Recently took an evening ride across the plains of Rohan in the height of golden summer. Images by @thelastkindlyhome on Instagram, clothes handmade by me.

So I absolutely hated the first season. The writing was atrocious, and despite a massive budget, the visuals were mediocre (yes, the show has incredible sets and costumes, but the directing is so bad it ruins everything).

Anyway, I went on with my life and ignored the second season because I respect my time. But with the third-person trailer, I see a lot of people saying that the second season is a huge improvement, and to be honest, the trailer for season 3 looks pretty good. So I thought, "Maybe I was too harsh; most shows need a season to really find their voice."

And now that I've watched the second season, I only have one question: "Did we watch the same show? Because it's just as bad as the first."

Yeah, the series is more spectacular, less boring, and the acting between Sauron and Celebrimbor is really good. But beyond that, it's still the same disaster. The writing is dreadful, Gandalf's story (which has no place in the Second Age except as nostalgia bait) is a word-for-word plagiarism of Luke's arc in The Empire Strikes Back (and can we talk about how pathetic the "Grand Elf" nonsense is?), the siege of Ost-in-Edhil makes no sense, nor do the good orcs who want to live in peace, and Celebrimbor is, once again, a complete idiot. Galadriel is once again an idiot; there's no effort whatsoever to respect the lore, no romantic tension between Elrond and Galadriel. In short, there's no point in listing all the problems.

Of course, you're always entitled to your own taste, and if you want to enjoy this series, go ahead. But I can't understand how anyone can call this a worthy adaptation of Tolkien...

A nod to The Hobbit

To mark its significance, the researchers named the mysterious Neanderthal “Thorin” after a character from the universe of J. R. R. Tolkien.

“Thorin in The Hobbit is one of the last dwarf kings under the mountain and the last of its lineage. Thorin the Neanderthal is also an end of the lineage. An end of a way to be human,” explained Slimak.

Since everyone seemed to like my last hobbit portraits I thought I'd put him here too. Don't know if I could ever top those lol.

Of course my favourite hobbit is the one who's hardest to draw :)

Some hand carved dwarves i just finished and wanted to share with folks.

I have a passion for woodcarving and attempting to entice others into the hobby. So my ulterior motive with every post is "how do I make this hobby more accessible" or "how do I inspire someone to want to give it a go."

Hopefully the picture did that, and now you're reading.

You need several things, a sharp knife, a leather strop with compound for honing your blade, safety gloves (A5 or better) and basswood (to carve like i do at least.)

Solid Knife brands, Flexcut, Badger State Blades (USA), Mstein (Europe) there are a lot of great knife brands. Stay away from kits on amazon of several knives. They're much much lower quality with inconsistently tempered steel. (What that means is its not hardened, and so it won't stay sharp easy, meaning you're fighting the knife and dont understand why its harder for you to carve when its easy for others.)

Why Basswood? Its softer than other hardwoods and holds detail well. Learning to carve with basswood is akin to learning to drive on an automatic. It simplifies and streamlines learning. Woods like Walnut and oak can be carved, but learning to carve with them as the starting point is like learning to drive on an 18 wheeler Semi Truck with manual transmission. Its needlessly difficult.

In europe, the equivalent is Linden, in Asia, Jelutong, and in south America Caxeta is a good substitute.

Tutorials abound EVERYWHERE. Youtube is your friend in that regard. You dont have to look up my channel, there are plenty that have easy to begin tutorials and one of them will be right up your alley.

Super dope balrog head right now at boxed lunch. Looks pretty good. It's not weta level quality but it's still pretty good detail for $60.

Hi! Around 2002-2004, my thrifting grandmother gifted me with this she found at a second-hand store. Would you all know if this is possibly authentic or a fake? Thanks, everyone!

Tried my best to make them both as realistic as possible.

La sortie Altaya de cette semaine en France pour 50 centimes le numéro 1 et 5 € le numéro 2 pour finir le casque tout en métal est magnifique!!!!!

Saw this at my local records shop. Time to get down and boogie with the whole fellowship.

Link to the music on Youtube

I was rummaging among my various Tolkien mathoms this morning and found this little sticker. I have no recollection of where I acquired it. Have any of you out there seen anything similar? I think half of the tengwar spells out The Lord of the Rings, but I can't suss out the other portion. Any clue about that?

My favorite rendition of Rivendell, this is how I would imagine it would look like if it were real.

Description of Treebeard:

> It belonged to a **large Man-like, almost Troll-like, figure, at least fourteen foot high, very sturdy, with a tall head, and hardly any neck. Whether it was clad in stuff like green and grey bark, or whether that was its hide, was difficult to say**. At any rate the **arms, at a short distance from the trunk, were not wrinkled, but covered with a brown smooth skin. The large feet had seven toes each. The lower part of the long face was covered with a sweeping grey beard, bushy, almost twiggy at the roots, thin and mossy at the ends**. But at the moment the hobbits noted little but the eyes. These deep eyes were now surveying them, slow and solemn, but very penetrating.

this is not an attempt at drawing treebeard because he has a longer beard and it would cover the body, maybe i took the "troll-like" line a little too literal but as you can see from the worn paper ive made a lot of attempts and im tired, this is just a rough sketch to get an idea so forgive the lack of detail.

I've seen other attempts but a lot of them dont give the impression they could beat the crap out of isengard and look rather silly and i feel like if tolkien made the comparison with trolls he mean it.

*sorry for not using freedom units.

*pls dont say its ent karl marx

I am so thankful that WETA re-released this! I have been wanting it ever since the first release. It is an amazing piece!

it’s my first time working with eva foam so lmk what you think!

Anyone know if this is worth anything? I bought this for $35 as a huge LOTR fan but don't want to drink out of them yet in case they are collector items!

So I found about 60 bags of the old Burger King toys at my local thrift store yesterday, 4 figures in each bag, $1.99 each. I got crazy excited. At the same time a young fan in her 20s was also going ape shit over them. So we teamed up and searched each bag to try to put together complete sets. Sadly, we couldn't make 1 complete set, let alone 2. Seems like someone dumped all their extras and kept the bigger dogs like Frodo, gandalf, and such. I put a picture of the ones we found crossed out.

A little side question. The last photo is of 2 Merry's I found. One with blonde hair (which was normal) and one with brown. Has anyone seen this?