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Third annual Blizzard Student Art Contest announces winners
Blizzard has looked through all of the entries for the third annual Blizzard Student Art Contest and chosen the winners, who were announced on the official website yesterday. Entrants this year had four different categories to choose from -- Environment, Character, and Weapons art, and also an Animation category -- the first time we've seen additional categories for the contest. Needless to say the variety of winning entries covered everything under the sun. The top three winners were Sukjoo-Choi for the mount model shown above, Servando Lupini for an absolutely gorgeous Hallows End-themed environment design, and Duy Nguyen for an eredar-themed, incredibly ornate weapon that frankly I'd love to see a draenei slinging around. Runners up included more environment and weapon art, as well as several incredibly quirky character designs, including an otter fisherman complete with rod and knapsack full of tasty fish. Check out the official announcement page for a look at all of the entries from the talented winners, runner-ups, and honorable mentions -- and congratulations to all!
Reminder: Blizzard Student Art Contest deadline is this Friday
The deadline for the Blizzard Student Art Contest is fast approaching! If you're working on a piece for the Blizzard Student Art Contest, which this year includes four categories for submissions -- Environment Art, Character Art, Weapon Art, or Animation -- note that the deadline for submissions is Friday, January 31. That's this Friday, so if you're still in the middle of working on submission pieces, you better start wrapping them up. This year's contest includes a gigantic collection of prizes for winners. Grand Prize winners will receive a one year subscription to World of Warcraft, a Blizzard Entertainment notebook featuring an original sketch by a Blizzard artist, a Blizzard T-shirt, and a three-month mentorship by a member of the World of Warcraft art team in the form of email or phone critique of portfolio work. If you have yet to submit your entry, or just want another look at the official rules and information, head to the official contest page and get it in before it's too late. Good luck to all who enter!
Blizzard Entertainment Student Art Contest making a return
Are you a college or university art student with a passion for World of Warcraft? Good news -- the Blizzard Student Art Contest is about to make a return. Blizzard Entertainment's university relations team, along with the World of Warcraft development team, are looking for original artwork or animations that would work within the World of Warcraft universe. The contest itself doesn't officially begin until December, but hopeful artists may want to begin work on their projects now, just to make sure you've got plenty of time to submit your absolute best work. This year, Blizzard has upped the ante and added new categories to the contest. Artists can create Environment Art, Character Art, Weapon Art, or Animation -- either a battle scene or flavor animation. Check out the winners from the previous two years for inspiration if you'd like -- and take a look at our interview with one of the previoius winners, Peter K. Lee, whose Darkmoon Carousel design actually made it into the game! Winners of the contest will get some amazing prizes, including a three-month mentorship by a member of the World of Warcraft art team, a one year game subscription, and more. Check out the official announcement page for more information, and for updates on the contest as it becomes available, join the official Blizzard Careers group on LinkedIn. Good luck to all who enter!
Winners announced for Blizzard Student Art Contest
Blizzard's second annual Student Art Contest has announced its winners. There were three announced winners for environments; Nick Dariano, Daehi Kim, and Kyoungche Kim all won fo their work designing environments. The character design winner was Ariel Fain for her "Old Crow" who I immediately demand as a playable race in the next expansion. You can see the awesome winners and the honorable mentions (all of which are pretty awesome as well - I especially like the Mole Master character design) at the official site. Mists of Pandaria is here! The level cap has been raised to 90, many players have returned to Azeroth, and pet battles are taking the world by storm. Keep an eye out for all of the latest news, and check out our comprehensive guide to Mists of Pandaria for everything you'll ever need to know.
Detail-oriented artist shows Blizzard how it's done
Marie Lazar got the chance to step into the shoes of a Blizzard Entertainment intern last summer -- and there's still a chance that you could, too. The deadline for this year's Blizzard student art contest is next week. If you're an aspiring 3D artist, get your portfolios in by Jan. 15 for a shot at a three-month mentorship at Blizzard under the wing of a member of the WoW art team, plus a one-year subscription to WoW and some delicious WoW memorabilia and goodies. You'd best be up for a stiff challenge, though, because this is no mere fan art contest. You'll face artists the likes of last year's winners Jessica Dinh, Peter K. Lee -- and the subject of this week's interview, the detail-oriented Marie Lazar. "It's all about the details," said WoW lead environment artist Gary Platner of Marie's work. "When we create art for WoW, we have to follow some rules. Pieces must have hand painted textures that match our unique art style and they must tell a story. Marie's work does this very well! And, if you look close enough, some great details come through. It's a library of the afterlife floating on an island in the sky! There are book references everywhere, books lying around, book grave stones, even the roof is made to look like an open book. All of us could look at this piece and come up with a great story."
Student artist's Darkmoon carousel stuns Blizzard, earns internship
Blizzard only wishes they'd made art like Blizzard student art contest winner Peter K. Lee -- no, seriously. "The carousel," writes a stunned-sounding Eric Browning, WoW's lead prop artist. "Holy crap. It was the exact right mix of 'WTF' and 'Why didn't we think of that?' Stylistically he nailed it, so it wasn't just a goofball idea that we loved (it was); it also fit almost perfectly into the game. Literally. It's now in the game. It has its OWN THEME SONG! That's how awesome it is, and I'm not even sure if our sound department made music or that it's just so excellent that it makes music on its own." "And I challenge anyone to look at those carved wooden mounts and not," he continued, "in some dark and quiet place in their brains whisper, 'I want that. I want it to be my friend and go on adventures with me. So baaaad.'" Like fellow contest winner Jessica Dinh, Lee's top-notch work in the art contest earned him a 2012 summer internship at Blizzard. We checked in with him to find out what it was like to work with a team he both admired and had managed to astound.
Breaking into Gaming: WoW player earns a summer inside Blizzard's art department
What WoW player wouldn't want to intern for three months inside the hallowed halls of Blizzard Entertainment? Surely, it's a dream scenario for 3D game artists trying to wedge a foot in the door of this incredibly competitive field. For three lucky art students, the scenario became a reality this summer via Blizzard's first student art contest. To be clear, this is no mere fan art contest. The student art contest was put together by Blizzard's University Relations department, challenging aspiring professionals to come up with 3D artwork that fit into the Warcraft universe while being "wholly new and unlike anything the art team had seen before." The three artists who best met that challenge would earn a three-month mentorship at Blizzard by a member of the WoW art team, a one-year subscription to WoW, and of course, some delicious WoW memorabilia and goodies. Top dog for the 2012 contest: Laguna College of Art and Design student Jessica Dinh. "Jessica set up her scene and composed it in a way that immediately captured the viewer," says Wendy Vetter, WoW's lead dungeon artist and Jessica's internship mentor. "It was colorful, whimsical, almost like an intro to a fairytale. I was struck by the amount of detail she put into the piece, right down to the cow's head peering at the viewer in the corner." Jessica tells us what it was like working on World of Warcraft as an artist inside Blizzard, and she rounds up what she learned there with five tips for artists trying to break into the field.
Blizzard announces second annual WoW Student Art Contest
Last year Blizzard held a World of Warcraft Student Art Contest, with their University Relations and World of Warcraft teams picking entries from art students challenged to design an piece of 3D art that would appear in game. Today we discovered that they're doing it again with this year's contest asking for student artists to design an original character piece and/or an environment piece. The prizes up include a three month internship with Blizzard artists and a free year of WoW, and the deadline for entry is Tuesday, January 15th 2013. You can enter the contest here. So if you're eligible (you have to be an enrolled college student) and think you have what it takes, get to work. Mists of Pandaria is here! The level cap has been raised to 90, many players have returned to Azeroth, and pet battles are taking the world by storm. Keep an eye out for all of the latest news, and check out our comprehensive guide to Mists of Pandaria for everything you'll ever need to know.
Blizzard announces Student Art Contest winners
This is one of those things that makes me jealous I'm not in school anymore. Back in 2011, Blizzard set its University Relations and World of Warcraft teams on a quest to find student artists. The resulting Student Art Contest charged students to come up with a piece of 3D art that fit into the Warcraft universe but was wholly new and unlike anything the art team had seen before. Now, we finally have the winners of the contest, and as Kotaku pointed out, they basically made their own little worlds here. You should definitely head to the official site and check out the winners. Each of the grand prize winners gets some actual mentoring from a member of the Blizzard World of Warcraft art team. Can you imagine that? That's amazing. Man, where's my time machine -- oh, and some artistic talent, I'd need that too. This is some amazing work. World of Warcraft: Cataclysm has destroyed Azeroth as we know it; nothing is the same! In WoW Insider's Guide to Cataclysm, you can find out everything you need to know about WoW's third expansion, from leveling up a new goblin or worgen to breaking news and strategies on endgame play.
