History of Blend Challenges
I started blending the summer of 2003 and I've been hooked ever since. I recently came across an older site (Blend It, Baby!) that is currently not being updated, but contains information on the history of blend challenges. It inspired me to tell a little bit about what I know.
Blend It, Baby! and Blending Creations were some of the first sites I entered at. They are no longer active blend sites, but will be fondly remembered in the minds of the blenders that came into the blending scene early on.
As I said before, I started blending in 2003. Blend Challenges were gaining popularity every day, new sites popping up all the time. I know that I had know of blending in 2002, but with nothing but MS Paint, I was not intricatly involved. According to Blend It, Baby!, Angie started The Original Blend Challenge.
After awhile, some of the best and longest running sites on the internet began to close or go on unending hiatus'. New sites popped up, new kinds of challenges besides blending became popular. But the favorites will always be missed. Sometimes you will run across a site that shows the kind of elements that are reminiscent of the sites that started it all.
Description of Common Challenges
Blending: Taking 2 or more pictures and editing them together in as seamless a fashion as possible. Adding layers, colors, brushes, text, borders and other things very common.
Add Effects: A premade blend that is provided that you add above mentioned effects.
Colorizations: A black and white or grayscaled picture is recolorized to be as realistic as possible. Text, borders and some effects are common as well.
Icon/Avatar: A small picture used for journals, forums and the like. Usually 100x100 pixels. Effects are frequently used.
Wallpaper: A large graphic used as a desktop background.
Collage: Much like a blend, but not as seamless. Various styles including boxy, outlined, common collage style with many pictures.
Layout: Some challenge site have entrants crate a layout for said sites next version.
If you have any information that would be useful to add to this page, please leave me a comment or email me. Thanks.
