Rivendell miniature environment

Part One of my 1:250 scale miniature of Rivendell from ‘The Lord of the Rings’

After months of planning making techniques, layout, design, and drawings, I began work on this mammoth task. This first part of a few is what we see in ‘The Hobbit’ where Bilbo and company visit the elven refuge. Comprising of an Entrance tower, Tapestry Gallery, and River Hall with adjoining walkways, bridges, staircases and courtyard.

This piece has been built on a wooden base and frame, with hand built buildings made from styrene, foam, resin and wood. All the rock work has been crafted from plaster, all hand sculpted to blend together. The model has been designed around LEDs, and so the buildings are open to show the internals as well as lights.

I needed a lot of flat textures such as different sizes of brickwork, stonework, and roof tiles, so I made small sections out of styrene and a few sculpted textures which I then moulded and cast in thin resin which could be machined and formed to whatever shape I needed.

The foliage was made by blending foam to different sizes as well as colouring sawdust. The trees were made from wire, with blended bark texture and foam foliage. I wanted as much colour as possible so I went for an autumnal colour scheme.

Painted using acrylic paints. The rivers and waterfalls will be made when everything is finished.