50.Anniversary

The Annecy Animation Film Festival
June 07.-12.2010

The world’s largest event entirely focused on animation. The Festival - founded in 1960 - is a fun and friendly way to discover the latest in animation masterpieces, meet major players and young talents, check out new trends, and find ideal business partners, all in one place.

The Creative Focus
is an incubator for projetcs and a privileged exchange forum for animation professionals and the talents of tomorrow.

The Mifa

is held side by side with more than 3,000m² of exhibition space. It is the animated film industry’s foremost showcase in terms of producing, financing and distributing animation content for all broadcasting platforms.

The Conferences
help to better anticipate changes in the sector from artistic, business and technological points of view.

www.annecy.org

Framed ink

Coming soon from DesignStudioPress: 'Framed Ink', the ultimate guide to visual storytelling. Using his experiences from working in the comic book industry, movie studios and teaching, Marcos Mateu-Mestre introduces the reader to a step-by-step system that will create the most successful storyboards and graphics for the best visual communication.The Book contains 128 pages, 230 black and white illustrations as well as many diagrams, with text explaining all the thinking process behind the art, exploring the areas of visual storytelling for both film and graphic novel, using light and many other devices to deliver the effect a shot or sequence require, plus thumbnails on the lighting and dynamics used in each example.

available for pre-order now at amazon

Drew's painting technique

Drew Struzan is one of the industry's most recognized talents, having provided artwork for over 150 movie posters, including many of the best-known films of all time.

For all those who have wondered about his secret painting techniques there are a few tutorials of the master online now. A DVD for the making-of the Hellboy Poster is available at Reelideas.com and a step by step for Star Wars here: page 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10

www.drewstruzan.com

...is a web-site dedicated to art, webdesign and photography. Hosted by two enthusiasts, crawling the net every day in search for new talent and the latest achievements from artists all over the globe. www.art-spire.com

Beatles Rockband

The game includes heavily stylized opening and ending cinematics produced in part by Pete Candeland of Passion Pictures, with help from animator Robert Valley and background visuals from Alberto Mielgo.



Candeland, who is known for his work animating Gorillaz videos, also produced the opening cinematics for both the original Rock Band and Rock Band 2. Within two and a half minutes, the opening cinematic provides a brief representative history of the band interspersed with numerous references to songs by The Beatles, followed by more metaphorical scenes reflecting their studio albums.



http://www.passion-pictures.com/
http://www.thebeatlesrockband.com/

Life and Work of Michelangelo

The present special edition explores Michelangelo’s life and work in depth and detail. The different parts of the book concentrate on the life of Michelangelo via an extensive and copiously illustrated biographical essay and include gorgeous, full page reproductions and enlarged details that bring readers up close to the works.

The Authors also take account to a previously unseen extent of Michelangelo’s more personal traits and circumstances such as his solitary nature, his thirst for money and commissions, his miserliness, his immense wealth, and his skill as a property investor. In addition, the book tackles the controversial issue of the attribution of Michelangelo drawings, an area in which decisions continue to be steered by the interests of the art market and the major collections. This is the definitive volume about Michelangelo for generations to come.

See a preview of the inside pages @ parka blogs

The vatican website offers a virtual tour through Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel. Click here to view the high res QTVR

Tutorial

DrawingStudio is an inspiring and educational website offering drawing videos and tutorials for both beginners and advanced students. For drawing samples visit the gallery - or subscribe to the guestbook to receive more info and tutorial updates.

more off-topic...

...but worth taking a look. Itself a creation of particular beauty, Rare offers eloquent proof that a picture really is worth a thousand words as it shows us, one after another, scores of uniquely remarkable and seriously threatened life-forms. It is a compelling story and a many-faceted, brilliant jewel of a book.

peaceful eruption

Eyjafjallajökull is the name of the volcano that caused so many delays for the European air traffic and losses estimated up to 1 billion euros a day.

Wild time-lapse photography of the volcano by Sean Stiegemeier

The BBC News report on the eruption has been updated with comments from Pall Einarsson of the University of Iceland Institute of Earth Science: ‘This was a rather small and peaceful eruption but we are concerned that it could trigger an eruption at the nearby Katla volcano, a vicious volcano that could cause both local and global damage’. The Eyjafjallajökull-Katla connection needs careful watching.

ArenaNet kicks off a brand-new blog with the Guild Wars 2 Design Manifesto, a message to MMO players from ArenaNet Studio Head Mike O'Brien which outlines the bold new direction GW2 will take. That's just the beginning – They've got a lot more stuff planned! Check out the new blog here! and the Flickr Photostream with concept art from the game.

† Frank Frazetta 1928-2010

Frazetta was well-known for his dynamic, rugged art on seminal comics characters ranging from Conan the Barbarian to Shining Knight to Vampirella. Additionally, Frazetta also hit Hollywood, most notably for the animated 1983 feature Fire and Ice. He also drew movie posters for What’s New, Pussycat?, Hotel Paradiso and the Gauntlet, among many others. read more...

Frank Frazetta gallery 1, gallery 2, gallery 3

The Art of Iron Man 2

266 pages, filled with a comprehensive, unique and privileged behind-the-scenes look at the creative process behind the state-of-the-art technology used in the blockbuster motion picture. Even more concept art then in the first Book from Ryan Meinerding, Jonathan Bach, Aaron McBride and Adi Granov. More pictures and a quick video review on Parkablogs.com.
Available at amazon for € 35,95

27th annual Art Competition

The 'Artist's Magazin' is now accepting entries in the 27th Annual Art Competition. Winners will be featured in the December 2010 issue. They are awarding over $25,000 in cash prizes. Click here for details and to enter online. Entry Deadline: May 14, 2010

www.artistsnetwork.com

Imaginism Studios

Imaginism Studios is made up of independent artists specializing in publishing, television, and movie pre-production. They produce some of the most fun and upbeat designs, concepts, and illustrations around! The website features galleries of Jason Seiler, Stephen Silver, Bobby Chiu and Kei Acedera who are well known for their concept work on Burton's 'Alice in Wonderland'. More images and updates on the blog.

www.imaginismstudios.com

Retro-Future-Transportation

darkroastedblend.com continues with it's retro-future series, and presents now the next installment in "Futuristic Transportation". Fascinating concepts that appeared in the 1940s-60s magazines that could still prompt interest in modern designers and manufacturers - read the first part here and view the gallery here. www.darkroastedblend.com

Robh Ruppel talks about art direction for 'Uncharted 2' at CGSociety. See more of his stunning art work on his website and follow the updates on his instructive blog.

anatomy for artists

Ideal for reference, teaching or study: the finest superficial muscle anatomical figures can be ordered from anatomytools.com.

Workshops are offered twice a year and introduce it's attendees to the complex structure of skeleton, muscles and functions of the human body. Further courses cover topics such as creature-, animal- and character anatomy.

The Practice & Science of Drawing

Harold Speed's introduction to the classic approach to the dynamics

of drawing with insights and practical advice on line drawing, mass drawing, visual memory, materials, and much more. The book's 296 pages, 84 plates and diagrams reinforce Speed's clear presentation. Though written nearly a hundred years ago, the lessons taught remain up-to-date.

Available from Dover Publications, or read the e-book (for free) online now at archive.org

INDIGO is the first large scale playable presentation of innovative and independent video-game design in the Netherlands. Visitors can join in the celebration of Dutch innovative games by playing the games and by talking to the makers themselves.

INDIGO, Dutch Game Garden at Neude 4 in Utrecht, The Netherlands.
Friday April 23: Opening night. Doors open at 6.30 PM (invitation only)
Saturday April 24: Open for public. Times: 12.00 PM – 6.00 PM (public)

SIGGRAPH 2010, the 37th international conference and exhibition on computer graphics and interactive techniques takes place at the Los Angeles Convention Center from July 27 -29. Read more about the latest news and announcements on the official website and blog:
www.siggraph.org
siggraphmediablog.blogspot.com

Quick-And-Dirty Robot Art Contest

In honor of April's Robogames, io9.com is sponsoring a robot art contest. Create a work of art on the theme of "we welcome our new robot overlords" and you could win fabulous prizes! All images are welcome created by using anything from Photoshop or special effects software, to traditional media. The details of the contest are here. Art is due by April 21, 2010!

io9.com, reloadedstudios.com

Orientalists

Featuring over 300 images, pulled from 45 different institutions in seven different countries, many of these pictures have rarely been seen publicly since their creation a century and more ago. Having both traveled and lived in the region, author Kristian Davies approaches this often misunderstood genre of art from a fresh perspective. The book is designed to be a primer, a fresh new approach and redefinition of the genre...[via artect.net]

This web-site contains a collection of more than 2500 paintings of 'Orientalist' painters. Since most of the books concerning the subject are already out of print this is a great resource for research and inspiration: www.orientalist-art.org.uk

more links:
orientaliste.free.fr theorientalistgallery.blogspot.com

NVArt5 Competition

In this, the fifth NVArt competition, artists from all over the world are challenged to create vehicle designs for a future on the move ... transport in the style of Syd Mead. For details visit the CGSociety.com

An art and conceptdesign event in Berlin in cooperation with Marvel Entertainment, the artists from Massive Black and SIXMOREVODKA. Featuring instructors from across the planet, workshops, seminars, digital art demos, fine art presentations, live painting, illustration, comics and conceptdesign.
made-blog.com sixmorevodkastudio.blogspot.com

car design sketching

For those interested in the rendering techniques of the automitive designers, designertechniques.com offers a database of information, tutorials, designer interviews, product reviews, and a visitors gallery. More tutorials can be found at carbodydesign.com and mileswaterhouse.com