1) One of the things that I love the most in the Middle Earth collections are the environments.
Is there any chance that we will see new environments being released ?
I especially think now of Radagast's House, new Hobbit Holes, the Black Gates, Lake Town, the Woodland Realm, the Goblin caves.
We love them, too. Grond hit some hurdles in production, which slowed us down quite a bit, and our big push on GKR also soaked up more time from environment maestros Dave and Leonard than we had anticipated, so our environment production did hit some speed bumps this past twelve months. That said, we nonetheless have some great stuff in the works, some of which is set to hit you fairly soon. I hope you folks liked Hobbit Hole #16? I thought it turned out very well. Every new one those guys produce instantly becomes my new favourite! If all goes to plan, you won’t have long to wait before you see the next mini environment. My palantir tells me to expect something on the near side of San Diego Comic Con.
2) Some of these environments might even be good candidates for 1/30 scale.
I especially think in this case on 'The Goblin Caves'. A 1/30 scale build in height, with several layers on top of each other. The company of Thorin Oakenshield in miniatures, some attacking Goblins, and of course the Goblin King.
I guess this way (1/30 scale) is the only way that this beautiful environment can be made (and still being payable).
Great suggestions. These have been passed on to the team for consideration.
3) Last but not least : I have a weakness for female characters. The figure of Tauriel is one of my pieces that I love the most.
Standing on that branch is such a fascinating pose . But there's Arwen, Tauriel, Galadriel, Lady Eowyn of Rohan. With the new releases of Galadriel and Lady Eowyn of Rohan I was so pleased. But ...
Arwen needs a new status as well. Arwen and Frodo together on Asfaloth would truly make an awesome piece.
If a new statue for Arwen would be made, would this be one of the candidates ? This scene was simply so iconic. I have been in great desire for that figurine for years. Perhaps one day it can come true
We’re on the same page. I can’t say who or when they will be launched just yet, but I will share with you that we do have more 1:6 ladies in progress at present.
4) And then las but not least : We know that 'Grond' (also one of the items we have been asking for for year) is finally coming true.But then there's another beauty that I can see before me. Unfortunately a BIG-ature, that would be expensive, but it would most certainly be the center piece of a 'Hobbit' collection . . . the CHARIOT from 'The Hobbit'.
Any chance we would see the chariot (preferably in 1/6, or a little bit smaller so it fits on the base - Smaug scale) pulled by a war-goat, and Balin riding the Chariot ? So a full action piece, more or less comparible with Azog on Warg (which sold out rapidly as well).To my opinion, the chariot needs at least one action figurine (Balin) on it. The more (of the company) the better of course, but every extra character on the chariot would also make it more expensive. So I would go for the moment were Balin was left alone.
You are correct – this one would be a challenge, but we all agree here that the chariot is an epic war machine and we’d love to find a way to do it. In all honesty, it isn’t in development at present, at any scale, but we are continually looking at our options for future pieces across the ranges, and there’s a lot of love for this monster. Hopefully we can make you happy, one day.
Great news on the new Hobbit holes and the helm line going so well. Any chance of a Ringwraith 'set' of helms - like you did the Gondorian set years ago.
For now Helms will remain single-packed items, but if they continue to do well, something like what you suggest is certainly possible. I agree that the Dol Guldur Wraiths would make a very attractive set.
It is a pity that the Great Goblin does not respect the scale if it is realized, for my it is a problem because then it is out of tune enough with other pieces if the scale is not respected, and with this personage respecting the scale it had been a very very impressive piece.
Daniel asks one, if a Beorn Beast is realized fits the possibility that one respects the scale 1:6?
Beorn in bear form (I assume you mean?) would be very challenging to produce in true 1:6 scale as he is enormous. It would be our biggest piece ever, by far. It’s not out of the question, but more likely to happen at a smaller scale in only just to keep him affordable.
I have a simple question: why do we get just one hobbit hole each year? I'm not asking that much, but like 2-3 would be nice, since they are low cost stuff it shouldn't be a problem for the market. Anyway, any news on the old ones which are actually sold out? I missed a couple of them thanks!
It is probably better to direct questions about sold out status to the sales or customer services folks rather than me as that’s outside my field, but as far as the rate of release for new hobbit holes, you can look forward to 2 or 3 a year from this point, going forward. That was always our ambition for the line. We got a bit slowed down last year but hope to be back at full pace again for 2017.
Hi Daniel,Happy New Year,are there any new art prints on the horizon,so many great scenes from both trilogy's yet to be visualised.
Love to see the Dwarves war chariot done at some stage as well.
We have something pretty cool in the works.
So there are essentially 5 hobbit holes that have/had 2 doors (not even Bag End has that many doors in PJ's Hobbiton).
Heehee. I snipped the content of Min’s excellent speculative post in my quote, above, but I will say that the smial to which I was referring when I dropped a hint about an upcoming release having two doors was indeed one of the handful Min so expertly zeroed in on. It wil be on a base the same size as #23.
I can't wait to order 16 hill lane and to have a look at the other hobbit holes Weta is producing. We probably have to wait for San Diego Comic Con to have a look at the new hobbit holes.
Hopefully you shouldn’t have to wait that long for a look at the next one in our line-up. ;)
Hi Daniel I have to say with riders dain and azog warg selling out in no time people would buy multiple rider \ beasts in a heart beat cost is of course the real problem myself I have waited so long for more with
Theoden at minus tirith
Royal guard
Wraith
Faramir in gondorian
Arwen and frodo
etc
Comes my question after eomer would the natural next rider be theoden to accompany him excluding Mo's of course
All excellent suggestions! Some are more likely than others, and that list would keep us busy for the next five years, but it just goes to show how much depth remains in this long-running line!
Can you give us a hint on who in the fellowship is going to be made next in 1/6th scale?
There are no additional 1:6 scale Fellowship members coming out this year, I’m afraid, but we do have some pretty special pieces coming, nonetheless. Thinking about it, now, almost all of the new 1:6 pieces we will be showing or releasing between now and the end of the year feature characters never before made by us in this scale. The Middle-earth films are certainly full of polystone-worthy characters!
Is there any news for your new Middle Earth Book?
Our biggest book yet is finally done and with the publisher. Yay! Look for some news and pre-order info on that very soon, with a release date in October.
Having only started collecting Middle-earth in May last year, I don't have Tauriel and Thranduil, and with the high after market prices, is there a good chance of a revisit soon?
Soon, I couldn’t say, but both are on our list of characters to revisit. When we do, we would look to make sure that their new sculpts were sufficiently distinct in pose and look from their previous sculptures.
And I just love the big beasts like Smaug, Balrog and the upcoming War Troll. Will we be seeing more of them? If so, hopefully Treebeard is up for consideration
Yes! We have some big beasty fun in the works, but the next one is a little while away as we don’t want to follow too closely on the heels of the War Troll.
There has been a "fair amount" teased about the hobbit holes, how far down is the Hobbiton Mill and Bridge on the "to do list"?
When these to items are created will they be on the same scale as the Green Dragon? I really hope so.
Nothing to announce yet regarding the Mill and Bridge, but we would like to do them at some stage. When they eventually get made, we would look at trying to make sure they fit in the same style and scale as the rest of the range.
Daniel - what is the latest word on the LORD OF THE RINGS BOOK? What will it cover?What is the length of it?What is the measurements of a page?Any special foldouts or features?Can we see a page or two?When can we buy it and when will it be delivered? And will there be others?
Thanks for your interest! The new book covers the environments of Middle-earth and spans both trilogies. At 500+ pages it will be by far our largest book to date. It is a new format, being portrait rather than landscape, with pages overall a little bigger than those of the Chronicles series. There is no special fold-out but those who order from Weta directly will receive an extra premium insert that I think should be of interest to folks here. We will be sharing sample pages when we post it for pre-order. I am told that won’t be long, now. It ships in October. Right now this is the only Middle-earth book on our publishing schedule, but I have ideas for a number of additional volumes that I hope will be produced as well.
I was looking at my LOTR Medallions that Weta made way back when and was again longing for the last 8 that were never made for the ROTK.With the smaller and cheaper items selling very well, I'm going to ask again if Weta will ever consider finishing this line.We're talking 8 small 6" medallions. How hard can that be?
Hi, Ith. They were pretty neat, weren’t they? In all honesty, it is very unlikely that we would revisit the medallions in future, but as you say, something along those lines could have merit. We have been looking at some kind of relief-style sculpted pieces but haven’t yet found anything that we would consider to be worthy of release, yet. If we did, it would be a new range and stylistically distinct rather than a continuation of the medallions, as attractive as they were.
More diorama news please!! We need more than Dol Guldur ;-)
We’re going to see how the Dol Guldur scene is received before committing to more and sharing our plans, but it looks promising.
Since you are a huge 1/4 helm fan I'd like some clarification on the new helms please. The pages on the website state that they're made of polystone but here on the forum I read it would be some kind of metal and resin mixture. I'd love to order the helms still available but I'm waiting for customer feedback on the material used.
You may already know that I’m a big helm nerd, as well. By now many of you likely have your helms in hand, so you can draw your own conclusions, but it was our sincere intention to produce them as a kind of resin and metal powder mix in order to achieve the weight that people associate with our original helm line. We were sure we could do it for the longest time, but unfortunately our manufacturers could not achieve the result we all wanted, and we had to change course and go with polystone instead. As a material, it doesn’t have the weight or coldness of metal, but on the positive side, it holds detail more crisply, which is essential for a number of the very intricate helm designs from The Hobbit. They may not be exactly the same, but we hope you still enjoy them. We will continue to explore options in case we can find a way to make it work in the future.
Any chance for any new reveals soon, Daniel? I know you guys intended to space things out more and not just have reveal at SDCC/NYCC last year, but with no Weta at NYCC it seems like there was a mega-ton of stuff shown off at San Diego and then crickets for the past 6 months. It makes it so quiet in here. =/
Yes. Apologies for the quiet. It is indeed our intention to spread reveals out across the year and not concentrate them just around the big conventions, however we are also dialling back on how early we share coming goodies with you so that the wait times between pre-ordering and delivery are less in future. The result has been a bit of a gap in our roll out of new collectibles. We should be back to business as usual by mid-year. There are new items that you will be seeing before San Diego Comic Con in July, but you can also look forward to a lot of new goodies to be previewed at the show.
I have but one question Daniel: When can we order that new battle troll?
I don’t have a precise date I can share with you, but my understanding is around the middle of the year, shipping before the end of the year. That is subject to change, of course.
My question for you is I can't remember if it's been answered before but it says it takes 400 hrs to produce a statue but exactly who or how is it determined which peices are to be made I know the ethics behind decisions cost demand etc but I never see a pole or a fans choice
I have said it before why don't you have one per year fans choice for both Hobbit and lotr this would give us all a massive say and would make a great competition say if the winning suggestion won one
It has been a while since we last ran a poll, hasn’t it? Good idea. I will pitch it to the team and see what we can come up with.
As far as how we make those kinds of decisions inside the company, we routinely have roundtable discussions with all of the folks involved with collectibles production at Weta, including crew from our on site Weta Cave retail store and Sir Richard Taylor. During these gatherings we pitch and debate prospective future collectibles. Performance of past pieces is certainly used as a guide to help us determine which future pieces to pursue, as well as what we creatively and as collectors ourselves aspire to make and own. We also talk a LOT about what you guys suggest here in the forum and via our CS channels. So, even though it has been a while since we last ran a poll here, you do have a voice and your ideas make it to the highest levels at Weta for consideration, so please keep them coming!
If there is one thing I have learned during my 20 years here, much of that involved with collectibles development, it’s that the tastes of our collectors and the crew inside the company are very similar. So often I have come onto the forum and read wish lists here that are almost exactly the same as our internal long term planning lists, and that includes today. ;)
Secondly the upcoming eomer is likely to be a massive success like azog and dain selling out very quickly surley with more than half the films involving horseback will this open up or speed up the production of more riders The point I'm making is they are the most demanded statues with the exception of a hand few of characters or thranduil tauriel etcI have longed for years for rohan riders theoden wraith gondorian faramir strider among others And it's took over 12 years to get eomer after last getting aragorn at black gates Please let us know if riders will be getting alot more love in the next few years ty
Yup, more riders are coming. We actually have a number in development right now; some in early stages and some very near completion. We will continue to release them, but with decent intervals between each so that collectors have the chance to recover from each outlay before the next potential purchase comes along.
I hope they get a lot more love, I'm holding out for Mouth of Sauron.
That is one we have wanted to do for years. He almost happened back in the Sideshow/Weta Collectibles days, but the line ended just too soon. The Mouth has many fans here at the Workshop so you have every reason to hope. It is my hope that we will be able to make you happy with what we make when he gets produced.
I'd like to ask you if there's any news or love to a Beorn 1:6 statue (bear or human form). I really hope he won't be the new Faramir or Eomer on the Hobbit line...
Beorn’s size does make him problematic for us, but we hope nonetheless to get to him. In full disclosure, he isn’t in development at the time of writing, and our development slate is quite long, so you do have a bit of a wait ahead of you. Hopefully he will be worth it when he does get made.
Hi Daniel looking on the site afew statues are coming up as what people want making next knowing your insight could you let's say hint on if eney are coming or pre production
Mo's
Gil galahad
Rohan royal guard
Theoden armoured
Ringwraith
Haldir
Thranduil on elk
Dwarf warrior
Beorn
I know the game is poker but some hints would be welcome
Hah! Poker indeed, well played, sir! Let’s just say that list will be much shorter 12 months from now.
I wondered what kind or style of rope would be the most exact prop to buy, for my collection, which is as identical as the elven rope that Galadriel gives to Sam?
I am sorry I cannot be of much help in this instance. I never got to see that particular prop in person, and as it was a 3Foot7 art department creation we don’t have a copy at Weta, so I am no more familiar with it than you. I wish I could be of more help.
Hi when you get time check the plant a seed thread and eney plans on this welcome cut a long story short can we have a 1\6 or mini treebeard ty
We would LOVE to do Treebeard. Given he is such an important character, it should be a matter of when rather than if.
Helms line question: is WETA thinking in doing 'sets' as the Gondorian one (for example for the Helms Deep uruks, the dwarves warriors, the Nazguls at Dol Guldur,...) or initially the idea is to make 'individuals' helms?
If they continue to perform well, I certainly hope so. It’s a great way to blast through the helmet wish list. I don’t know about you, but mine is long! My hope is that we are in this for the long haul, but it will al depend on the continued popularity of the line. We have some pretty cool ones coming in the next wave that I can’t wait for you to see.
Also, with the new helms shipping we have got our first in-hand photos of the base for the Skully helm. Here is one of N2Darkness photos of it. As you can see, the base is painted in a gloss finish instead of a matte like the older helms. I fell this could cause a problem with some collectors integrating them into their collections.Is there a reason why they are now a gloss instead of the original matte and can this be changed on future helms back to the matte?
That does indeed look quite glossy. Basically, it is due to us using a different factory. There also seems to be some variation within the run, as I have seen others that are more matte in finish. The three I bought for my own collection aren’t significantly different from my older helm bases. It has been flagged as an issue for our people to be aware of as we would prefer consistency. Thank you for bringing it to our attention.
I think you mentioned before that the BOTFA film will feature how Bilbo acquired those 2 swords crisscrossed on the wall opposite his study in Bag End. Any chance you can share any info on them?
It was the intention that they were war trophies from the Battle of Dale, though I don’t think Peter ever filmed anything specifically relating to him picking them up.
Azog's white warg matriarch was missing in the later part of the last film. Would you know if she was killed in that battle? The LOTR wikia page for the character states she was killed there in the extended edition. After reading that, I had the feeling Balin killed her with the turret mounted on the dwarf chariot when the other dwarves rode the rams up Ravenhill.
As far as I am aware her fate was left open and unseen. There were no scripted sequences with Azog on his Warg in the battle, so we are left to presume she was either waiting for him off camera or made herself busy somewhere else in the battle. I see the potential for some fan fiction, there. ;)
The orc that became the dungeon keeper kept showing up in the promotional material for the first film. In that film he was killed by Dwalin at the Battle of Azanulbizar. In the promotional pictures he's at Dol Guldur looking more zombified. Did PJ plan a subplot where this orc was probably resurrected by the Necromancer?
On the subject of the dungeon keeper, would you know how much footage Conan Stevens shot when he was still planned to play Azog/Bolg? There's a photo floating around where he originally faces Gandalf when the latter looks down at the orc army in Dol Guldur, but that's all that I've seen.
Indeed, that character design was originally going to be much more featured, which is why he ended up in so much of the prerelease material. The best place to look for more footage of him is in the Collector’s Edition of The Battle of the Five Armies appendices. If I recall correctly, there is a mini documentary in there that covers the progression of Azog and Bolg’s designs, including the Conan Stevens ‘Red’ Orc that would eventually become the Torturer of Dol Guldur.
As far as looking more zombified, that’s interpretation, I’m afraid. There was never a resurrection subplot. It’s meant to be the same character in the same state. We did indeed see him take a king hit from Dwalin at the Battle of Azanulbizar. Presumably he survived that injury and sutured his skull with crude metal plates, surviving another few decades to eventually get a job rattling cages in Dol Guldur. It’s too bad he picked a fight with the wrong She-Elf.
Furthering Snowmane's line of thinking:
Do you think we'll ever see footage of scenes like Bilbo digging up the treasure at the Trollshaws, the Morgul Blade being repossessed at DG, or the Dain / Bilbo scene that Philippa Boyens described in her Empire podcast interview? It's hard to complain given how incredible this franchise has been to its fans, the fact we get EE's at all is amazing. However I'd be ever-so-happy to fork over more money to buy something that includes all the rich deleted material from the Hobbit movies. Seems like there's lots more missing from the EEs than the LOTR films. Like Snowmane, I hope we get to see some of Conan Steven's scenes some day, even in rough form.
I’d love to see more cut material and alternate takes! I don’t know what Peter’s plans are for that, if he has any. I can only hope like the rest of you that we see it released, eventually.
On a collectibles note, how do things look for the 1:10 and 1:30 lines? I love that Weta is branching out into really cool next formats. I'd be very eager to collect the 1:10 figures.
Thanks Daniel! Can't wait to get your book later this year. Your Hobbit Chronicles series holds a cherished spot on my bookshelf.
Thank you. We try! More mini statues are coming for sure, and we hope to follow the launch waves of 1:30 with more if they perform well.
Just received my three new helms and they are beautiful! So happy to see the helm line continuing! And even if they're no longer metal, the quality can certainly not be questioned. They're gorgeous.
And the pamphlets included with each giving a behind-the-curtain peek at the design process are fantastic. Like mini Chronicles books!
Thank you! I will pass along your kind words to the rest of our team. We’re always looking for ways to bring more value to our pieces, especially as we face raising manufacturing costs that we have to pass along to you guys. The BTS inserts were my idea – a hopefully fun little surprise that gives some context and background to the designs. They’re really fun to put together. I was working on some new ones just this morning, as it happens. Anyhow, I am pleased to see they are being enjoyed.
I did have a quick question/observation. Two of the three have socket/plug connectors for mounting them on their bases rather than the old style rubber bulbs, I figured this was done because those two helms (Skully and Dain) were top-heavy and back-heavy respectively, so the socket/plug would keep them oriented correctly. But if you're looking for feedback, I would totally vote for all the helms using the socket/plug connector from here on out. As a purist and huge fan of the old helm line, I'm kind of shocked that I find myself preferring this, but I really do like it more. Especially given the lighter material. It's just more stable and convenient. Just my two cents.
I had received two of them and I was waiting to receive the third one (Wiki) to ask about the same thing, but on the oposite way you have done. It's the only thing I really dislike on the two helms I have received: the socket/plug connector. I prefer the old way to solve it (the rubber bulbs) because when I take the helm on my hands, I don't see the connector that there's on Skully and Dain helms. For me, the light material is not a problem to need the new connector, because the uruk General helms is lighter and is totally stable.
We make a call on this on a case by case basis. Our default plan is always to use a rubber plug, but in some instances we have to go for the plug and socket arrangement to provide enough stability for the helm. The same was true back in the days of metal helms, though we managed to get away with rubber plugs on almost all of those.
It's good that the WETA label (copyright) doesn't appears on the new helms (I dislike to see it on the uruk General helm).
Yeah, we have to have them, unfortunately, but we try to make them as inconspicuous as possible. It’s better on these new helms, for sure.
With Prime 1 now entering the 1/4 LotR statues market, do you feel challenged ? Or maybe not challenged but are you thinking about letting us fans and customers know more about your future plans ? I thought about the following: If Prime 1 would post a work in progress picture (like they just did with the Lurtz statue) of Haldir, i would definitely be interested because i don´t know if or when Weta is planning on doing a Haldir. So i get me a Prime 1 Haldir, just in case Weta decides to never do a Haldir. I can´t wait forever, right ? You know where i´m going with this question, right ? Are we going to learn about upcoming goodness any time soon ? I mean, Comic Con isn´t that far any more...
We intended to share work in progress pictures of some of our more recent statues, but due to resource issues it did not happen. It is still something we are hoping to do in the future, but as far as declaring what statues we are developing many months in advance, we prefer not to lead out so early, and in fact will be revealing new collectibles closer to their actual release date in future. San Diego Comic Con remains the main event for us as far as large numbers of new collectible reveals, but we will also be staggering additional debuts throughout the year. The realignment of our schedule to shorter previewing times paired with a number of high profile pieces that were shown or talked about very early in development (Grond, Eomer, etc) and subsequently encountered delays, has meant a long period of relative quiet this past eight months or so. It’s not the way we prefer to operate, and the next eight months should be noticeably different.
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Re: Merchandising de la Tierra Media
Iniciado por Panereta
ya tengo una litografia con su firma.. pero es chulísimo el boceto con la dedicatoria y firma, Enhorabuena!
Spoiler:
, me gustaría antes ver a Beorn en forma osuna o el Gran Trasgo para evitar tentaciones malsanas
]http://i230.photobucket.com/albums/ee264/Arangorn/20170416_184331.jpg[/IMG]
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