National Parks in the Style of Tolkien's Middle Earth Maps

Two things that go great together, for me at least, are maps and Tolkien. That seems to be the case for Dan Bell, an English artist who maps his homeland's national parks in an artistic style similar to the one in which Tolkien rendered Middle-Earth.

 visit his site.

 visit his site.

He works from open source maps, adding in such additional details, not always found in most national parks, as forests, Hobbit holes, towers, and castles. He's adapted the national parks of the United Kingdom as well as places like Oxford, London, Yellowstone National Park, and George R.R. Martin’s Westeros.

Just a disclaimer since he sells these maps, I'm not associated with him in any way.

The Hobbit Turns 80

via TOR.com

It was exactly 80 years ago that Bilbo went There and Back Again for the first time. Bilbo, the bravest little hobbit of them all.
And in two short months the Rank&Bass animated version will turn 40.

A quick note for hardcore fans of The Hobbit—those like me who reread and try to encourage others to read it—you should know that the excellent The Prancing Pony Podcast is about to embark on an in-depth discussion of the book, with each episode dedicated to a chapter.

Data Visualization of J.R.R. Tolkien's Works

Character Co-occurrence

An incredibly detailed analysis of how frequently words and characters appear in J.R.R. Tolkien's books. This was created over at Emil Johansson's Lord of the Rings Project, and has an extensive series of charts, maps, and genealogies analysing J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle Earth. It's obvious this is someone passionate about both Tolkien and data visualization who then went on to create an interactive analysis of Tolkien's books. Johansson's data-centered look at Tolkien's books is fascinating, for me anyway, and sometimes it reveals some real surprises about the books that we may not have seen so clearly otherwise.

The interactive page over at the lotrproject is a lot better because ... well it's interactive. So go check it out if you're a Tolkien fan like me.

Middle-Earth Inspired Fashion

I must say that I have mixed feelings upon viewing these. My first reaction was to chuckle, then I took a closer look, and I changed my mind. At least about the map inspired leggings and dress. I've always been a fan of maps.



See the full article here. In the meantime here are some of the visuals that caused the initial reaction.

For the jokers out there, yes I did notice who was wearing these fashions and how they looked.