Madshobbithole
May 15, 2010 7:29 PM   Subscribe

My name is Maddie Chambers and this all began when I was a young child and read the Hobbit for the first time. And so, a year later I have a nearly finished replica of Bag End. I still have quite a bit of work to do on it, but I think it can be classed as an ongoing project that I can improve over the years (yes I am a perfectionist when it comes to things that I make!)
posted by Fizz (46 comments total) 31 users marked this as a favorite
 
Wow.
posted by oddman at 7:42 PM on May 15, 2010


I love this.

Well, except for this bit : "More flooring laid – the stone was the hardest because the pieces are not even sizes so trying to get them fitted into the space was not easy for my ‘girl’ brain"

I'd also like to know how she kept her twin toddler boys away from it, I can't imagine anything more tempting.
posted by HopperFan at 7:43 PM on May 15, 2010 [1 favorite]


Holy crap. The more I looked, the more I was amazed. And then I saw her main blog and the Matrix costume pictures, her having two twin boys - damn. It's already impressive to make that, and to have two little ready to ruinits around plus a couple of dogs - well damn. When I saw this picture I realized I hope she decides to do the Nostromo.
posted by cashman at 7:44 PM on May 15, 2010


One of those links that, initially, the snark light goes on...then, just like Peter Pan, you end up saying "good for you!".

Neat...
posted by HuronBob at 7:44 PM on May 15, 2010


I'd also like to know how she kept her twin toddler boys away from it, I can't imagine anything more tempting.

Well, there's this ring, and it makes the house invisible...

A mighty nifty dollhouse.
posted by thomas j wise at 7:46 PM on May 15, 2010 [1 favorite]


Oh, just a model, then? Maddie ain't got nothing on this sucker.
posted by leotrotsky at 7:47 PM on May 15, 2010 [1 favorite]


I wish people who made spectacular pieces of art based on famous pieces of literature would read the books first.
posted by darksasami at 7:52 PM on May 15, 2010


I was disappointed to learn it was a model. Pretty enough, although I don't think of Bag's End as having square rooms.
posted by Jimmy Havok at 7:58 PM on May 15, 2010


Mad shobbith? olé!
posted by Devils Rancher at 8:05 PM on May 15, 2010 [1 favorite]


I think I love this woman.
posted by strixus at 8:12 PM on May 15, 2010 [1 favorite]


Not a LotR fan, but that's some pretty wonderful stuff. Totally made my day, thanks!
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 8:13 PM on May 15, 2010


That is awesome.

*links to all miniature-painting friends*
posted by Xany at 8:16 PM on May 15, 2010


Too feminine. Bilbo was a bachelor, the home of an old explorer, not an architecture magazine cover-page showcase. It's not in her nature, but it needs stains, broken things, dust and cobwebs, weathered carpet (even if she worked hard on making it) etc. use some tips from the railroad and military modelers. Right now it looks good, but it looks like a dollhouse. With some modeling tricks it could look like the real thing. In fact the movie used a scale model for some of the interior shots.
posted by stbalbach at 8:18 PM on May 15, 2010 [4 favorites]


There's a small town in Michigan with some unique houses... y'all will like these.
posted by HuronBob at 8:19 PM on May 15, 2010 [1 favorite]


I knew Hobbits liked to eat, but damn.
posted by longsleeves at 8:19 PM on May 15, 2010 [2 favorites]


I wish people who made spectacular pieces of art based on famous pieces of literature would read the books first.

"My Nanan lent me her copy of the Lord of the Rings about 1 year later and I remember thinking that the trilogy leaped into a far more complex world and one that I completely lost myself in. I have read Lord of the Rings about 20+ times now and each time it holds as much magic as the first time."

I wish people who snark would read the links first.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 8:30 PM on May 15, 2010 [49 favorites]


I hear Peter Jackson has the human-sized version of Bag-End in storage awaiting a new hillside for it to be installed into. (The hobbit-sized one is too small for normal people to walk around in, so I think that was destroyed.)
posted by hippybear at 8:47 PM on May 15, 2010


"I knew Hobbits liked to eat, but damn."

How would he keep the mice and bugs out of there?
posted by Kevin Street at 8:56 PM on May 15, 2010


So awesome, I want to live in it!
posted by meringue at 9:37 PM on May 15, 2010


The door opened on to a tube-shaped hall like a tunnel: a very comfortable tunnel without smoke, with panelled walls, and floors tiled and carpeted, provided with polished chairs, and lots and lots of pegs for hats and coats--the hobbit was fond of visitors.

--The Hobbit, page 1

You were saying, PhoBWan?
posted by darksasami at 9:39 PM on May 15, 2010 [3 favorites]


It makes me a little sad that people (myself included) are now unable to think of Bag End as an entity distinct from its depiction in the Peter Jackson movies.

This is the tyranny of the visual: even the best film versions of great fiction are, in a sense, destructive. They worm their way into our private imaginings of the things they depict, until even our most vivid mental images of something like Bag End cannot stand against them or at least apart from them. I'll never again be able to read about Elrond without a brief flash of Hugo Weaving, nor think of Galadriel without Cate Blanchett, nor of Gollum at Cirith Ungol without a flickering, however brief, of Andy Serkiss. All of these places that were so real and alive as to be almost tangible to me before those movies came out, well, they remain so, but they're forever infected or inflected by them. It really is a little sad.
posted by killdevil at 9:44 PM on May 15, 2010 [9 favorites]


Maddie Chambers does Behind the Round Green Door.
posted by pracowity at 9:47 PM on May 15, 2010 [4 favorites]


Here's another model hobbit house.
posted by stbalbach at 10:21 PM on May 15, 2010 [1 favorite]


What a charming obsession.
posted by Cranberry at 10:35 PM on May 15, 2010


You were saying, PhoBWan?

Uh no.. you said she didn't read the book, in fact she did, 20+ times. Ok so maybe you were saying it's not exactly like the book, but she says her model is an "ongoing project that I can improve over the years" (emphasis added). As it turns out, making rounded walls is very very hard. I remember reading about this when they were making the set for the movie, it was the hardest part of the hobbit house set. Give her a break, no need to unfairly bash her for not reading the books (she did), or not making an exact replica (she says its still being worked on). If you want to criticize, make it constructive without personal attacks and snark.
posted by stbalbach at 10:41 PM on May 15, 2010 [7 favorites]


Wonderful work. But I hope that's not meant to be a pump dispenser bottle at the rear right.
posted by George_Spiggott at 11:12 PM on May 15, 2010


killdevil: The Fellowship Of The Ring movie was so spot-on in so many ways, I found myself transported to a sense of childlike wonderment which I had never expected to feel again in my life. So many of the depictions were exactly as they should have been, for me anyway. As the series progressed, that sensation was visited less and less upon me. But that first movie, it's nearly perfect. (The first few times I saw the horses in the water foam at the Ford, I burst into really heavy weeping -- it was just so entirely what my brain had always envisioned, I felt like I was watching an envisioned dream on the screen.)

But I know what you're saying. It's now difficult to separate the books from the films. But that speaks to the power of both of those media, I think.
posted by hippybear at 11:29 PM on May 15, 2010 [3 favorites]


stbalbach, bilbo was be a bachelor, but he could easily have been anally retentive.
posted by the noob at 12:16 AM on May 16, 2010


My address is 5 Baggins End; shit you not.

The model is cool. She says straight up that it's a recreation of the one from the film, so no fault there. I am a bit saddened that the statue of Gandalf riding Shadowfax depicts a horse with only four legs, though.
posted by kaibutsu at 1:33 AM on May 16, 2010


Also, this is very strong evidence that we need to get more girls playing Warhammer.
posted by kaibutsu at 1:39 AM on May 16, 2010 [2 favorites]


All of these places that were so real and alive as to be almost tangible to me before those movies came out, well, they remain so, but they're forever infected or inflected by them. It really is a little sad.

This is more or less the reason author Jo Walton hates the very idea of the LOTR movies and essentially refuses to acknowledge their existence, much less view them.
posted by Justinian at 1:42 AM on May 16, 2010


After recently moving chairs, couches ,desks and a piano I could really get behind the idea of round doorways.
posted by Tenuki at 3:38 AM on May 16, 2010 [3 favorites]


Though I'm a 'big enough' Lord of the Rings fan to be interested and have the dexterity of slow-witted thumbless monkey donkey so have to be amazed by miniture work, this strikes me in another way too:

When my boyfriend moved back to Chicago, we started putting together this 1000 piece Bart Simpson puzzle so we wouldn't get into that bad habit of wasting too much time while watching TV. Yes, I know that seems silly but we figured that it was a small start to avoid a bigger problem.

Because of cats who are certainly of the type that curiosity killed and eyesight that is failing far too much for 30-somethings and other projects we decided we needed the table for, we quit after two weeks.

Is this what people who can actually stick to something they start get to have when they're done? Must be nice.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 4:06 AM on May 16, 2010


After the movies I reread the books trying to erase Jackson's mental images and restore the stuff he skipped. I should probably do so again, and include the Hobbit too.

Jackson's Hobbiton was pretty good, though (the fireworks dragon over the lake was brilliant), so I can appreciate this project more than say... the big hall of pillars in Moria with spiderman goblins, or overly grim Minas Tirith with the fields of Pelennor interpreted as a scubby wasteland running right up to the walls, or yeah pretty much any of the rest of it.
posted by fleacircus at 5:01 AM on May 16, 2010


This is awesome and if she didn't already have a husband and twins, I would gladly volunteer to have children with her.
posted by Joey Michaels at 5:16 AM on May 16, 2010 [1 favorite]


Not to quibble, but the front hallway needs at least 13 pegs for hanging up dwarf cloaks. Well OK, I'm quibbling. Whatcha gonna do about it, huh?

Seriously, very nice. Amazing detail.
posted by lordrunningclam at 5:33 AM on May 16, 2010


Aw, I thought this was life-sized. In any case, this is one amazing piece of work!

Also, I have to agree that when I read LoTR now the movies do pop into my head, but mostly only Fellowship. Hobbiton, Bag End, Bree, Rivendell, and especially Moria, were all done exceedingly well and they fit very nicely with my imaginings. The next two movies sort of miss it, I was very disappointed with Minas Tirith: the tissue paper city where a single boulder causes towers to asplode.
posted by Vindaloo at 6:15 AM on May 16, 2010 [1 favorite]


If the modeler had gone with rounded walls, wouldn't it either make accessing the rooms far more difficult, or require walls that only went, say, halfway up to the ceiling?
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 7:11 AM on May 16, 2010


Well, except for this bit : "More flooring laid – the stone was the hardest because the pieces are not even sizes so trying to get them fitted into the space was not easy for my ‘girl’ brain"

I would have liked her blog so much more with a few less "LOL"s but I bow to her mastery of the miniature. The time and attention to detail is awesome and inspiring; I've been thinking for a couple of years that I would like to make a birdhouse with a hobbit house exterior and this might be the inspiration that I need. I agree that there are a number of details that I find jarring or inexplicable but it is a very personal project and as long as she is satisfied with the details, the rest of us can only sit back and enjoy the spectacle.
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 7:38 AM on May 16, 2010


I don't mean to be weird about this or anything, but it's pretty obvious that I need to be married to this woman immediately.

Also, I call "shenanigans" on attractive single women who have ever played Warhammer ever in their entire lives ever, twin toddlers or no.
posted by Poppa Bear at 9:23 AM on May 16, 2010


I absolutely love it and someone mentioned that it was not as good as a real life thing. I would think that this takes even more artistry and talent because of its reduced size.
posted by Fizz at 10:32 AM on May 16, 2010 [1 favorite]


Here is how much of a nerd I am.

I kept looking at the pictures going -- did hobbits have clocks? I don't remember clocks in middle earth. Apparently he did have a clock on his mantelpiece, though.
posted by empath at 10:38 AM on May 16, 2010


Wow.
posted by LobsterMitten at 10:55 AM on May 16, 2010


Too feminine. Bilbo was a bachelor, the home of an old explorer, not an architecture magazine cover-page showcase. It's not in her nature, but it needs stains, broken things, dust and cobwebs, weathered carpet

But Bilbo did dust!

"'Great elephants,' said Gandalf, 'you are not at all yourself this morning--you have never dusted the mantelpiece!'" (page 29, The Hobbit)

This model is amazing.
posted by mmmbacon at 11:15 AM on May 16, 2010


To those complaining that the walls are not round, she acknowledges that at the end of the blog, stating that she did not have the space, equipment or know-how to do it properly, especially since she wanted to be able to take off the roof and access the interior.

This is very impressive work.
posted by sandraregina at 4:29 PM on May 16, 2010


When I re-read the books, it's the Lord of the Rings Online locations that I see in my head. I read a passage and think Hey, I know that tree! or I've been there!. It's a very well-detailed game.

And this? This is awesome, in both senses of the word.
posted by grubi at 7:21 PM on May 16, 2010


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