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[Gamerlord]

Speaking of giant spiders, I'm working on a LEGO model of a spider which is approximately Shelob's size in real life. So I'm wondering, in the interest of scientific accuracy, are there jumping spiders that have functional spinnerets as well?

Also, am I the only person here who finds Shelob less scary-looking than that supposedly adorable jumping spider in that video?

PICTURES. NAOOOOOOOOOOW.

[Dwarf4Explosives]

Nahhh, even when I'm done with the project, which I'm having to make in a LEGO simulation program out of neccesity, the sheer size of the thing will prevent me from putting it together. I've heard a lot of stories about that program crashing above a certain size, and I'm definitely going to hit the upper limit, which is why I'm building it in modules. I did come up with a complicated system which allows it to be motorized, though. And anyway, it's for a sci-fi theme, so it will probably end up more of a spider-shaped vehicle with a small city inside than an actual spider.

I got the idea once I realized that a certain part would make perfect spider "fibre hairs".

[LeoLeonardoIII]

This may be relevant to your interests if you're in this thread.

Also because you watched that, have a video of some sweet helicoptering.

[GiglameshDespair]

Somebody try that with that spider from LOTR or Aragog from Harry Potter, I dare you.

Fun fact: if you watch the special features disk on the making of LOTR (specifically, the third one), it goes in detail about their design process for Shelob. They first decided to just take a normal spider, and scale it up. Problem was, when they scaled up the spiders, they kept looking too cute and unmenacing. They eventually ended up mashing together features from a variety of species, simply making up some anatomical features, and then adding on a highly asymmetric nasty fungus-infection sort of look in the facial region. http://tolkiengateway.net/w/images/0/0b/Shelob%27s_face.jpg

Oh and, Shelob was only part spider. The other part was Ungoliant, who was some kind of nebulously defined evil spirit in a spider-like form; and also one of the more badass of the evil characters in The Silmarillion. Having quite literally devoured most of the world's light, and nearly devouring Sauron's demigod boss long before Sauron was even a player in the world.

Ah, I recall her. Drinking the sap of the Trees themselves was a pretty impressive feat - though Shelob's only her descendant, hence why she can be killed by badass fat hobbits while Ungoliant had to be driven off by an army of Balrogs.

And now I'm off to locate more info about Ungoliant since she sounds fucking awesome.

I remember eventually she got so hungry she devoured even herself, and that's how she died. Nothing else managed to kill her.

[USEC_OFFICER]

I remember eventually she got so hungry she devoured even herself, and that's how she died. Nothing else managed to kill her.

...

That's fucking awesome. Ungoliant is now officially my favourite character in Lord of the Rings, hands down.

[LeoLeonardoIII]

Wasn't there a hobbit who got so hungry he ate his boot? Maybe it was a cowboy. I'm not sure.

[Dwarf4Explosives]

This may be relevant to your interests if you're in this thread.

Also because you watched that, have a video of some sweet helicoptering.

That just scared the hell out of me, even though I knew what it was.

On a semi-on-topic note, what do you guys consider the scariest type of arthropod?

Wasn't there an evil spirit in either the Hobbit or LotR called Ungoliant (presumably the same character)?

[LeoLeonardoIII]

See six or so posts back.

[GiglameshDespair]

Wasn't there an evil spirit in either the Hobbit or LotR called Ungoliant (presumably the same character)?

Ungoliant was the spider-demon thing that was the mother of Shelob, which was the giant spider in Lotr. We were literally just discussing Ungoliant. Scroll up a little 

Ungoliant had died long before LotR because of her hunger; in the end she got so hungry she ate herself, because nothing else managed to kill her, not even an army of Balrogs or Sauron's boss.

[Dwarf4Explosives]

I was asking if Ungoliant actually appeared in LotR. I know that Ungoliant was evil spirit being.

[LeoLeonardoIII]

Oh right. I can't remember; there may have been a sideways mention in LoTR but I think she's in the Silmarillion?

[Dwarf4Explosives]

I believe there was some sequence in which it tried to attack a character; Tom Bombadil maybe? I'm probably just remembering this wrong, though.

After some searching the internet and watching a segment about the Carbonian period, turns out the biggest spider ever was slightly larger than a cat, so maybe one twenty-fourth the size of my project. Does anyone understand my decision to build a creature capable of eating me whole?

[Urist McOriginalname]

The amount of balls for a man can only be determined by how big spider he can squash with his bare hands, now if you decide to genetically engineer a spider bigger than your whole family and knife-fight with it to death, you deserve all the balls on the world.

[Dwarf4Explosives]

How many if you make a robotic house-sized spider and ride atop it as it sows as much death and destruction as it can before the batteries get low?

[Urist McOriginalname]

How many

[seductive_voice]all of them...[/seductive_voice]

As long as you don't get stopped by Will Smith.