Ma Mian (with Li of Gladden)

Ma Mian, translating to "Horse Face," in Chinese mythology is one of the two guardians - together with Ox Head - of the Underworld. In many stories, it is they who escort the recently deceased to the Underworld for judgement, punishment, cleansing, and finally reincarnation. 

Okay I have to say that Li may be my current favourite guest contributor as 1) she keeps using Chinese themes in her outfits (friends of mine can vouch for my intense fascination and obsession with the culture), and 2) the sheer absurdity that she makes look acceptable I find simply astonishing! I mean, she walks around with a donkey mask pretending to be a guardian of the Underworld who canonically has a horse for a face. And just look at that super weird colour scheme for an entity that escorts you to the Underworld! 

Another brilliant thing Li did was to use a horse-themed shield to reinforce the point that her outfit is meant to have a horse face and not a donkey's. It's the little things that really matter! Besides that, the spear she chose is slightly reminiscent of a trident, one of the canonical weapons born by Ox Head and Horse Face. The dedication to detail of my favourite culture is simply what makes me so excited every time Li comes up with something new!

Li suggested the Barrow-downs as the location for the photoshoot, and I recalled the time Gildomir had his pictures taken here. It really is phenomenal to see the differences and similarities between both outfits and their impact on their surrounding environment. For starters, both have a goofy side to them, using a silly head piece. On the other hand, they both represent, to many, fear and terror and death. Plus, the stark contrast in their colour scheme is intriguing as well: Gildomir's outfit featured typical Halloween colours (black, orange, & green) whereas Li's Ma Mian outfit takes inspiration from statues of Horse Face around Asia, such as shrines in Taiwan and Singapore, using much lighter and a more colourful palette, one not typically associated with terror. As always, well done, Li!

Head: Donkey Mask (white);

Shoulders: Ceremonial Shoulders of the Mighty Verse (bullroarer's green)

Chest: Lore-keeper's Robe (belegaer blue);

Feet: Ragged Leather Boots (black).

Exploiting Eadyth

So, without cheating, try to guess why I called this outfit "exploiting."

I've always wanted leg pieces in LOTRO that didn't cover the entire leg. I feel that having different lengths gives us a much more vast range of dynamic of the outfits that we make, and in this one here, I think that is achieved. Some of the only pieces that shows some leg are the two Beorning starter armour pieces, as well as the Jacket of Anorien Justice, which has a pretty bland colour palette. 

Here, however, is the Leggings of the Anorien Tree, which for some reason glitches out and shows us the undergarments skin instead. The best part about it is that it's dyeable, so it gives us an ability we would otherwise not have with simply not wearing a pants armour. Of course, due to its ability to be dyed, one might question whether it was a glitch at all or just a strange design choice. Indeed it is very weird a design choice, so to me I believe it is a glitch that just so happens to work in our favour.

The problem then becomes the question of when they'll notice this and when they'll fix it, if they choose to, because at its most basic it is an exploit of a glitch. However, I remain hopeful that they, if they do fix this, realise how more diverse outfitting could be and begin introducing skin-revealing leg pieces in the future.

Back: Sturdy Dwarf-make Quiver (bullroarer green);

Chest: Everstout (black);

Hands: Rugged Rock-Climber's Gloves (orange);

Legs: Leggings of the Anorien Tree (olive);

Feet: Ceremonial Neunial's Boots (olive).

Nature's Nurture (with Wjiyeon of Gladden)

Again another pretty cool outfit by Wjiyeon, this time combining pieces from all over Middle-earth; from low level gear to Dunland quest rewards, to random drops and skirmish camp barters, she brings them all together into a great outfit.

I can't be certain about it now (because the idea is already planted in my head), but I might now have thought about using colour combinations like this before receiving the screenshots. I just never thought about putting ranger green and olive together as to me, they're both really different colours. To be fair, I have done really different colours before, but ranger green and olive are just too different hues of the same colour for me. This outfit blends the two perfectly, though.

Together with her pet bear, Wjiyeon's outfit looks like it's perfectly crafted for the Bree landscape - I don't know how to put it into words but it just seems like it might even be an NPC outfit(?). I guess some of it comes from the chest piece having an old armour skin that was designed during the Shadows of Angmar era where Bree-land was one of the few 'normal' mannish areas (okay, at this point I'm probably making stuff up all for the justification, but you can't deny that the outfit blends in perfectly!)

Despite the cloak having tengwar inscribed upon it, it doesn't feel too Elvish to me at least, I think mostly due to its shade of green - and luckily for Wjiyeon, its undyeable hue translated well to the concept behind this outfit. My absolute favourite thing of this outfit, though, is how little it is compared to many others on this blog - only four pieces are used, and of those four pieces, the shirt is short-sleeved and the cloak is short. It's just a cool feature to me.

Back: Coldbane

Chest: Shirt of Determination (olive);

Legs: Threadbare Leggings of the Dunland Healer (ranger green);

Feet: Ceremonial Doom-hunter's Boots (default).

A Coarse Kinship (with Jularr of Gladden)

The hunter Jularr is forced to interact with all races in Middle-earth, and while he is not racist himself, the historical feud between elves and dwarves doesn't make it easy for him to travel and form relations. Because of that, he tries his best to make an appealing first impression by adorning their cloth.

Gotta say, I never thought ranger green dye would look this classy on an outfit, and I have never seen such a combination of colours. To be honest, although Jularr's last outfit was entitled Controversial Clothing, all save the first of his outfits seem pretty controversial. This one isn't the most, but the colour scheme sure is one you don't see every day, I don't think.

I know it's a Mordor drop, but the leafy patterns on the chestpiece reminds me of the elves a lot, so great job on the detail there, Jularr! Not to mention the boots, being an Ithilien piece, also has flora-esque elements to it, at least it seems to me. That's all pretty cool, but I think I admire the most Jularr's decision to leave his head exposed, again - most times in my outfits I almost always use every slot available, but Jularr shows that less can sometimes be more, and if absence serves the outfit, then you've got yourself the better decision to make.

Back: Festival Azure Cloak (violet);

Chest: Woven Vest of the Last Alliance (ranger green);

Hands: Ceremonial Spear-shaker's Gauntlets (rust);

Feet: Brushed Boots of the Ithilien Path-finder (rust).

Spear of Shu (with Li of Gladden)

Li returns with another Dynasty Warriors inspired outfit! This time she runs around as a soldier of Shu under Liu Bei's command with an outfit inspired by various designs of Shu characters.

Once again, I think this is a great outfit that captured as much as possible the essence of Ancient China with what limited armour pieces we have in LOTRO regarding style. Plus, the boots that came from the LOTRO Anniversary dragon-styled outfit make that reference to Dynasty Warriors' Shu very well as their symbol is the dragon, in tribute to the nickname for Guan Yu's weapon.

When I last played a Dynasty Warriors game, I played on Xing Cai a lot, and that meant I was playing the Bai Di castle level quite a bit. That's why I asked Li if she minded taking the screenshots at a castle-like structure in reference to that, and she was so nice to oblige me! But I think she also knew the outfit would look great within ruined walls, complimenting the rich green that adorned her cloth.

Now the feathers on her helm are nowhere near long enough, but her design sort of reminds me of Ma Chao in the games, I think particularly because she uses a spear also. Also might I say that helmet is beautiful and I can't wait to get my hands on it as soon as possible! 

I personally think I find this outfit more appealing than her last one (which was amazing too, don't get me wrong), but it may boil down simply to my soft spot for Shu as they were portrayed in the game. Nonetheless, now that she has already submitted three Dynasty Warriors inspired outfits, I hope she continues this trend, and I'm not afraid to admit it!

Head: Helm of the Slayer's Raiment;

SHoulders: Fine Camail of the Expedition's Vanguard (gold);

Chest: Breastplate of the Five Rivers (olive);

Hands: Supple Gloves of Bard's Honour (white);

Feet: Expeditionary Sabatons (umber).