"J. Carlo made me" - the Garden-Dwarf story?

[Ranatuor_Erutron]

I was recently moving housing items about and noticed one of the Spring festival items, the Garden-Dwarf, had the following tooltip - "A lawn dwarf signed by its creater: J Carlo"

https://lotro-wiki.com/index.php/Item:Garden-dwarf

Aside the typo, does anyone know who the J. Carlo referenced is?
At first I thought it might be linked to Tolkien's friends who are (ingame) the Writers' Club (Carlo Williams, Jack Lewisdown and Owen Farfield) who represent the real-life "Inklings". But I'm not so sure now. There is a cartoonist and sculptor called J. Carlos, who Disney supposedly met. Could it be a nod to him?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Carlos

If so, why? And is the dwarf significant?

I love little Easter eggs in-game, I really miss that wonderful blog that was following them too.

More info on the Writers' Club:

https://lotro-wiki.com/index.php/The_Bird_and_Baby_Inn
https://lotro-wiki.com/index.php/Carlo_Williams
https://lotro-wiki.com/index.php/Jack_Lewisdown
https://lotro-wiki.com/index.php/Owen_Farfield

[Herwegur]

Correct me if I'm wrong. . . a tongue-in-cheek nod to the legendary woodcarver and puppetmaster, creator of Pinoccio.

The real-world author of that original tale bears the same first name (Carlo), whereas in some later versions of the story (including Aleksei Tolstoy's adaptation "Buratino") the fictional puppet-maker is named Carlo himself.

The J. part is surely an additional layer of inside-reference of some sort, perhaps the very same sculptor-cartoonist mentioned by OP. It all fits the wood-sculpting thematic.

Toy figures (wooden or otherwise) coming to life is not a foreign concept for Tolkien's imaginarium. There's Roverandom, there's Mr. Bliss, there's whimsical illustrations in Father Christmas series of garden-gnome-like figures, so why not something like this too? Whoever added this housing item (with a wink) knew where it's at.


Edit to add:
The garden dwarf Lotro item is wearing a low-level crafted light armor set, with literally piece by piece precision.
That J. Carlo fellow, he had good eye for details. /solemn_nod

[Ranatuor_Erutron]

Thanks Herwegur
I may ask next time Cord does a twitch event. I am still curious, and even with your wonderful detective work, we are still not there I think.

[Hallandil]

Thanks Herwegur
I may ask next time Cord does a twitch event. I am still curious, and even with your wonderful detective work, we are still not there I think.

Don't expect him to know, you're better off chasing it up with MadeOfLions.

[OldMadeOfLions]

Don't expect him to know, you're better off chasing it up with MadeOfLions.

I don't remember the specifics, but I was able to poke around the file history and learned that the garden dwarf was based on a player. More than that has been lost to time, I think, which strikes me as being particularly Middle-earthy.

MoL

[Ranatuor_Erutron]

Thank you both

And, yes, I think that is the best answer

I can make a blog post now

[Palenen]

Pinnochio's maker was named Geppeto of which I thought it was Giuseppi and had to look it up. Where is Nymph on this thread? She always makes me have flashbacks.

I do remember something about a Hobbit player dressed up as one a long time ago. Became known or popular. Or someone on the forums named Gnome?? Something.

[Nosdracir]

Pinnochio's maker was named Geppeto of which I thought it was Giuseppi and had to look it up. Where is Nymph on this thread? She always makes me have flashbacks.

I do remember something about a Hobbit player dressed up as one a long time ago. Became known or popular. Or someone on the forums named Gnome?? Something.

Found the pic of JeanCarlo as a garden gnome, upper left image:

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/360428776419069419/







(Um, and Nymphonic is rather un-she-ish. ).

[Ranatuor_Erutron]

Guys, you are all genius!

I've tracked down the thread where that photo probably would have been posted.

https://www.lotro.com/forums/showthr...osmetic-outfit

Forum member JeanCarlo of Windfola (https://www.lotro.com/forums/member....8926-JeanCarlo) posted pretty much at the start of the thread (there could be later posts too), but the images were hosted on Photobucket and it seems the account is now gone. Yay for Pinterest! So we have our story now!

Sadly, it looks like they haven't visited the forums since 2012

I'll make a little blog post (and put it in here), nice Easter Egg

Edit: Found the actual post on the forum - https://www.lotro.com/forums/showthr...06#post3926406 (note the picture is now missing, as explained above)

[Palenen]

Found the pic of JeanCarlo as a garden gnome, upper left image:

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/360428776419069419/

Yep that's it! Thanks.

(Um, and Nymphonic is rather un-she-ish. ).

Oops. Apologies. I was mislead.

[Ranatuor_Erutron]

No, you really helped

And the blog is now up -

http://greenbookofthewhitedowns.blog...-of-gnome.html

[Starliteyes]

No, you really helped

And the blog is now up -

http://greenbookofthewhitedowns.blog...-of-gnome.html

Nice collection of stories! Thank you for sharing your creativity!

[Olgomil]

http://greenbookofthewhitedowns.blog...-of-gnome.html

Nice entry, i love LOTRO easter eggs!

Sergio :-)

[Nosdracir]

No, you really helped

And the blog is now up -

http://greenbookofthewhitedowns.blog...-of-gnome.html

Nice work recovering this statue's story from the great un-gnome.

[Ranatuor_Erutron]

Nice work recovering this statue's story from the great un-gnome.

Ba-da-tish!

[shadowrider97]

Jean carlo was a fellow member of The Watch on Winfola way way back when from the times of beta. Pretty sure it was some kind of a contest that got the gnome made in his likeness. Pretty good hunter, but we didn't get along well LOL, yall are making me feel old.

[Ranatuor_Erutron]

Thanks for that info, adds a little more to the story!

[Palenen]

Thanks for that info, adds a little more to the story!

Appreciate the mention but reading it all, I have to say it couldn't have been a Hobbit.

Thank you for drumming up old memories. There is an item in game everyone knows about. Imagine clicking on the 'Inn League Keg' when the game was 1-50, When crit'd crafted gear was top, When signatures roamed the lands and when Kinships held fishing events in Homesteads. When you would get lost in The Old Forest, Become terrified of The Black Rider of Budgeford and getting help to kill spiders at the Quary of Scary. Ah the memories that will never be taken away.

[Sito_Origami]

https://lotro-wiki.com/index.php/Item:Garden-dwarf

Is someone going to update the wiki so others can share this info?

[Ranatuor_Erutron]

Thought it would apt to bring this one back up, since Spring festival is here and the item is available again