UNESCO poster competition

The United Nations General Assembly has proclaimed 2010, International Year for the Rapprochement of Cultures, and calls out a design competition for the official poster. From 50 selected posters, 30 posters will be printed for an exhibition to be held at UNESCO Headquarter in May 2010 in the framework of the International Festival of Cultural Diversity. The official brief and the rules are posted here.

Jean-Francois Lepine

Jean-Francois Lepine works as Lead Character Artist for a game development studio in Foster City, California. Some of his personal work is posted at CGSociety. He discribes the walk cycle (image above) as follows: "Technical Animaton in XSI using mostly curves as trajectory. Skin muscles and face expressions are a combination of shape keys, plotted deformation, SDKs and other blended deformations. Rendered in mental ray..."

just released

The Art of How to Train Your Dragon

This Book is a spectacularly designed, full-color insider’s guide to the creative process that went into turning Cressida Cowell’s popular book into a feature-length, animated film. Featuring more than 350 pieces of development artwork, including early character designs, story sketches, and concept paintings from industry veterans such as Pierre-Olivier Vincent(cover), Nicolas Marlet(below), Zhaoping Wei, Kirsten Kawamura and Simon Otto. The Author, Tracey Miller-Zarneke, is the former Production Department Manager for Walt Disney Feature Animation and author of The Art of Kung Fu Panda. More preview pics and a little movie, flipping through the pages on ParkaBlogs.
available now at amazon.de

Perspective

Perspective Magazin is the bimonthly journal of the Art Directors Guild - the international union representing employees in the entertainment industry. The Magazin takes a look behind the scenes and the creative process of film making with a focus on Production Design. Featured articles introduce the leading artists in this field today and applied techniques such as concept art and storyboards. A free download as PDF-file of the journal is available on the web-site at www.artdirectors.org
design sketch by Stuart Craig, Production Designer for Harry Potter

Sidebar Nation runs a great series of hour long podcastes aiming to present entertaining, informative and art-literate discussion on comic pop culture. The show features articles and interviews with top artists of the entertainment industry, such as Adam Hughes Jean Paul Leon, Neville Page, James Jean and others. Find the complete list of all back episodes here. www.sidebarnation.com

Six of the best visual arts podcasts have joined forces on VAPN to keep you informed, inspired, and entertained with hours of valuable content every week. On top of that, you will find articles, tutorials, and other useful resources on this site that you won’t find anywhere else. visualartistpodcastnetwork.com

Moebius

Jean Giraud came to public attention in the USA in the 1980's after his work was published in the science fiction magazine "Heavy Metal", an American version of the French publication "Metal Hurlant". Since the '60s he published more than 25 graphic novels including strips such as Blueberry, Arzach, or Silver Surfer. In addition, Moebius (Jean Giraud) has contributed to the set designs of numerous film productions, including Alien, The Abyss, Dune and The Fifth Element.

Moebius Redux (video) takes extraordinary visual paths in documentary filmmaking and goes on a mind-bending tour of imagination past, present and future.

15th Conference on Animation, Effects & Games

FMX is an event in cooperation with VES Visual Effects Society, AIAS Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences, ACM Siggraph and 5D Conference.

The recruiting section is growing constantly. So far Animal Logic, ARRI, Black Rock Studio, Cinesite, Double Negative, Framestore, Pixomondo, Red Vision, ScanlineVFX and RTT have confirmed their participation.

May 04-07, 2010, Stuttgart, Germany, www.fmx.de

online Master Classes

Due to popular demand, The Gnomon School has extended it's online Master Classes event! Each 2-3 hour lecture focuses on a different element of the VFX & Games industries in a private forum where the instructors have shared a variety of insights and answers to previous attendee’s questions. Lectures will be give by industry veterans such as Feng Zhu, Neville Page, Iain McCaig and others. Renowned digital painter Craig Mullins (image below) shares how he applies the timeless values behind traditional art to digital art.