The latest Digital Art Live, the free monthly magazine for science-fiction and fantasy artists: Digital Art Live Issue 39: Deserts.
Category Archives: Competitions
MediBang! Contest 2019
Tokyo’s MediBang! and Manga CPO have joined forces for a new contest with two sections, Manga and Illustration. They want a max. 32-page manga style comic, and / or an unpublished comic-style illustration on the theme of “Journey”. Free entry, and it appears to be open worldwide though they obviously expect to see a Japanese style in the entries. Deadline: 7th May 2019.
MediBang appears to be a sort of store platform for indie manga creators to sell their comics and illustrations in the Japanese market. They also offer the free MediBang Paint software, now fairly mature at version 23.x, and Jump Paint which is more of a guided experience with embedded tutorials for new manga creators. The contest doesn’t appear to restrict you to just this software.
Call: Google Summer of Code 2019
Google Summer of Code 2019: Call for Coders! You’ll be at university but also already be involved with development of an open source software (such as the free Krita, hint hint…). You’ll focus on one hands-on project, and will have mentors to help you. Google will bung you a nice stipend, and most likely a fat bundle of t-shirts too (that last bit is just my guess). Individual student application begin: 25th March 2019.
Winners: Adobe’s ‘From the Moon to Mars’ Challenge
Adobe’s “From the Moon to Mars Challenge Award” has announced its winners. Competitors had to use the Adobe Dimension software, which is Adobe’s catch-up competitor to the excellent KeyShot, to make their entry.
They also had to use 3D stock models from NASA, which were pulled from the free public archive into the Adobe Stock website. I think I like Chris C‘s picture the best, though he only had an Honorable Mention. It has the proper NASA feel to it, despite the unfortunate use of the Space Shuttles.
News of the contest also led me to this dinky little Mars explorer manned vehicle which is free from NASA’s Advanced Concepts Lab’s in .OBJ format with a texture atlas (which means textures can’t be easily replaced with drag-and-drop).
I’ll make my quickie test-render of the explorer vehicle ‘Creative Commons Attribution - excludes Alamy, Getty and Shutterstock’. Anyone else, please feel free to use it. The three blended backgrounds are public domain from NASA and ESA.
Competition: Metropia 2042
Manga Studio competition
There’s a new worldwide student competition from the makers of Manga Studio (now called Clip Studio). They’re calling for digital comics artists who are at degree level, in a technical/vocational school, or even in a formal “school art club or extracurricular art program”. There are loads of prizes, from Celcys and their partners, including Wacom Cintiq pen-monitors. Entry is free, and the deadline is early May 2019.
Opportunity: Adobe Creative Residency
Apply now for the 2019-2020 class of Adobe Creative Residency. Highly personalized with small class sizes, 1:1 mentoring, and a year’s salary with travel stipends and networking opportunities! Applicants must… “speak and write fluent English and live in the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom, Japan or Canada.” Deadline: 7th February 2019.
Monster, Myths, and Legends
“Monster, Myths, and Legends” art contest, although only for entrants in Louisiana, USA. All places should tap into their similarly spooky local folklore at this time of year, bringing it together with local aspiring artists.
Competition: Observatory Houses
As south Italian hill-villages depopulate rapidly, there’s a need to create new types of attractions to bring in tourists and possibly new caretaker residents. The “Observatory Houses” competition seeks young… “designers will have to create a story composed by stars, silences and landscapes. This story will have to include architectural elements designed to create a place beyond compare” for observation of the stars at the hill-village of Roccascalegna. Deadline: 27th July 2017.
Nice idea, but as you can see there’s a tight deadline and also a hefty entry fee. But note that they have a free public 3D model, albeit only in the difficult .DWG CAD format and not quite the same as they one they’re showing in the promo…
However I’ve snagged it before the competition closes and made a basic .OBJ conversion, import-tested in Vue. Three material zones, soil, buildings and roofs, which all take Vue materials nicely.
Vue competition announced, $30,000 of prizes
There’s a new Vue Environment Competition 2017. Over $30,000 of prizes, top judges, deadline 30th September 2017.
Masie for Poser
Renderosity has launched a new contest to make a fun picture with Masie. Masie is the new semi-toon Poser 11 character, an unofficial flagship character created by the community to take advantage of all the Poser 11 features. For tooning she also comes with… “Base and Makeup Toon Materials and 6 Basic Toon Color Materials”, which have presumably been tested to work well in flat lighting and the Comic Book mode.
Masie has been designed to be really easy for content creators to work with, and they’ve already produced a wealth of free and paid content at Renderosity. There are a variety of introductory Masie Bundles. Neither the default Masie face, nor the three or four morphed Store faces, really grab me — expect for the face used for the vampire promo seen above. But doubtless more are on their way, and it’ll be interesting to see how radically she can be re-shaped. I’m also uncertain if she can take any legacy poses and hair (e.g. V4) without requiring fiddly adjustments, which would make her a lot more appealing as a purchase.
The Masie contest has $175 of Renderosity vouchers as prizes, and the entry deadline is 15th June 2017.
Vue competition: Jungle Book
There’s a new e-on software competition, Jungle Book, for Vue users.
Vue Star Wars fan art contest
Vue users have a new The Force Awakens! Star Wars competition (link has spoilers for the new movie!). Star Wars fan artists should use their 3D skills (and, I guess, Vue) by making new artwork on the theme “The Force Awakens”. However, the rules also say…
“This is a generic Star Wars fan art contest, your artwork doesn’t have to be themed only on the Force Awakens (Episode 7) movie!”
Deadline is Sunday 3rd of January 2016. 1 entry per person. First prize is VUE xStream 2015, PlantFactory Producer 2015, and a 1 year CClub Membership.
