zhie | Last Challenge at TME

The last TME challenge was to make a movie poster for The Hobbit. Most everyone re-used images from the live action LOTR or from the animated Hobbit. I could have done that, I suppose, but to be honest, it seemed like cheating. So, with the exception of the image of the ring, I completely created this from scratch.

I might not have placed, but I'm pretty sure most of the people participating have practically no artistic ability (design ability is different; with enough practice, anyone can take someone else's art and photos and make it look like something cool).

I created each dwarf individually, relying in part on physical characteristics (Bombur is way in the back, chugging along to keep up, for example). Admittedly, mine probably makes a better book cover than a movie poster, but, I think the part that's baffling is that so many people focused upon the ring. That means that they think the main part of that entire story is the ring -- which means, there's a good chance they've never read the book (I get the feeling most of them haven't read the trilogy, either, or the Silm.)

Taking The Hobbit for what it is, knowing that it existed many years before Lord of the Rings was even an idea (The Hobbit is actually closer kin to The Silmarillion if you know that originally there was an intention for 'the elvenking' to have been Thingol and such), and knowing that Riddles in the Dark was majorly overhauled after the first printing and was not what we know today as Riddles in the Dark, the ring becomes even more secondary when focusing upon The Hobbit itself.

I really wish there was a group like this, but for people who are readers, not people who were between the ages of 8 and 14 when the movies came out and still haven't picked up the books. It's slanted very, very much towards movieverse. I'd like to post this where the owners of the challenge group would see it, but I'm pretty sure that they either wouldn't care or don't get it. It's too bad B2MEM only happens for one month out of the year. It's pretty much the perfect combination of being able to go whatever way you want on challenges, and it's probably one of the most enjoyable things out there -- I think, because there's no voting, there's no 'winners' per se, it's a participation thing.

This is the part of our show where people either talk me out of or into starting some sort of year-round thing that incorporates the best parts of everything previously discussed, and ditches the silliness of voting. (And it's not like I haven't placed in some of these challenges; in fact, as of this moment, I've got the most points of those on the team I'm on, and there's a good chance since our team is in first that I have more points than anyone else in the game. I'm just not very comfortable with the voting, period.)