Warning: Adult content in discussion.
Hello, fans of Frodo-erotica in its visual forms!
I just wanted to alert you to a Frodo manip made by a renowned maker of erotic Elijah Wood manips,
bandwench. She just finished and posted it to her LJ.
Bandwench's LJ is typically friends-locked, but she has unlocked this entry only (at my urging), so that folks who browse here but aren't on her f-list will be able to see it, if they wish to. Some of you, I know, are friends of both this journal and hers, and you will already have seen it, but more of you are not.
Here's a detail from Bandwench's new manip, Frodo: Study in Blue:

Note: If you follow the link to her LJ, and if you enjoy her work, express your appreciation to the artist. Don't tell me; I'm just the bulletin board. Thanks! :)
About
bandwench's new manip....
I already gushed to Bandwench in an e-mail, but I just love this manip (which is why I am featuring it)! It is not at all tasteless or pornish, even if Frodo is nude, and even though he is depicted as partially aroused (sexually). The manip was made from photographic elements, yet it has more the quality of a painting for me, my favourite medium for Frodo manips.
To view the whole image, full-sized, click HERE, which will take you to her LJ entry.
Warning: NC-17 for displayed genitals, in a state of partial arousal. (Not truly lascivious, however, IMO.)
~*~
After seeing the "sneak preview" of it, I told Bandwench something like this....
About finding the work of
bandwench....
I only just found Bandwench's amazing place a few days ago, having been directed there by
mews.
I was scrolling down my f-list when I saw an entry showing off a very saucy animated icon made from a manip of a naked Elijah Wood. It was so well-done, I commented on it to Mews in her journal.
Mews gave me a link to Bandwench's website (which is public), Bandwench Dreams in Ink. There, Bandwench is in the midst of setting up the site to display her photomanips of Elijah Wood, and to archive her fic (slash and het, all starring Elijah Wood).
So far, Bandwench has loaded her "Tame" and "Tempting" EW manip galleries. If you take a peek in these, you will wonder where the HECK she is going to go with her "Torrid" gallery, yet to come (no pun intended).
Start with "Tame" -- because all of them are not that tame. These may be as far as you want to go, seeing EW portrayed in manips as himself. Go to that gallery, too, because "Prince Elijah" is in it, a manip of EW in costume, with long hair that looks like a painting. It is a manip to die for. There are four different versions of it. Maybe I'll have to do a separate post to feature them. *sigh*
The website notes that Bandwench is working on an "Het" and "Slash" gallery of EW photomanip images, too. (This means that, unlike the "Torrid" manips, which are solo, these manips would feature EW with a partner.)
About Bandwench's "Torrid" EW:
Even though I am not an Elijah Wood swooner, I do think he's a lovely man, and am forever grateful that he played Frodo Baggins so well in the LotR films. Furthermore, I can never resist racy material, written or visual, so, of course, I checked these out, once I had friended Bandwench's LJ, on which many of these already appear in individual entries.
This is just a note of warning for those of you who have never seen real porn*, and don't wish to: you may not wish to see these.
*By "real porn", I mean pictures in which the subject is not only fully naked, but sexually aroused, in frankly sexual situations (including, in some cases, climaxing). No sense beating about the bush.
But if you do look at her website and browse only what's in "Tame" and "Tempting", you still will see the level of excellence Bandwench has achieved in her photo-manipping craft. In many of her pieces, I really cannot tell that they are not actual photos; they are seamless. I don't like everything in the galleries, but it is a matter of taste, not lack of artistry.
There is no denying the craft of this artist, even though the level of craft varies as she has learned more over time. She told me that some of the manips are examples from her earliest days and don't show the skill she acquired later, but she hasn't gone back and "tidied" them (as I have done on several of mine, for new LJ entries). I noted that some of her early, less perfect manips are among her most charming.
I asked her how she had learned manipping so well and how long she had been doing it. She says she is self-trained (!!!), although a few other manippers have been willing to trade "secrets". She has been doing manips for a year and a half. She loves the art form (yes, "ART" form), and is not happy when people scoff at the idea that photo manipulation is an art form. She has painted and drawn for years, she says, and many of the same techniques and rules apply, no matter whether one's medium is the finest oil paint or colored pixels.
Again, Bandwench's explicitly sexual manips (in her "Torrid" gallery) definitely may not be everyone's cup of tea, but no one is compelled to look at highly-rated art sites, just as they are not compelled to read highly-rated fanfic. I say this so that people from here won't go peeking in there, and then get hysterical, after they've been warned.
~*~
I wrote last year about the right-and-wrong of using a celebrity's face for photomanips, even if they are shown only in select circles, since I was mulling over whether to post a Frodo "Art Travesty" manip I had made at that time, which partially revealed the source-model's genitals, sexual situation clearly implied.
I still am of two minds about it.
I suppose it depends on the spirit in which they were intended, for starters. Clearly, having read through Bandwench's LJ, she is an EW fan who is smart, upfront and good-humoured about her love of the actor, and of smut, and makes clear in every entry that these are the products of craft and fantasy. I think that's a lot better than writing stories or making images which explicitly or implicitly purport to reveal the "real truth" about EW's personal life -- if only EW were enlightened enough to know it -- when they are not.
The other major issue is how the celebrity feels about it. Frodo is imaginary and cannot be consulted, which is why I drew the line at presenting him in a compromising manip (fondling himself in front of all and sundry, when he ought to have been left to do this in private).
EW can, hypothetically, have something to say about it.
I doubt that EW has seen these manips, but I know that although he handled it with grace, he didn't look pleased at a press conference during the filming of Everything is Illuminated, receiving a sheaf of very soft-core manips of him and Sean Astin depicted as slash Frodo and Sam. But I'd bet that if EW saw these, he'd be secretly flattered, if not astonished.
"That's what they think I've got in my jeans?!? Holey-jamoley!!!"
Lurking on the EW thread at K-D, I think my impression of the adult Elijah Wood is that he's a good-natured, easy-going man who is a very good sport, but who might get tired of being thought pretty and precious and a little effeminate. So, I'm guessing, while he might roll his eyes at images of himself as Frodo manipped into pastel, air-brushed, soft-focus, discreet-but-nude embraces with Sam -- like slash versions of Hallmark greeting cards -- he'd respond differently if he stumbled onto Bandwench's porn shots.
If he were by himself, I think he'd first explode into a fit of laughter (for many of her filthiest manips are also witty), then stop and stare in open-mouthed admiration at the sight of himself revealed as, 'Elijah Wood: Porn Star'.
"Sh*t!" he'd probably say in wistful wonderment, "I wish!
~ Mechtild
Hello, fans of Frodo-erotica in its visual forms!
I just wanted to alert you to a Frodo manip made by a renowned maker of erotic Elijah Wood manips,
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
Bandwench's LJ is typically friends-locked, but she has unlocked this entry only (at my urging), so that folks who browse here but aren't on her f-list will be able to see it, if they wish to. Some of you, I know, are friends of both this journal and hers, and you will already have seen it, but more of you are not.

Note: If you follow the link to her LJ, and if you enjoy her work, express your appreciation to the artist. Don't tell me; I'm just the bulletin board. Thanks! :)
About
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
I already gushed to Bandwench in an e-mail, but I just love this manip (which is why I am featuring it)! It is not at all tasteless or pornish, even if Frodo is nude, and even though he is depicted as partially aroused (sexually). The manip was made from photographic elements, yet it has more the quality of a painting for me, my favourite medium for Frodo manips.
To view the whole image, full-sized, click HERE, which will take you to her LJ entry.
Warning: NC-17 for displayed genitals, in a state of partial arousal. (Not truly lascivious, however, IMO.)
~*~
After seeing the "sneak preview" of it, I told Bandwench something like this....
The image reminds me of the waking of the Eldar at the dawning of Middle-earth, except that Frodo's a hobbit, not an Elf (not that he isn't more beautiful than any Elf that every drew breath).
The background is wonderfully chosen, like a primeval woods and water, hushed, serene, and dimly-lit. You could have left it looking like a recognizable place, but your blue wash has given it an other-worldly look, perfect for something set in the mists of M-E. If it doesn't recall the waking of the Eldar under the first stars, rising naked from the newly-created earth, it also recalls to me newly-created Adam from the ancient biblical narrative, a sign of what all of us once were: pure and fresh and beautiful and without blemish.
As for the figure of Frodo, the body you used for him is just about perfect, in terms of what Frodo might plausibly look like under his clothes -- at least most fanfic Frodos, who tend not to have the Cirith Ungol tummy, LOL. The pose is perfect, too. Rising out of the water (like Botticelli's Venus rising from the Sea?) he is strong, but lithe and graceful. He seems relaxed, yet poised for movement at the same time, like a faun who has just stepped into a quiet drinking place. The face you chose fits into the compostion gorgeously.
I even love the skin. I love the droplets of water; did you put them there? Most Frodo manips have been air-brushed to bland perfection, but you have left in all the surface detail. I don't know if I am imagining it, but it's almost as though I can see the delicate network of veins and capillaries trhough the surface of his skin.
It strikes me as a visual expression of what Gandalf noted in Frodo, while he was recovering from the wound of the Morgul blade: there was about Frodo a "transparency".
About finding the work of
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
I only just found Bandwench's amazing place a few days ago, having been directed there by
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
I was scrolling down my f-list when I saw an entry showing off a very saucy animated icon made from a manip of a naked Elijah Wood. It was so well-done, I commented on it to Mews in her journal.
Mews gave me a link to Bandwench's website (which is public), Bandwench Dreams in Ink. There, Bandwench is in the midst of setting up the site to display her photomanips of Elijah Wood, and to archive her fic (slash and het, all starring Elijah Wood).
So far, Bandwench has loaded her "Tame" and "Tempting" EW manip galleries. If you take a peek in these, you will wonder where the HECK she is going to go with her "Torrid" gallery, yet to come (no pun intended).
Start with "Tame" -- because all of them are not that tame. These may be as far as you want to go, seeing EW portrayed in manips as himself. Go to that gallery, too, because "Prince Elijah" is in it, a manip of EW in costume, with long hair that looks like a painting. It is a manip to die for. There are four different versions of it. Maybe I'll have to do a separate post to feature them. *sigh*
The website notes that Bandwench is working on an "Het" and "Slash" gallery of EW photomanip images, too. (This means that, unlike the "Torrid" manips, which are solo, these manips would feature EW with a partner.)
About Bandwench's "Torrid" EW:
Even though I am not an Elijah Wood swooner, I do think he's a lovely man, and am forever grateful that he played Frodo Baggins so well in the LotR films. Furthermore, I can never resist racy material, written or visual, so, of course, I checked these out, once I had friended Bandwench's LJ, on which many of these already appear in individual entries.
This is just a note of warning for those of you who have never seen real porn*, and don't wish to: you may not wish to see these.
*By "real porn", I mean pictures in which the subject is not only fully naked, but sexually aroused, in frankly sexual situations (including, in some cases, climaxing). No sense beating about the bush.
But if you do look at her website and browse only what's in "Tame" and "Tempting", you still will see the level of excellence Bandwench has achieved in her photo-manipping craft. In many of her pieces, I really cannot tell that they are not actual photos; they are seamless. I don't like everything in the galleries, but it is a matter of taste, not lack of artistry.
There is no denying the craft of this artist, even though the level of craft varies as she has learned more over time. She told me that some of the manips are examples from her earliest days and don't show the skill she acquired later, but she hasn't gone back and "tidied" them (as I have done on several of mine, for new LJ entries). I noted that some of her early, less perfect manips are among her most charming.
I asked her how she had learned manipping so well and how long she had been doing it. She says she is self-trained (!!!), although a few other manippers have been willing to trade "secrets". She has been doing manips for a year and a half. She loves the art form (yes, "ART" form), and is not happy when people scoff at the idea that photo manipulation is an art form. She has painted and drawn for years, she says, and many of the same techniques and rules apply, no matter whether one's medium is the finest oil paint or colored pixels.
Again, Bandwench's explicitly sexual manips (in her "Torrid" gallery) definitely may not be everyone's cup of tea, but no one is compelled to look at highly-rated art sites, just as they are not compelled to read highly-rated fanfic. I say this so that people from here won't go peeking in there, and then get hysterical, after they've been warned.
~*~
I wrote last year about the right-and-wrong of using a celebrity's face for photomanips, even if they are shown only in select circles, since I was mulling over whether to post a Frodo "Art Travesty" manip I had made at that time, which partially revealed the source-model's genitals, sexual situation clearly implied.
I still am of two minds about it.
I suppose it depends on the spirit in which they were intended, for starters. Clearly, having read through Bandwench's LJ, she is an EW fan who is smart, upfront and good-humoured about her love of the actor, and of smut, and makes clear in every entry that these are the products of craft and fantasy. I think that's a lot better than writing stories or making images which explicitly or implicitly purport to reveal the "real truth" about EW's personal life -- if only EW were enlightened enough to know it -- when they are not.
The other major issue is how the celebrity feels about it. Frodo is imaginary and cannot be consulted, which is why I drew the line at presenting him in a compromising manip (fondling himself in front of all and sundry, when he ought to have been left to do this in private).
EW can, hypothetically, have something to say about it.
I doubt that EW has seen these manips, but I know that although he handled it with grace, he didn't look pleased at a press conference during the filming of Everything is Illuminated, receiving a sheaf of very soft-core manips of him and Sean Astin depicted as slash Frodo and Sam. But I'd bet that if EW saw these, he'd be secretly flattered, if not astonished.
"That's what they think I've got in my jeans?!? Holey-jamoley!!!"
Lurking on the EW thread at K-D, I think my impression of the adult Elijah Wood is that he's a good-natured, easy-going man who is a very good sport, but who might get tired of being thought pretty and precious and a little effeminate. So, I'm guessing, while he might roll his eyes at images of himself as Frodo manipped into pastel, air-brushed, soft-focus, discreet-but-nude embraces with Sam -- like slash versions of Hallmark greeting cards -- he'd respond differently if he stumbled onto Bandwench's porn shots.
If he were by himself, I think he'd first explode into a fit of laughter (for many of her filthiest manips are also witty), then stop and stare in open-mouthed admiration at the sight of himself revealed as, 'Elijah Wood: Porn Star'.
"Sh*t!" he'd probably say in wistful wonderment, "I wish!
~ Mechtild
From:
no subject
This is perhaps colouring my opinion of all this. (Ya think?):-)
Well, are we talking about using Frodo's image in art, now, or Elijah's (as Elijah)? If we are talking about Frodo's image, then we are talking about using the image of a fictional character (even though he was played by an actor, his image now has taken on a life of its own, separate from EW, just as images of the Cowardly Lion have a life of their own apart from Bert Lahr, who played him). I think that is comparable to your story of how your image, in costume as a character, was used by an artist, who then made a picture from your portrayal (which included making the costume scantier). Once you were "in character," it wasn't you being portrayed, but the character. You were just enacting, or modelling the character which the artist worked from.
When you were photographed surreptitiously but intentionally, with the camera looking down your dress, that was different. The photographer was taking advantage of you for a bit of voyeurism for his own benefit. But if he were taking group shots, and you just happened to lean over when he clicked the big group shot, that would not be his fault.
Last week a soccer player was on the field in Germany and his penis flipped out of his shorts. It was an accident, and the TV cameras never intended to record it as part of the game coverage. But, as you might imagine, that clip was all over the internet. (I got it in an email from a relative.) That "shorts malfunction" appeared everywhere, not just as the clip that appeared on TV, but in slo-mo and in screencaps, all to better examine it. Well, the player didn't seem upset, and a good laugh was had by all. But, if the player had been angry or mortified, it would have been very different. It would have seemed like taking gross advantage of him to show it all over the place -- even though it had happened right on TV, in a public venue.
When that photographer took your picture it was very different. You could say he "stole" the image from you, using it to give a false impression of you; like snipping off a lock of your hair and going around telling people you gave it to him. Perhaps you are seeing what happens to EW when people use his image for manips as that sort of thing: stealing his image and using it in ways that give a false impression of him, and mortifying or angering him.
But what if Elijah experiences the manip thing like that soccer player when he fell out of his shorts on camera? EW's penis isn't hanging out, true, but his face is, all the time, publicly available, which his fans think is as hawt as anything he's got in his jeans. What if, when people take that face -- which has all the power of a shorts malfunction to those who swoon for him -- and do what is the equivalent of the folks who took the clip of the unleashed soccer-guy's penis? Through hot fics and manips, they do something comparable to when folks took the clip of the soccer guy's exposed gentials and featured it in slo-mo, and screencaps, all to pore over it the better. Maybe when EW sees these stuff like these hot manips or stories (and, by now, he must know there's a ton of them), his attitude is more like that soccer player's. That is, he doesn't think it's that big a deal, and can wave it off. He's a public person; he's on view, and his popularity is great with women who respond heavily to his looks. Women who, if he can't manage to have a shorts malfunction (like the soccer player), will be happy to provide him with one.
(cont'd.)
From:
no subject
I sound like I'm being the champion of Filthy EW Manips, Taerie, and I really am not. I'm just saying that I don't see the use of EW's image in manips or fanfics -- even as Frodo -- as that black-and-white a thing.
As a film actor, a star to some degree, he's a public person who makes it on the devotion of his fans; in a sense, he belongs to them (in a way you NEVER belonged to that photographer, as a private person). I'm sure he knows fans are fooling around with his pictures and his persona, much in the same way naughty children might get out their dolls and let them stand in for their favourite actors or boys they like, then giggle and swoon while they have the dolls do interesting amorous activities together.
I don't think EW probably hears about fans making him into Long Dong Silver (or a pharoah's concubine or a rent boy or the lover of half of Middle-earth), and thinks of it as willful malice, disregard or character assasination. He probably saves his anger and irritation for things like professional photographers who chase celebrities into toilets to catch them with their pants down, so they can sell the images to tabloids or embarrass them publicly on television reality shows. I think he probably thinks it's sort of silly, but that it is meant in a positive way towards him, however silly or even embarrassing.
Maybe I sound defensive because I, too, feel indicted, having used the image of film Frodo to make my manips and to write my own hot fanfic. If it hadn't been for film Frodo, I wouldn't be writing at all.
Isn't that using EW's image without his consent? Who's to say EW'd be happy with the way I have used his face?
And, if I feel a little bit indicted for using film-Frodo's image when I write or manip, since he functions as my Eros and Muse, I feel a lot more indicted for using Tolkien's Frodo for my purposes. EW might indulge my creative use of his face and performance, but I think Tolkien would be grieved to see what I have done. But that hasn't stopped me, has it? So, when I start talking about not respecting the images created by or belonging to others, I only have to look in my mirror.
Oh, it's late and I'm being boring. But thanks for listening, Taerie!
From:
no subject
I told the story just to illustrate my own reaction to that sort of thing and to explain my probably extremist dislike of it. I agree that EW has WAY worse concerns and annoyances than the rudeness of people who treat him impolitely by using his image to make porno. That is probably not even a blip on his radar screen of annoying.
I think you might be right that he himself, if pinned down on his opinion of manufactured porno of his face, would probably laugh it off like the soccer player did the pic. One reason is that from the little I have been paying attention.. it seems to me that, being young and hungry for acceptance, he tries to be the good sport a bit too hard and puts up with stuff that he probably shouldn't.. and another is that like the soccer player.. a guy sort of has to act the stud and the good sport and laugh off nasty and embarrassing things. It's one of those cultural pressures that men get stuck with.. whereas I was, as a woman, actually expected to get angry over it. (Come to think of it.. I did not react at all, publicly.. I just shrugged even though I was angry. I instantly felt to do anything else would just give the perpetrator satisfaction.. And maybe there is some sort of 'pronking' instinctive response. An antelope running with a herd will do showy leaps (pronking) if a lion is looking.. so the lion will think he is strong and not bother with him.. and choose another victim.)
(The people doing close-ups of the players accidental exposure are more like hyenas than lions in my opinion but that is neither here nor there.)
I feel, Mechtild, that you would have to be overly introspective to feel indicted for using film-Frodo's image for what you do.. but I can't condemn you for that.. I do the same sort of soul searching, self questioning thing.. valid or not. What you say is very true about film actors knowingly lending their images for such things. I also know (having hung out in the past around celebrities) that they usually feel that there is no such thing as BAD attention.. They love all attention.. or they had better if they choose that profession.. (not that you could say that EW actually chose his more than it happened to him.) So you are probably also right about him even LIKING it as alien as that seems to my own mental thought processes.
To me it is still a black and white thing though.. cause apart from wether or not he likes it.. it's still rude.. still abusive. To me, common courtesy demands that I not make publicly even just POSSIBLY embarrassing images of a real person. (EW) At least till he SAYS it's okay.) Frodo.. even film Frodo is a far more grey area as is worrying about wether a dead author would fret over what you do with his character for fun. I care a lot about Frodo and his imaginary feelings so I wouldn't do it but I can't say it's wrong to do it.. and indeed I enjoy it sometimes when it is personally entertaining for other people to do it.. but there is always a little feeling of guilt that goes with it that is silly cause he isn't real.
(Okay.. so I'm weird.. we knew that already! ;-)
From:
no subject
I have to go do things, then go to work, but I have heard from the artist reports of actual remarks of EW's, stating clearly that he really doesn't mind his image being used by fans for their naughty fun. If I find a quote I'll post it.