The Hobbit Treasures of Middle-Earth Design Contest

For you Tolkien fans with an artist streak, you might be interested in this new contest to promote The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. Called Treasures of Middle-Earth Design Contest, it is a chance to submit your artwork that was inspired by The Hobbit story.

The official contest website, TheHobbitDesignContest.com is where you submit your own art. Whether submit art or don't have an artistic touch (like me) you can still rate other people's work and share with friends. The contest and art is divided into four categories - Characters, Creatures, Weapons, and Locations. Long time Lord of the Rings (stuff saw at end of Return of the King) and Hobbit artists John Howe, Alan Lee, and special effects wizard Richard Taylor will help choose a grand prize winner and four runners-up from each category to win collectibles. The prizes are based on the category so character winners get loot from Sideshow Collectibles, Creatures from Weta Workshop, Weapons from United Cutlery, and Locations from Vanderstelt Studio.

The contest runs from now until October 15th, 2012. The entries should be inspired from The Hobbit novel and upcoming movies so if hoping to show off your homage to the Lord of the Rings, this isn't it unless can tie it directly back to The Hobbit. This does mean you can include new characters and events that Jackson is adding to the movie as inspired by the LOTR Appendixes so Tauriel, Necromancer, Battle of Five Armies and so forth. The images should be square shaped, in .png, jpg, or .gif format, no smaller than 520px and no bigger than 2MB in size. Make sure to provide an entry title and description. The winners will be chosen based on creativity and originality, artistic merit and relevance to The Hobbit (anything LOTR specific will be disqualified). Below is a video about the contest, full details on how to submit, view other entries and contest rules can be found at www.TheHobbitDesignContest.com.