Gerüchte, Fragen und Fakten - Daniel Falconer (Weta) nimmt Stellung

[RedStorm]

Auf dem Weta Collectors Board läuft nun schon seit einiger Zeit eine interessante, kurzweilige und durchweg lesenswerte Frage- und Antwortrunde, bei der Daniel Falconer, alteingesessenes Weta-Urgestein (seit 1996 beim Weta Workshop) Rede und Antwort zu aktuellen Themen und Fragen der Member steht.
Da es sozusagen direkt von der Quelle "vom anderen Ende der Welt" kommt und die Informationen wie erwähnt höchst lesenswert sind, ist dies hier meines Erachtens längst einen Thread wert.
Der Threadname kann natürlich nach Belieben noch geändert werden, liebe Mods (mir ist um diese Uhrzeit nichts Prägnanteres eingefallen ). Vllt. ist auch ein anpinnen des Threads eine Überlegung wert, aber das überlass ich ganz Euch.

Die jeweiligen Membernamen der Fragensteller werd ich hier mal zwecks der Übersichtlichkeit und vor allem Sinnhaftigkeit raushalten (kann dann durch den Quellenlink "vor Ort" bei Bedarf immer noch nachgelesen werden).

Werd jetzt mal mit den zwei jüngsten Posts von Daniel (gebündelt) starten und bei Neuigkeiten hier jeweils aktuelle Antworten von ihm einpflegen.

Es sind auch ein paar fantastische Einblicke in die Entwicklung des heiß ersehnten Smaug-Collectibles dabei.


Hi folks,

so sorry for being so long between posts in here. it got kinda busy right before SLCCC so I didn't manage to get in here like I had hoped to and knock off some of the excellent questions that had been posted. I only have a few minutes today but I'll do my best to knock some off my back log. thanks for your patience and enthusiasm. Thanks also to Min for passing on my message and apologies from SLCCC. It was lovely to meet you there in person Min, Ithildin, and everyone else, who I am no doubt forgetting web handles of in this moment. We had some great discussions and I thoroughly enjoyed playing the Q & A game with you on the fly, trying to answer as much as I could without getting myself fired! I must admit, I hadn't truly appreciated the extent of Min's knowledge about Hobbiton and how much she carried in her head at all times, but I very quickly came to appreciate that dropping hints about our next Smial was a game I couldn't win in her company! She had the details pinned down all too quickly! That lady is too clever for her own good. I don't know the schedule as regards when the next Hobbit Hole will be unveiled, but hopefully you won't have too long to wait to see it. Leonard and Dave have outdone themselves, and much like I said last time, this one is probably my new favourite.

But enough about that and on to your questions ...



Will there be any new LOTR/Hobbit 1/6 statue reveals at SLCC? I know we were spoiled with so many great items at SDCC, but I am looking forward to some bad guys joining my collection soon! Or barring that, maybe a long-awaited Eomer on Steed????

By now you know the answer to that question. Beorn's House was our big reveal at SLCCC. We should have more newness in store for you at NYCC, if current plans hold, but in the wake of my experiences with Detective Minuialwen, I will hold off risking teasing any details for now. It's not long to wait for that show now, anyhow.


No new weapons? I has wondering on an announcement of a new MSSC sword like Thranduils.....

Or any resin weapons being released?

Nothing I can announce today, but be assured, we aren't done with weapon replicas.


Please pass on my appreciation that you all are coming to NYCC. I can't wait! I am literally only buying tickets because you guys are going to be there. Otherwise NYCC lost it's luster for me.

Will your booth be up and ready on Thursday? It may be that Thursday is the only ticket I can buy - those suckers sold out quick!

Thanks for the vote of enthusiasm, Sabin. I wish I was going to NY, myself. As it is, you'll have two awesome artists there representing our Weta Workshop design department: Nick Keller and Paul Tobin, both of whom have had a HUGE impact on the design of The Hobbit. You'll want to bring along or pick up on the day, our Hobbit Chronicles for these gentlemen to sign, nit to mention Paul's exquisite White Cloud Worlds books, which will be available from our booth as well, and in which Nick also has some of his spectacular work featured. I hear the guys may be doing a presentation too. Be sure to catch it!

Come hell or high water, our booth will be up and running by the time the doors first open. I hope you have a great show!


I thought we'd see Smaug, Bard and Faramir but Thror and the Balrog completely surprised me. I just hope I can afford the Balrog
I'm going to have to sell the Witch King of Angmar to get some of these! And I'm still yet to pick up the mini Fellowship, gates of Erebor, and the last two mini trolls.


Yay! While we try to keep you guys informed, it's also fun to surprise you from time to time, so I am thrilled the Balrog wasn't let out of the bag early. That was one of Tim's initiatives before he left and was something he was super excited about. I'm so glad it worked out so well, not to mention, it's great to have sculpting legend Jamie Beswarick back on board, doing collectibles for The Lord of the Rings.


As to upcoming pieces, I'm really hoping for an Eomer and mouth of Sauron both on steed, an armoured Helms Deep Uruk-Hai, maybe a new Haradrim rider... But hopefully spread out over the next couple of years so I can afford them!
A Sam fighting Shelob would be amazing too.
And a Beorn in bear form statue.

Those are also awesome ideas. I won't go into specifics about what is the same and what is different, but it always brings a smile to my face when I read wishlists here and they look so much like our own internal lists.


I'd also really like a return to the bust line too, so I could pick up 'lesser', but no less interesting, characters like Skully or Gorbag and Shagrat, master of Laketown etc. maybe some of the dwarves...

We haven't gone down the busts route yet with The Hobbit because our friends at Gentle Giant seem to have that covered, but I can totally appreciate your passion for them FE. I'll bring it up with our team next time we meet to talk about the future and point to those subjects you picked out.


And talking of the dwarves, are you planning on doing them all in mini 'barrel' format? If so I'd probably get the 3 main dwarves in full statue form and the rest as barrel riders.

We're trying something different with the Barrel Riders that I will be watching with great interest, namely the Collectors' Edition DVD/BD pack in for Desolation. As you have no doubt seen, this is a three-character piece that includes Bilbo, Thorin and Kili together riding the rapids down the barrel sluices out of Thranduil's cellar. We've sculpted this piece to match the scale of the existing Barrel Rider mini statues, so hopefully they work well on the shelf together with the pack-in sculpture as a center piece. Now, obviously the question is, 'Why is Bilbo in there, 'cause you guys already did him?' which is entirely fair to ask. The simple answer is Warner Bros were insistent that they wanted him in there, given he is the title character and these films represent his story. We didn't know we'd be including him here when we released our initial Barrel Rider mini statue of him or that choice might have been different. I hope that double-up isn't a barrier to folks picking up this excellent and dynamic piece. Gary Hunt did a great job with it, and out of numerous concepts we pitched at the studio for what this piece could be, both figurative and not, this was Peter's personal pick.


Talking of minis, I think it'd be good to have the Goblin King as a mini monster, like the 3 trolls and Smauglet. Beorn in bear form might be best for this size too.
Also, any plans for a stand alone Azog like the life size statue you guts have at Cons?

All very good suggestions.


And I'll continue to ask for the Hobbiton factory enviro that we've seen.... Surely with all the complicated sculpts these days, you could figure out a way to safely ship this one? I hope so!

Good note and reminder. It has been a while since we looked into that particular piece, or Zirak Zigal. I'll bring them up for discussion again too. They're both very cool environments.


Oh, and also good things to do would be - Tom Bombadil! a mini Treebeard, maybe Morgul Lord scale, Green Dragon and mill enviro!

Tom is outside of our current movie license, given he didn't appear on screen, but I love all your other ideas.


And a book dedicated to Hobbiton

Drool. I can see it on my bookshelf in my mind's eye already. Our current limiting factor as regards books is that our publisher, HarperCollins Publishers, can only produce a certain number of Tolkien-related books per year, so each title pitched has to fight for its place in that year's line-up. This idea has certainly been suggested before and will be again, but up till now it hasn't yet found its slot. Be assured, we love the idea too, and I would fight for the right to write it, not least of all because a research trip to Hobbiton would be in order!


And probably a diorama of Gollum leading Frodo and Sam on the dead marshes...
Black Gates, Cirith Ungol and Minas Morgul environments! Oh, and one of the doors of Durin!
.... Dol Guldur environment? Oh and Rhosgobel and Beorns house too!
And a Pippin in Fellowship clothes and a Merry in Rohan armour!
And a mini statue of Bilbo (old or new, don't mind) sat smoking a pipe to display next to Bag End and the Hobbit holes

I think you've planned our lines for the next four years! Here's hoping we can check a good number of those worthy selections off going forward.



I'm not sure if you can answer this Daniel but I'll try my luck. With the overwhelmingly positive response to both Faramir and the Balrog, will we be seeing any more 1/6 LOTR statues previewed/up for pre order this year?


We do have more LOTR goodies in the works, but the exact timing of when certain pieces will be released or previewed is still being determined, so I do not know the answer to that question right now, I'm sorry.


Also, I hope it's not too much to ask but now that the surprises have been unveiled would it be possible for you to describe the development of the new pieces shown at SDCC.


Smaug the Terrible is probably a good one to pull out and use as an example for a brief run down ...

So, we always knew we wanted to do Smaug, and more than one. we had to wait till DoS was done and in cinemas before we could get full access to the finished Dragon reference from Weta Digital - such was the secrecy surrounding this character and also acknnowledges that Weta Digital and Peter Jackson were tweaking and improving him right up until the last minute.

We identified very early on that we would want a high end 'prestige' version that would be limited in edition as well as a more accessible version that would be considerably smaller and more widely available. For the smaller version we would need to keep the casting process simple, so it was suggested that we might either curl him around some rock or embed him in his pile of gold. We have already gone the rock route a lot with other pieces, and Smaug in his gold was so iconic that it only made sense to go that way for the 'Smauglet' as you guys have so adorably tagged him, so then we had to think about how to make sure the prestige version of Smaug was significantly different.

One of the big problems with Smaug is the fact that he is so long and snake-like, with huge (read potentially breakable) wings, thin spines, projecting scales and a tiny head relative to his body size. These are all tricky propositions when we're talking about polystone. To get around these issues, we realized that we probably couldn't depict him with his wings spread. That's not to say we couldn't do a statue like that one day, but with this statue it would have made him so large and fragile, while still having a tiny head, that we felt it would be a problem for people to display and likely cause us breakability issues. The most interesting thing about Smaug is his awesome head design, not his wing membranes, so we decided we needed to find a way to minimize his wing surface area, strengthen these potentially very thin parts of the sculpture and bring the focus back to his head. Curling his tail in would also greatly reduce the footprint of the piece, so everything pointed towards having an at least partially coiled, terrestrial pose of some kind, with his wings partially folded, creating a tent-like form that would also be a great backdrop for his snarling jaws and piercing eyes, when viewed on the shelf.

Of the scenes in the second film involving Smaug, we felt Bilbo's conversation with Smaug in his lair was the iconic scene to try and evoke, so that meant putting him in an Erebor environment with gold. The nice thing about that was the gold and potential green of the architecture would contrast nicely with his red scales, so that seemed like the right idea. Having him standing on/in gold also meant we could embed his claws and tail to some degree, which would again help us out as far as minimizing breakage risk and also give the piece a good, solid grounding for the statue.

For a while we looked at having a pillar of carved green marble somewhere in the piece, possibly for Smaug to be leaning against or coming around. It gave the piece a nice pyramid shape without too closely evoking the John Howe Smaug the Golden statue, but the more we pushed around the concept, the more we felt the pillar was distracting and added unnecessary mass, so we elected to ditch it and go with a pose in which Smaug looks like he has just risen up out of the gold and was furiously casting about to find something - presumably Bilbo, though we left that slightly ambiguous. We briefly toyed with the notion of including Bilbo in the piece, but he would have been soooo tiny that we decided to leave him out and concentrate just on the Dragon himself.

Weta Digital supplied us with the basic form of the Dragon from their digital model, but we posed him and completely redetailed him from scratch in Z-Brush, a process that took weeks! There were numerous progress reviews and debates as we proceeded, involving several sculptors (Gary Hunt, Lindsey Crummet, Andrew Baker, Greg Tozer, and I am bound to be forgetting someone), Richard and our entire product development team, while we honed the exact pose and various details. We also printed test elements to check that the scales were reading well and would have enough relief to hold multiple passes of paint without becoming smoothed over. Our friends at Weta Digital gave their opinions and notes so that we made sure we were keeping him on model and accurately interpreting their vision of the character. Once all that was resolved we submitted him for approval to WB, and were very pleased that he came back from the studio and Peter's office with the big tick and no changes necessary!

Around this time we milled some basic polystyrene stand-ins at various sizes and stuck them on bases to debate the exact size we would be producing him. Everyone agreed that we needed to make him big and that he justified a new, much larger base being specially tooled up rather than the Rivendell sized base he had originally been designed for. 'Go big or go home,' was my mantra on this piece. The new one was significantly larger and allowed us to scale our statue up as well, making him much more imposing and impressive. Smaug is now the first piece to use our newest, largest ever oval base.

The digital sculpt was 3D printed at a very high level of detail and then went through an extensive reassembly and clean-up process on David and Leonard's desks. We also came to realize at about this time that the stylistic resolution of the gold, as we had done it, wasn't working. It really just looked like sand. We appreciated, with our deadline fast approaching, that the base needed to be entirely resculpted, practically, and Dave and Leonard threw themselves into it, coming up with a very effective process for creating piles of gold coins, supplemented with other items of treasure. The coins were a bit of a cheat, as in order to get them to read as anything other than sand at this scale, we had to oversize and 'cartoonize' them a bit, so in reality they are probably closer to dinner plate or even car tyre scale in the final collectible, but we felt this was an acceptable compromise in order to get them to read like coins and not a giant gold bean bag for our Dragon to lounge on! I think the final result was very effective. yeah, they're a bit out of scale, but they look awesome! Dave and Leonard kicked a$$. Leonard even added little extra gold coins on Smaug's wings.

Once we had our masters completed, Smaug was painted by the talented Dordi Moen and Sourisak Chanpaseuth, veterans of our paintshop department, who, working from renders and screen shots, and in consultation with Gino Acevedo from Digi, came up with the final paint scheme, just in time to be approved by the studio and bundled into a custom crate for Richard to hand carry to San Diego Comic Con for you all to see!


Well Daniel, since you asked... I'd like to know just one thing. Do you know if you'll be attending NYCC this year?

Sadly, not this time. I'd love to get back to NY again, but having just done SDCC and SLCCC, it would be greedy of me to hog another con, plus my wife might kill me if I left her alone with the kids while I went galavanting off to the States, again! Instead you'll have Paul Tobin and Nick Keller representing the Weta Workshop design studio. They are awesome blokes and have both had a profound influence on the design of The Hobbit trilogy. Please give them a warm welcome to the Big Apple and try and get along to their presentation, if you can. I think it might be Nick's first time in NY?

Both artists have plenty of work in our Chronicles books, and Paul will also be selling his spectacular White Cloud Worlds books, featuring sci fi and fantasy art by a range of NZ artists. There aren't many of these books left now. Nick has some amazing work in them as well, so if sci fi and fantasy art floats your boat, pick up a copy (or both volumes - I am sure Paul will be offering some kind of deal) for the guys to personalize for you. They do drawings in every book! And Christmas is coming ... just saying.


any chance we will see Beorn in Bear or "human" form? as FrodoEyes suggested a Rhosgobel environment or Beorn's house or a mini Treebeard would make my day/month/year!

All excellent suggestions and worthy candidates - by now you have seen Beorn's House, which you will get a better look at in the extended edition of the second film. In my ideal world we'll tick all of those off your list eventually, but I'm getting ahead of myself. It just goes to show what a rich universe Middle-earth is and how much great content there is yet to be realized in polystone. We're in this for the long haul so fingers crossed that we make you happy in the coming years.


Next question: has WETA thought/talked/discussed/considered,..., about a Great Goblin 1:6 statue?...or is WETA thinking in little scales (I hope not) as the little-mini trolls?

We sure have. We actually mocked up an accurate, 1/6th scale Great Goblin on throne - OMG, what a monster he would be at that size! If we hit the go button on that collectible he would easily be our largest piece ever, dwarfing even Smaug, the Boss Rog, Azog or the old SSW Cave Troll. If I get my way, it will happen some day, but right now the plan for that character is something we are still debating internally. A smaller version might make more sense, or perhaps something 'almost' 1/6th scale. We'll see.


Do you know if you will be selling the Red Smaug's Scales shirt at NYCC?

Yep, there are 500 exclusive shirts allocated for NYCC. Be sure you get in quick! They're really cool and have proved very popular.

Hmm, that reminds me, I don't have one yet.


Quelle: Weta Collectors

[Argonath]

Danke für's kopieren, Tobi.

Wie es aussieht wird es nicht spürbar abebben mit Neuerscheinungen aus dem HdR- und Hobbit-Universum. Auch wenn ich keine Ahnung habe wie ich das alles finanzieren soll freue ich mich riesig darüber, was für große Pläne Weta diesbezüglich noch verfolgt.
Da ich mir vorgenommen habe nie wieder eine meiner Statuen zu verkaufen nur um eine neue zu finanzieren (in meinen Augen widerspricht das meiner Sammelleidenschaft irgendwie) werde ich wohl in Zukunft eine eigene Lagerhalle brauchen.
Naja, man muss Opfer bringen.

Klasse all die offenen Antworten von Daniel zu lesen.
Nochmal danke, wäre sonst glatt an mir vorbeigegangen.

[RedStorm]

Sehr gerne, Marcel!

Mir gehts genauso Ist spannend zu lesen, was Daniel so aus dem Nähkästchen erzählt und auch Einblicke in Gedankenspiele bezüglich verschiedenster Themen gibt.

Man kann nun auch sehr gut nachvollziehen, weshalb Smaugs Pose nun so ist, wie sie ist

.....und für nen Great Goblin, mit der Betonung auf "Great" würde ich sowieso alles stehen und liegen lassen. Bin sowieso der Meinung dass der Goblin King auch die "Stelle" als Truchsess von Gondor verdient hätte. (zeitliche Ungereimtheiten mal außen vor gelassen)

[Elvenwarrior]

War auch überrascht, über die ausführliche Erklärung zur Entstehung der Smaug Statue. Hab auch gleich nochmal bischen was an Fragen gepostet.
Imo kann man sich den ganzen Thread mal durchlesen : http://www.wetacollectors.com/forum/show...269&page=8

Für den Thread Titel hätte ich keine andere Idee im Moment, würde nur gerne das "answers" durch "antwortet" ersetzen, oder gleich den ganzen Titel auf deutsch übersetzen.
Wir sind schliesslich hier ein rein deutsch-sprachiges Board und ich fänds besser auf englische Titel möglichst zu verzichten.

[RedStorm]

Gesagt und Getan ...und hast absolut Recht, Stefan - unser Deutschtum sollte man pflegen

Der Threadtitel hat nun auch ne chronologisch sinnvolle Abfolge.

[RedStorm]

Gibt wieder eine neue Runde Antworten von Daniel Falconer (in fett gehalten) auf Fragen der Member (in kursiv gehalten).
Und um es gleich vorab zu sagen: Das Bild der Beorn-Maquette hat absolut nichts mit einem eventuell erscheinenden Collectible zu tun...um gleich mal die Luft raus zu nehmen
Ist eine Maquette von Andrew Baker, mit dem ich mich mal im Rahmen eines Workshops auch darüber unterhalten konnte.

So, nun aber im wahrsten Sinne des Wortes zum Text. Viel Spaß beim lesen!

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Hi folks! With the a new week upon us, I hope to be able to provide a new round of answers.


Today we saw the release of high resolution version of the BOFA banner, that was first premiered at comic-con.

Personally, I really dislike it. I think it's a rather poor, uninspired cluster of images, showing only bad photoshop skills.

I mention this, couse it reminded me of something I thought about, even during the LOTR era:

Considering that PJ had the brushes of such sublime illustrators like John Howe and Alan Lee, not to mention all the artists at Weta Workshop, didn't it ever occur to anyone, to perhaps use their skills not just for pre-production design, but also for some of the posters and promotional art?

A trilogy of posters by John Howe or Alan Lee for LOTR or the Hobbit, would be something amazing, and surely both a great seller and a great, interest piquing way to promote the movie.

Posters and marketing are handled by Warner Bros. in the USA, so it is a bit different than back in the New Line days.

I have a question about Thrain's design in the films...

In the prologue of AUJ, we see him blind in his left eye. This deviates from the book, where he gets blind due to an injury in the Battle of Azanulbizar. Still, I can understand changing his "design" for the sake of drama. But why/how does he have his eye back in the DOS EE?


Thrain does look different, doesn't he? Much like Gollum evolved between his brief appearance in FOTR and being featured in T2T, and Smaug lost limbs between the theatrical release of AUJ and DoS, Thrain's design continued to evolve after he appeared, briefly, in a few shots in AUJ. The actor changed as well. With Peter, performance is everything, and he won't hesitate to change something that is established if he considers the result to be an improvement. Hopefully when you see the character in context in the extended edition of DoS, you will like him. Beyond that, I can't really comment until the extended edition is out.


I for one would like to know if you are the one, bringing our suggestions to "the table". How might this work ? Do you write down our most asked wishes or print out the Poll results and then take them to your meetings ?

Sometimes, yes, we do exactly that, and sometimes it's more free form than that: 'Hey, have you guys seen that they're asking for this in the forum? Remember when we talked about that? Wouldn't it be a good idea to think about this one again, etc ...'



Since Nick Keller and Paul Tobin are going to NYCC, can we expect a new art print ? It´s been some time now since the last, especially for a LotR print. Doors of Durin would be so awesome !

Also hoping for a new Environment from the LotR, maybe Minas Tirith and to announce the next LotR statue would do no harm as well Especially if it´s the well wished for High Elven statue.

The timing didn't quite work out for a new art print in time for NYCC, I'm sorry to say, but we do plan on doing more of them.

Expect some new goodies to be revealed at NYCC. I won't say exactly what or ruin any surprises just yet, but you'll get a first look at some new poly awesomeness this week.


Btw. i got The Desolation of Smaug Chronicles Cloaks and Daggers as a birthday gift and am currently reading it. Just wanted to tell you that i love it and looking forward to your next books !!

Thank you! The next one will be out alongside the third film.

...PS: almost forgot about the horn of gondor

Totally agree. It has to be made and we want to do it. It's just a question of when. There are a great many very worthy subjects all competing for spaces in our lines!


Is there a chance for a Mt. Doom enviro piece?

We have talked about something like this. It's on the long list of 'wouldn't it be cool?'s and we would love to do something like this, eventually. There are a few pieces that we consider to be stronger candidates for the environments line, though, so you may have to be patient a little longer.


Its the first time that i hear, that Weta first has to await WB's approval, before they start with the production run of a figurine. Was that some kind of exceptional case, or does Weta need WB's approval for every piece they are creating?


Yep, this. We actually have to submit for approvals several times in the process on any one collectible. Initially we submit concept art to WB for any piece we want to make to. Once we have an agreement to proceed, we begin sculpting. Once we have a sculpt completed to our own satisfaction and it has passed internal approvals, we submit images to WB again and make any changes they require before moving to paint. Again, paint images are submitted to WB for approval once we have signed of on the paint masters internally. WB also have a final round of approvals for our packaging designs, so in all we seek at least four rounds of approvals from them before a piece is released, and sometimes more if we are knocked back due to changes. The DVD collectibles, for example, probably go through as many as a dozen rounds of approvals as WB is heavily involved, leading the creative choices made on those.


It was really great to see and get to know you! Hope we didn't make your head reel too badly with all the questions from Min and me?

Trying to read between the lines with all your answers.

That was fun! I had a blast meeting you guys and doing the Q & A dance. My take-away from our meet up and conversations was that we're all pretty much on the same page in terms of what we all think is cool and has to be made! Fun times ahead for us all, I reckon.


Nice write up on the creation of Smaug and I noticed those extra coins on his wings, good one Leonard, it's those little details that really matter.

On a plus side Dan, you have also just written the text for a good couple of pages in the next Collectables book

Hey, I hadn't even thought of that. Good notion!


Everyone agreed that we needed to make him big and that he justified a new, much larger base being specially tooled up rather than the Rivendell sized base he had originally been designed for. 'Go big or go home,' was my mantra on this piece. The new one was significantly larger and allowed us to scale our statue up as well, making him much more imposing and impressive. Smaug is now the first piece to use our newest, largest ever oval base.

I really hope you guys decide to reuse this base for other impressive Middle Earth statues and environments...like Minas Tirith perhaps??

Yeah, once we make a new base we almost always end up using it again. I can certainly think of some poly candidates worthy of the big footprint. We'll see what happens.



Because you have done The Balrog again I would like to ask you if you you have thought in make a new Cave troll.

We hadn't planned to, but if enough people want it, yeah, sure!

Oh hey, speaking of the new Balrog, I saw the question of scale had come up in another thread. So, when we were making it there wasn't a specific scale in mind so much as a size of piece. We knew he would never be 1/6th scale because that would make him the size of a full grown person! Instead, we aimed for a roughly Azog and Warg-sized collectible statue, with a similar price point and edition size in mind. Working backwards from that size, it turns out he is roughly 1/23rd scale, though I would say there is some wiggle room in that scale as his size was a little bit fluid in the movies, being an elemental creature.

And on the subject of scale, why not also talk Smaug! Smaug the terrible was also sculpted without a specific scale in mind as much as a size range. As it turns out, he is almost exactly 1/72nd scale, which is more of a happy accident than good planning. So, if you have a Games Workshop war-gaming Bilbo mini handy, he should line up pretty well with our Dragon!


My question; does Dordi Moen have Scandinavian background?

The lovely and talented Dordi is Norwegian. She can lay rightful claim to designing the paint schemes of pretty much 98% of all our collectibles.


Will you be able to attend the 10th anniversary Moot on Jan.10, 2015?

I really hope so, as I am sooooo looking forward to seeing you again.
I sincerely hope so, Min. Thanks! Me too. It's always so lovely to have the chance to catch up with old friends at events like this.



I always imagined Dan Hennah at Weta. Surely you employ him between films with his talent!
Or I can imagine him as manager of so etching..

Dan is his own man. He's an awesome guy and I love working with him. I don't think he has ever worked for Weta, but he has worked alongside us many times on different projects. I think he might be in the States working on some films at present. He's never not busy!


Daniel like your mantra was for Smaug the Terrible 'Go big or Go home'
Seriously the Goblin King is such an awesome concept and deserve to be done at 1/6th scale.

I hope so too!


We(I) have been waiting new announcements or infos concerning prop replicas!

I think we might just have something in the works. Watch this space.



i already know that the secret name for LOTR was jamboree. because it was also the secret name for the original king kong movie and we all know that peter j. is a huge king fan. but do you know why he choosed little rivers as the seret name for the hobbit?

I do not, I'm afraid.


I would like to ask Mr. Falconer, if considering the possibility of making the piece of Beorn in bear form in scale 1:6 ?

I saw this photograph and fascinated me a lot. A figure of Beorn as a bear with a similar pose and so furious would be extraordinary, it is also a character with a heavy weight at the end of the story of the Hobbit.




I agree. We're waiting to see how Beorn features in the third film before making a call on his collectible prospects, but we already have some ideas up our sleeves. Something like what you describe could be very cool.


Are there any plans to do art prints similar to those released with the light up film strip etc?

No plans right now.


Just to add to what mr. Falconer said:
The bust isn't based on Glorfindel from The Silmarillion, but rather the character Glorfindel from the real-time strategy game Battle for Middle Earth 2 by EA games. Battle for Middle Earth 1 followed the story of the book pretty closely. The second game on the other hand was more "inspired by" the events during the war of the ring. What rights they had - I have no idea - if they could make things up themselves or if they could find stories from Sil, Hobbit, Unfinished Tales so on. Or if everything that happens in game no. 2 is based on what is mentioned in the LotR appendixes. I am not much of a Tolkien scholar to say for sure.

So, it's more likely that Weta can aquire the rights for the new Middle Earth game than The Silmarillion story.

Huh, so the GG bust is from the video game, eh? That I did not know. I figured they had designed him themselves, but that makes more sense. Thanks Pords!


If I may venture a suggestion, I think you guys should put into production the three environments that were made and stayed as prototypes: Zirak Zigil, Moria cemetery and Hobbiton factory. There won't be any development cost involved and they are not very big so they should be cost friendly to the collectors AND they are beautiful. You could even offer them in a low ES and they would sell very well I think!


We'll absolutely put these back up for discussion. It seems like there is quite a bit of interest out there. Thanks folks.


On a different subject, I am rewatching the LOTR Appendices these days, in which you feature quite prominently I might add, and still to this day, I can't stop being amazed from the fact that you guys managed to pull off such an enormous, impossible really, task.You have my respect for all eternity!!!

Thank you again. I am a little amazed myself, but then we had a great many hands working on those epic tasks, which made the lifting lighter.


We have a ZZ in the Tremontorium. It's an unpainted resin copy that was hiding in the back, we found it in the move

Ahah! There we go.

Righto, that's as much as I have time for today. More to come when I get time.

Cheers everyone!


Quelle: Weta Collectors

[Elvenwarrior]

Yay, meine Fragen wurden beantwortet und ich bin extremst zufrieden. Weta rockt !!!
Und wir dürfen diese Woche etwas neues aus Polystone erwarten, na da bin ich ja mal gespannt.
Mir wäre zwar ein Art Print lieber gewesen, aber das kommt ja auch noch früher oder später

[Elvenwarrior]

Daniel Falconer hat vor ein paar Tagen wieder extrem viele Infos und Gerüchte rausgegeben:

Zitat:I am hearing you guys loud and clear on this one, and frankly, I couldn’t agree more! It would be crazy to do him without Firefoot. Admission with horse only!
So, given everyone is singing the same song, I’ll pledge to you all, here and now, that when we eventually release Éomer as a 1/6th scale statue (and barring something catastrophic happening, we absolutely will make him sooner or later), we’ll be sure that he is definitely sculpted in the saddle.

Also Eomer sehr sehr wahrscheinlich. Aber da sie nicht so viele grosse Dinger raushauen können, muss man mal gucken, wann er kommt. Aber er kommt.

Zitat:These are all on the ‘we should do ‘em’ list. It may take us a while to work our way through all of them, but as long as demand for miniature environments remains strong we’ll keep producing them.

Es gibt also weiterhin kleine Environments.

Zitat:Traditionally, hobbits have been slow sellers, but I do agree that Pip in his Fellowship duds is something of a glaring omission. Personally, I’d love to see that hole in the Fellowship addressed, but I think we’d have to plan it in such a way that it was a very appealing piece. If you have any suggestions for what pose or moment might work, we’d love to hear them.

Pippin in Hobbit Klamotten wahrscheinlich. Aber sie wollen Vorschläge in welcher Pose er kommen soll. Hat jemand Vorschläge ??

Zitat:We’ve all come a long way since those first statues were released in the early Sideshow/Weta days. I think there are a number of Fellowship members that could probably use 1/6th scale updates. What do you guys and gals think?

Denkt Ihr, die alten Charaktere brauchen neue Statuen ?

Zitat:Éowyn is long overdue for a 1/6th scale statue in my opinion.
Her most iconic scene to me is one in which we see her standing outside the Meduseld in her white dress, hair blowing in the wind, but a strong case could probably also be made for freezing her in polystone perpetuity when she was practicing with her sword, wearing bodice and skirt. That is a wonderfully strong moment for the character. I also love her funeral gown, and could imagine a statue depicting her either in mourning or song outside Théodred’s tomb. Then there is the cup scene at Dunharrow, with Aragorn, which is also a strong one for her.
What do you think? Have a favourite? My hunch is that people would want the first one I mentioned.

Eowyn im weissen Kleid vor Meduseld scheint sehr beliebt zu sein. Eure Meinung ?

Zitat:We love Rohan. There’s certainly no conspiracy against the Rohirrim here! I think what you’re seeing is more the fact that there haven’t been any many LOTR statues in recent years, given our emphasis was on The Hobbit. In fact, there is some Rohan themed awesomeness coming up in the 1/6th scale statue line this year and next.

Es wird noch dieses Jahr eine Rohan Statue geben. Was glaubt Ihr, wer es sein wird ?

Zitat:Our next Art Print will be a very cool one based on a scene from The Hobbit and will launch at San Diego Comic Con in July. More news on that soon.

Neues Hobbit Art Print zur Comic Con.

Zitat:Ah yes, the Battle of the Last Alliance guys from the 2nd Age. We have every intention of doing more Second Age pieces in our 1/6th scale line. It’s a question of when rather than if. There’s lots of competition for those few release slots each year!

Second Age Statuen scheinen bei Weta auch sehr beliebt zu sein, man muss nur sehen, wo man eine von denen reinquetschen kann, damit nicht zu viele Sachen in einem Jahr rauskommen.

Klingt doch alles sehr gut. Ich bin optimistisch, dass wir eine Menge HdR Sachen dieses Jahr bei der SDCC sehen werden, und hoffentlich nicht bloss dicke Klopper wie letztes Jahr.

[Buzzie]

Sehr schön... passende News zu baldigen Weta-Fix Dain & Azog

[witchking82]

Leider ist mein Englisch nicht so gut.....