In last week’s “Eagle’s View,” we featured an Arwen doll by Noel Cruz, a well-known repaint artist in the doll community. This fabulous Thranduil – King of Mirkwood was created by Susan of My Immortals. She replicated every detail of the photos we’ve seen of Lee Pace’s movie portrayal, down to his rings! Susan said, “Noel Cruz’s work was my inspiration when I started repainting and now sculpting!” Susan has also recreated many of our favorite Lord of the Rings characters, like Arwen, Legolas, Galadriel, and Aragorn. (Lily Milos)
Recently, the effects artists at Weta Workshop took a break from creating creatures and prosthetics for hobbits, dwarves, and orcs to turn another fantasy into reality. Despite losing both legs in her youth, Nadya Vessey was never hindered from doing what she loved–swimming. With two prosthetic legs that she has had since her teenage years, Nadya would take to the water. One day, a confused young boy asked her if she was a mermaid after seeing her remove her prosthetic legs. This prompted her to contacte Weta to see if they could use their special brand of magic to make her a functional set of fins. Over the course of two years, Weta combined wet-suit materials and molded plastic to help Nadya become a real-life mermaid. (Evie Bowman)
Luke Evans is a man of many talents, and we discover new ones at every turn. We can’t wait to see him play Bard the Bowman in The Hobbit trilogy, but since we have until December, why not listen to a new audio book of Treasure Island narrated by our favorite Welshman. The audio book will be available from Amazon.com on August 1, and AudioGO has a short clip for your listening pleasure. (Evie Bowman)
Want a creative (and yummy) idea for a Hobbit-themed party? Try these Hobbit Door Miniature Ice Cream Sandwiches! Nicole gives step-by-step instructions about how to create these delicious treats on tikido.com. (Alice)
Stephen Fry is playing the money-hungry Master of Laketown in The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, but he confessed he had no idea who his character was when he flew out to New Zealand to shoot the film last year. He said, “I usually read scripts. But The Hobbit, I’m not sure I should say this, but I’ve never read The Hobbit. And on the plane to New Zealand, which is a long flight, you’d have thought I’d have time. It’s something about a hole in the ground where a hobbit lived. My character was called The Master of Laketown, so I thought, there’s a lot of this. There’s a search function, so I just put in ‘The Master’ and it went to all the bits I was in. I thought, ‘That seems like a reasonable part,’ put the iPad down and read another book. So to this day I haven’t read it, but I am really looking forward to seeing how it all turns out.” (Evie Bowman)
A generator truck that caught fire on The Hobbit set sent clouds of smoke billowing and engulfed a lighting crane. The set, recently built in a patch of bush above Shelly Bay, was understood to represent Dale, the town of men under Lonely Mountain, which gets scorched by Smaug the dragon. The buildings were made to look as though they had been gutted by fire, but the fire service said it definitely wasn’t theatrical smoke. It took about 20 minutes to put the fire out. Peter Jackson’s spokesman, Matt Dravitzki, confirmed filming continued after the fire was put out. The set was built earlier this month for a few days’ filming; it was the last day of filming before a return to the studio tomorrow. (Lily Milos)
We can expect to see John Bell playing Bain, son of Bard, in The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (in fact, we did an interview with him last year). While he is filming in New Zealand, he has started posting video blogs of his many adventures. This video shows Weta Cave’s 5th Birthday, as well as the unbeliev-a-bull, incompar-a-bull, love-a-bull town of Bulls, New Zealand. (Lily Milos)
Every week, our Middle-earth News reporters seek out Tolkien/Hobbit/LOTR goodness and tag their finds with their names. If you have something to contribute, please submit it using the Got News Precious link at the bottom of the page.
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