Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1500164
1 0 0 P E R S P E C T I V E | M AY / J U N E 2 0 2 3 Richard Taylor pops his head around the doorway of the meeting room at Weta Workshop where a few of us are gathered to discuss an unexpected opportunity and asks, "Do you guys want to go back?" The answer from the room unanimous. He was referring to Amazon's new series, The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, and we were jumping back into Middle-earth, twenty-three years since we first set out on Peter Jackson's trilogy. Matt Cornelius (prop master) brought me on as weapons master to head up that effort. Production Designer Ramsey Avery joined the fray, probably later than he would have liked, but he had his bearings instantly and provided us with a clear vision of where we were heading in unveiling the second age of Middle-earth. Ramsey provided the roadmap, the reference, M i d d l e - E a r t h W e a p o n s f o r a N e w A g e F O R M I N G D E A D L Y C H A R A C T E R S B Y J O E D U N C K L E Y, W E A P O N S M A S T E R the influences, the backstories grounded in the original text. Ramsey and costume designer Kate Hawley worked with show runners Patrick McKay and JD Payne to define the cultures and align the departments in a coherent aesthetic direction, setting the parameters. Matt and I processed the direction, fleshing it out and collaborating at every turn. Working with Weta Workshop Art Directors Jeremy Hanna, Stephen Crowe and Vaughan Flanagan, we then began a design journey that would see over twenty-five hundred pieces of art generated and fifteen hundred weapons produced (plus twenty-five hundred arrows). A world familiar to us at Weta Workshop, we knew the weapons in Tolkien's work are often more than a character prop to complete a look or serve a function of action. Aeglos, Glamdring, Narsil, Sting. The weapons in A. ARANRÚTH. DESIGNED IN PHOTOSHOP BY VAUGHAN FLANAGAN. B. ARANRÚTH. MODELLED IN MAYA AND ZBRUSH BY RYAN SERRANO. BLADE MILLED BY NATE CASTRO, FINISHED BY SWORD SMITH CHRIS MENGES. ASSEMBLY, AGING AND GEM SETTING PAUL VAN OMEN. PAINT BY CHRIS HUNT. A B