Pose-Off with Jim C Hines, Round Two
Posted on December 25, 2012 Posted by John Scalzi 48 Comments
The (never unseeable) pictures await you here.
I’ll note that as the pose is supposed to be of the person falling, I originally decided to try get the picture while lying on my stairwell. After I slid down most of the stairs and totally rug-burned my backside, I moved to another piece of furniture entirely. Let it not be said I do not suffer for my “art.”
Ah . . . did you even try?!?
Looks like you just woke up after a fun party . . . but not much like the cover. Sorry.
You phoned that in, you slack bitch.
Call me a neanderthal, but I am voting for the woman. You other two are… hmmm… I am just too scarred to come up with a pithy adjective that rises to the occasion. (OK, if forced to choose, I will back Scalzi… because he lost last time, although I know he covets those “there-are-no-losers, participation” trophies).
Is Jim’s picture photoshopped, or did he pay big for that banner behind him?
Trash drag is all good and fine, but a half-assed pose to mock tits’n’ass cover design, well, I think I already said it all. Point to Hines.
Neither of you males could come up with a proper wig? The one with the long flowing locks is the only winner.
Hey, I’m wearing a wig!
And to everyone who thinks I phoned it in, hey! You try posing while upside down and at an angle! THIS IS ART, DAMN YOU.
A childs’ drawing stuck to your fridge is also art. Point goes to Mr. Hines. Next time get some special effects big wigs to help out. We all know you have “connections”. Happy Birthday Baby Jesus!
Yes, you suffered for your art, as did we all.
I voted for you John. But it was a sympathy vote. That was pretty….disgraceful!
Sorry John, you are going to lose this one pretty badly. It looks like Jim’s experience with posing is beginning to show. He really brought it this time and you didn’t.
It looks like john was knocked into a chair by a superhero punch and the chair subsequently fell over. It doesn’t really look like he’s shooting while falling. Jim totally wins this round.
I don’t think this us really a fair test. Whether or not the woman us in a remotely natural pose for someone falling and shooting, it’s pretty much given that Jim & John couldn’t be expected to shoot this in free fall. We actually do want them to survive the contest.
WIND TUNNELS.
CLEARLY PEOPLE HAVE NO RESPECT FOR MY ARTISTIC CHOICES.
John, I’m not sure who suffered more for that art, you or us.
Um…there were artistic choices involved on your part? I do not think that phrase means what you think it means.
I think you need to work on your spine twisting. Point to Hines.
I have to agree with Rafe B over on Jim’s site. What is up with her thigh!?
Just so y’all know where I’m coming from when I say this. I like leggy women. I’m married to one. My wife and I have the same length legs. Our hip joints and knee joints are exactly the same height off the ground. We are the most badass three-legged race team for miles around. I’m a pretty normally proportioned male. No one has ever told me that my legs are short. Never.
I am 6″ taller than my wife. She is all leg and gorgeously proportioned to my eye.
That said, John, between you, Jim and that cover, the cover is the one that’s messing me up the most. What is up with her leg? It looks like she’s 5″ tall and got a femur transplant from Wilt Chamberlain.
Re: the rug-burn, pics or it didn’t–
Um. Actually, I think maybe we’ll just take your word for it. Thank you for your sacrifice for the cause, John!
Alex R. – The background is Photoshopped. The only prop I’ve paid for in these poses was the red tights.
I said this over at Jim’s page. I appreciate your work John, I really do. But your camera angle is too…gynecological.
Posing is perhaps not one of your leading skills, Scalzi. Maybe a large muscle coordination problem (I have this.) Mad props for your continued attempts, and no, no rug burn shots required.
My friend Andy and I were within a millimeter or two of height, barefoot, back to back. For over a decade it was one of those party things for us to stand so with a book across both of our heads as people tried to figure out which was taller, we both couldn’t be exactly 6’4″. I have a 32″ inseam, his was 46″. That difference, 14″, put us both well outside the “normal” inseam for our height (probably 38″.) I have very short legs and a very long torso, Andy had very long legs and a very short torso. (I use a 39″ sleeve, Andy’s was 32″.) Looking at the model, I’d guess she is (for her height) average torso and long legs (my guess is that models are all in the long to very long to very very long leg pool.) People are different, and different in different ways.
I won’t judge here (because my brain, out of self-defense, won’t allow me access to those memories), so I’ll just say, “Good work to the both of you, and may you raise much more money than my paltry contribution!”
Actually, John, had the pic been taken at a slightly different angle and the couch photoshopped out, I think your picture would have looked very close to Jim’s. The softness of the cushions is just too misleading. Neither one of you managed to twist your arm into a spiral at the shoulder like the woman in the cover pic, though. (Seriously, what was that about?)
Alex R. – The background is Photoshopped. The only prop I’ve paid for in these poses was the red tights.
Hmm… I won’t say you cheated, because I don’t know what the rules of this contest are, but I’m guessing the two of you had different expectations of what was appropriate where Photoshop is concerned. Were I a referee, I’d say, very charitably, that this round needs to be replayed.
Nice try to get us to contort more, Alex.
I’m perfectly happy with what Jim did. The two different approaches make it more fun for everyone, and that’s one of the goals here.
Nomo ganja befo photo shoots!
Sorry, John, but this rat is jumping ship on team Scalzi. I love an underdog, but not an I-just-fell-over-the-couch dog.
I haven’t read that book, but Christopher L. Bennett wrote the only Star Trek novels I could make it past the first page of. Over the years, I’ve sampled a few other Trek books while browsing in the bookstore but the writing was always somewhere between high-school level and atrocious (on top of the fact that I have a hard time getting into stories based on movies or TV shows). By contrast, the Department of Temporal Investigation novels are really well written.
Incidentally, the woman on the cover appears to have no transverse abdominal muscles o_O
Come on Scalzi, that’s what at least 50 percent of the commenters on Whatever look like by 6PM on Christmas Day.
Gulliver wrote:
Yes, but she makes up for it by having thighs that are two thirds the size of her torso.
Needz moar blonde wig and little black cocktail dress.
Do you have calf high boots on in the photo? I think I’ve looked at those photos five different times today. And each time, my wife has to jolt me out of a trance. I can’t not keep staring at them. I come away disorientated and such. What? Yes. Sure. Let’s have some pie. More pie.
So, I say, bravo! To both parties, for different reasons.
John, you look like you have been hitting the eggnog too hard. You can find lots of pics like this taken at the end of any frat house Christmas party. Point to Hinds.
PS. If you were willing to anything for your art, the least you could do would be to shave your armpit.
PPS, That should have said “willing to do anything”.
Love the boots!! What does Krissy think of you raiding her wardrobe?
Thanks for the laughs and Happy Christmas!
I voted for you because you look like an inebriated Santa.
Sorry. Dude. Have to go with Hines on this one. While i respect you in very many otherly pursuits, in posing as a distressed damsel, I have to go with your opponent. Which may be, in the long run, a good thing. A GOOD things.
I had to vote for the armpit hair. Because pit hair was TOTALLY what the original cover picture was all about.
” Let it not be said I do not suffer for my “art.””
Now it’s our turn. >;^)
As I recall, part of the challenge was that you both has to appear in the photos “DRESSED IN FESTIVE CHRISTMAS ACCOUTERMENTS.”
So in Jim’s photo I see:
A Santa hat
A jingle bell pendant
A candy cane through the belt
A Christmas stocking as a sock / footie
The combination of red and green in tights and t-shirt which I count as one since neither item works without the other.
For a total of five “festive Christmas accouterments.”
In John’s photo I see:
A Santa hat
A shirt with what appears to be a snowflake
A strand of lights which, wile electrical and blingy, still counts as one item.
For a total of three “festive Christmas accouterments.”
Sorry John, you got out-accoutermented.
I thought he had you beat last time, but voted for you anyway. This was such a blowout that I couldn’t do it. I feel like I just voted for Herman Cain or Newt Gingrich but that they beat the alternative. Sad effort or sad result? I don’t know, but so so sad.
Nope, nope, sorry. Definitely phoning it in. I’ll cut you slack for likely limitations on how far the knees can bend and the torso can swivel, but c’mon. You don’t even have your gun tipped the right way up.
Too late for best two out of three . . . how about going for best three out of five?
Love these pose-offs! You both did good work trying to work the Christmas into the pose, but I think that pose was just inhuman!
I think (and with absolutely zero malicious intent) that you won this round. It’s simply a better likeness. Anyone laying on a couch is simply not putting forth the effort which is required to attain the status of Art.
Sorry, had to vote for Hines this time.
But this is a good exhibit in the “Why reference photos are good” category. A reference photo might have saved the heroine in that novel from having an expensive leg extension surgery.
Not penalizing the guys for the back arm — the woman is reaching behind her, and the J’s, not having access to suspension ropes, are on flat surfaces and don’t have the same sort of 3-D space to work with. (And also they have shoulder bones.) Jim wins, though, because for a second I wondered if he DID have a suspension harness. And also tights. John, you still have time! You can do it! Bring it, man!
initial impression was also that yours was “phoned in” but after reading all the comments and scrolling up and down 4-5 times, (see i suffered for you!) I have some observations.
1. Wow that is a wig. nice. took pointing out to notice. Get them out from under the hat. gotta let your locks fly man!
2. Wow you did work on it. it took until the 5th time looking at your to notice, you took the cushion off the couch and are laying upside down. at first it looks like you just threw yourself on the couch. (more photoshoping would help.
3. The boots do rock. the belt is cool also. your belt wins over Hines. Your sartorial choices win.
4. The lights. A for effort. C- for effect. it makes your character look “bound up in a wad” like something stuck in a hay baler. A glittery vegas hay baler.
5. Neither you nor Hines have ANY blood. disappointed. a little red dye and corn syrup was too much to ask?
6. cough. it was tough. My russion judge was disqualified, Hines wins for accuracy. You win in the category of “I want to scratch my eyeballs out” :-)
7. In the original picture, her femur bends in a way that I don’t think real femurs can.
Merry Christmas. Can’t wait till the “loving mallet of correction is out” we like to read “your hatemail will be graded in bed and giggle.
http://chillingkoala.com/post/10903