Minas Tirith Made From Matchsticks

Minas Tirith was always the better Minas. Not because good is better than evil which can actually be debated, and not because it looks cooler, which can also be argued against. But because it’s the capital of Gondor, dude! And you can’t dispute that.

For the 3 of you that don’t know what I’m talking about, Minas Tirith is the legendary site of the final battle between the dark forces of Sauron and everyone else in Middle Earth. I’m not gonna say who won, but you’ll probably be happy if you’re a fan of Viggo Mortensen.

 

So anyway, just to prove he was a bigger fan of Lord of the Rings than anyone else in the world, a local man from Iowa decided he’d recreate the castle city as it was visualized by Peter Jackson’s theatrical design crew (but not necessarily as staunch Tolkien fans might have done it), and with painstaking detail he came up with this simply amazing piece of work.

This incredible labor of fantasy love is the work of Patrick Acton, an artist and avid LOTR fan, who also by the way rendered Harry Potter’s Hogwarts in a similar vein. It took Acton nearly 3 years of his life to finish the project and to the delight of boys everywhere made it look so true to life you wonder if he wasn’t living on the Gondor plains all his life.

His preferred medium is non-sulfur tip matches and uses pliers to crimp the tiny pieces into shape. He then glues everything together just as he wants. And after hours of mindbogglingly detailed and painstaking work, he’ll only have one more piece to glue on to the top of the citadel itself.

 

If you’re interested in seeing all 420,000 matchsticks that make up Minas Tirith in person, it’ll be on display at the Matchstick Marvels Tourist Center until next year.

Photos by doryfour and the Matchstick Marvels webpage.

Source : http://www.tentimesone.com