is a firm that has the means to put you through the worst hassles, as can be seen from the history of legal actions carried out by this firm on behalf of LEGO, and it is better not to go too far otherwise you will find yourself at the helm of a court following a summary action aimed at obtaining the withdrawal of all the content in dispute. But this type of threat puzzles me. If I stick to the arguments developed in this formal notice, I should immediately close my blogs and steer clear of any mention of the brand in the future in any form. And I'm not the only one, every site, forum or blog dealing with LEGO products, the passion for these construction toys, should do the same.

So, as requested in this formal notice, I have removed the visuals stamped CONFIDENTIAL, you will find them anyway in the Google cache and on many other blogs that have not yet suffered the wrath of LEGO. But it would be too much to ask of me to self-censor the entire content of this blog.

If LEGO wants to sue me because I blog about my passion, so be it.

Below is the formal notice received from the cabinet Hogan Lovells :

Formal notice - French version

Formal notice - English version 

After Frodo and Aragorn, LEGO continues to distill information in small quantities and today unveils the highly anticipated minifigure of Legolas with the reproduction of a poster of the Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers movie from 2002.

Once again, the Orlando Bloom minifigure promises to be very successful with hair incorporating the ears of the son of the King of the Elves of the Black Forest and a serigraphy of the face perfectly reproducing the emaciated features of the actor.

There are MOCers who take weeks or months to finalize their creations, there are those who want to release an MOC but who ultimately will never design it, and there are those like Blake's Baericks who are passionate about a subject and who are able to output many thumbnails in no time. With his particular style, he offers us a series of performances in Tolkien's universe, all very successful.

The style is researched, sometimes jumbled, and each MOC is filled with details, winks and improbable but innovative techniques which in the end form an interesting blend. The magic still works and that is the main thing. Don't dream, the LEGO LOTR & The Hobbit range will not be of this ilk, far from it.

So I present you these thumbnails here gathered, and if you want to know more about some of them, go to Blake's Baericks flickr gallery or his Brickshelf gallery.