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A country path

Imagine starting a Minecraft project 10 years ago and then hearing an ex-Rockstar dev who worked on RDR2 say "you're using the same workflows that the mainstream game studios employ - all arrived at in relative isolation..." 🥹

Minas Tirith looming over the countryside

An ex-Rockstar Games environment artist who worked on #RDR2 and #GTAV has been exploring our vision of Middle-earth 🧙‍♂️ These are fantastic videos that really capture the fact that we're trying to do environmental art just like the pros! youtu.be/1KUQGZLrZ3Q

AND SO IT BEGINS!! @tearreader.bsky.social and I will be trekking through minecraft middle earth (server created by @ardacraft.bsky.social and following the steps of Frodo and Sam!! #minecraft #lotr CAN'T WAIT TO SEE YOU GUYS!!! STREAM STARTS AT 11:00 AM (PST) / 2:00 PM (EST)

PPP Moot is happening this December 18th-21st! We have a full schedule – keynotes, presentations, papers, entertainments and other digressions – from Thursday evening to Sunday noon for both in-person and online attendees!

I can’t even avoid idiot AI bros when I go to Oxford. My brother in Earendil ChatGPT is not the same thing as the steam engine.

Gondorian countryside

The Great Gate of Minas Tirith

Really quite disheartening and disappointing to see the Tolkien Society hosting a discussion on “AI in fantasy filmmaking” this year at Oxonmoot. It feels about as morally and philosophically opposed to Tolkien’s work as a talk on the benefits of deforestation.

Some recent shots - Minas Tirith, Bree, and the Dead Marshes

We've just released a 1hr37 music and nature ambience video set in the Gondorian countryside! Perfect background to writing, reading, or building fields on ArdaCraft 🌱 youtu.be/49vt6MgVIBM

Gondor is coming along nicely.

The Blue Mountains - based on the landscapes of Scotland and Norway

The Blue Mountains getting a bit of a facelift #Minecraft

Looking eastward into the sunrise from Bree-hill, with the dim outline of Weathertop visible in the distance.

Vignettes of life in rural Gondor

The mountains of the north

We're making upgrades.

Quite chuffed to have been shortlisted in the Tolkien Society Awards this year alongside some truly excellent creators - @digitaltolkien.com @podcast.athrabeth.com @teawithtolkien.bsky.social and Jordan Rannells of 'An Unexpected Soundscape'💙 www.tolkiensociety.org/2025/04/vote...

The works of old Gondor

Looking south towards the Emyn Muil

The West-march of Rohan

🚨NEW EPISODE🚨 💥The Road To 1066: Anglo-Saxon Apocalypse💥 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿The Norman Conquest was England’s great turning point, but its origins stretch back nearly a century before. A succession crisis in 975 AD, the return of the Vikings, and a desperate king’s bloody massacre all set the stage for 1066...

Having a hard time getting over a line in Rings of Power where Sauron tells soldiers to "prepare for ground assault." Like, what other kind of assault were they preparing for? Orcish air assault? (The line is stolen from The Empire Strikes Back, word for word, where it makes a lot more sense).

A few recent WIP landscape shots from around Middle-earth

Hanging out with the lads in Moria

This week on the blog! Who needs siege camps? We continue our look at the hot mess that is Rings of Power's Siege of Eregion. Adar's siege works are a jumbled, useless mess that makes his army more vulnerable, not less: but what would useful siege works look like? acoup.blog/2025/02/28/c...

New mug acquired

Mist lies over the Marish, with Brandy Hall rising in the background.

Last year we presented our work live to @tolkiensociety.org in Oxford - and now we can make that talk available to the public! Thank you to everyone who attended live and online - it was a fantastic experience. youtu.be/oZ_PdVkonGg

"I think in his heart, Frodo is still in love with the Shire… The woods, the fields… the little rivers…"

"...a green hill thronged with mallorn-trees taller than any they had yet seen. Their height could not be guessed, but they stood up in the twilight like living towers. In their many-tiered branches amid their ever-moving leaves countless lights were gleaming, green and gold and silver..."

An interactive version of our Middle-earth biome map has just launched! This tool allows you to inspect any area of Middle-earth and get a detailed list of the plant species that would occur in each area, along with a bunch of reference pictures. www.micahvanderlugt.com/middle-earth...

We’re now able to see a few orders of magnitude further across Middle-earth than was ever previously possible - here’s how that looks:

The Othram is taking shape.

Rohan (but it actually has farmland)

War of the Rohirrim was good! But there were some sins against the gods of logistics and tactics that would have @bretdevereaux.bsky.social clawing at the walls 😅

It’s cool when our 10-year anniversary video - - with builds and textures we spent a decade on - with music we composed ourselves - with our own voices narrating it is classed as “unoriginal content” by TikTok so that we miss out on 374k views’ worth of revenue

Dreaming of Gondor

"...imaginatively this ‘history’ is supposed to take place in a period of the actual Old World of this planet." It's time for a🧵 on how we achieve the natural vegetation of Middle-earth. Tolkien was inspired by the natural landscapes of Europe - this was our starting point.

Unfortunately Twitter seems to retain a better engagement rate than Bluesky for us. The engagement rate (followers vs. likes) of two (identical) posts on both platforms: Twitter: 4.16% vs Bluesky: 3.47% Twitter: 6.83% vs Bluesky: 2.84% Perhaps Twitter still favours image-based posts?

WORLDWIDE PREMIERE - new #Tolkien documentary. "Tolkien: The True Story of the Rings" Available: Dec 5th, 2024, 5am CET [DE|EN|FR] I am one of the scholars you will see in this. 🤩 www.arte.tv/en/videos/11...

The Tower of Ecthelion, standing high within the topmost wall, shone out against the sky... white banners broke and fluttered from the battlements in the morning breeze, and high and far he heard a clear ringing as of silver trumpets.