The Shire:

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Eriador

Rivendell

The Mines of Moria:

Mirkwood

The Anduin

Rohan

Morgul Vale:

Mordor:

The Sawdust of the Past

The Making of...

Scenery Workshop:

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The making of Barad-Dûr

Part three

© Lotrscenerybuilder 2009

VII. 'Cruel pinnacles' (June 25 - July 16)

"This is the grim base of the even grimmer Tower of Barad-dûr which is Sauron's earthly abode; and it's the image of his soul to some extent; and the only way to extrapolate on a design like that is simply to take it higher and make it pointier and make it bigger and huger…" (John Howe, in: "The Appendices", Part 4)



The curtain wall was only the beginning. No fewer than eleven smaller towers had to be built to complete the outer defences. We started to work on the two turrets that flank the main tower of Barad-dûr. At once we ran up against these 'staggered rib crossings' which we knew so well from the two watchtowers of the Black Gate: an architectural artifice to make two vertical wall-ribs merging into a single one. The problem is not with the ribs, it's with the crossings. We decided to carve them out from a couple of small, circular discs of 15mm MDF.



MDF was also used for the ribs of the tower shaft, which were glued together at an angle of 60 degrees with the help of a simple lay-out.



But when completed, the result wasn't to our liking…



…so we had another try. This time we used 10mm MDF discs. The shaping of the crossings with a hobby knife proved to be an easy job. Once the marker guidelines were drawn onto the discs it became a matter of removing the wood in between. As you can see, we made these alternating V-shaped notches on both sides.

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