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The making of Barad-Dûr
Part four
© Lotrscenerybuilder 2009
IX. 'Between smoking chasms' (July 25 - 27)
'Ever and anon the furnaces far below the ashen cone [of Orodruin] would grow hot and with a great surging and throbbing pour forth rivers of molten rock from chasms in its sides. Some would flow blazing towards Barad-dûr down great channels; some would wind their way into the stony plain, until they cooled and lay like twisted dragon-shapes vomited from the tormented earth'.
(from: The Return of the King, page 208)
The Gorgoroth surface was broken into pieces and then put together again like a jig-saw puzzle to create the cracks of the 'tormented earth'.
Next, Sauron's Road and the lava channel were installed, both making up the MSR (Mordor Supply Route) that runs from the Sammath Naur to Barad-dûr.
Polyurethane cliffs were added.
It is told in "The Downfall of Númenor" that Sauron was envious of the splendour of the Lords of the West and that he was astounded when he first looked upon their lands ('The Silmarillion', pages 321, 326). This makes it plausible that Sauron took pains to 'embellish' the hot spots of his dark realm with triumphal arches, horns, spires and the like. Both in the 'Shire-Baggins!'-scene and that of the 'Union of the two towers' there are glimpses of these two monumental structures that signpost the end of the MSR.
The Rub' al Khali in splendid isolation with the Fellowship marching in.
It is only when you realize that all these tiny dots of light that are moving towards the bridgehead are actually torches, carried by many thousands of Orcs, that you get an understanding of the colossal dimensions of these structures (for an incoming Orc, it must have been as if he was beholding la Grande Arche de Paris and the Gateway Arch of St. Louis at a glance). Nevertheless, these Megastructures must have paled into insignificance beside the bulk of the fortress behind it (it wouldn't surprise us if you haven't spotted them yet on our pictures…).
Needless to say it took several hours to think out a construction plan for these arches and less than thirty minutes to get them actually built.
We ended up right back where we started. Some last-minute improvements were applied to the twin horns: to mimic the metal plating against the outward faces, small vertical strips of cardboard were added. For a moment we feared that they would wreck the wicked shape of the tower but rather the opposite happened: somehow they gave a harsher look to the pinnacle without becoming too showy themselves.
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