Fort Lauderdale, Fla. - GameRecruiter, a recruitment agency for the interactive entertainment industry, announced the five winners of its debut 3D artwork contest, the Battle of the SuperModelers.
The Battle of the SuperModelers is a digital art contest designed to support and promote both professional and student 3D artists in the games community.
The Battle of the SuperModelers panel of judges reviewed completed 3D art from game artists around the U.S. who created original real-time character models of a monster, creature, robot, or alien that might be found in a fantasy, sci-fi, or horror game.
The Grand Prize Winner and three finalists will receive a combined total of $50,000's worth of digital art tools and technology from contest sponsors Alienware, Autodesk, Wacom, and The Gnomon Workshop.
More than a 100 game artists entered their work for consideration. The Grand Prize Winner is Eric Claeys, art director for Suva Interactive, who offered, "I've been drawn to fantasy and science fiction art as long as I can remember. My goal is dive into the industry as a creature/character modeler or concept artist -- someday taking on more of a lead/directive role. Thanks again to everyone who was involved in putting the competition together. I think it was handled very well for the first time through. I hope there are more to come."
The three finalists winners are Brian Parnell, senior character artist at Harmonix; James Ho, senior environment artist at LucasArts, and Jake Raymor, a student at Gnomon School of Visual Effects. Also acknowledged is contest runner-up, Jacob Mandt, environment artist at Raven Software.
Says Marc Mencher, CEO for GameRecruiter, "This competition is a testament to the level of game art that is now being produced in our industry, and an indicator of just how far we have advanced in the evolution of 3D graphics development for games. If you look at the quality of 3D game art from even just 5 years ago compared to now, it's clear that thecombination of today's game art talent and tools have ushered in a completely new era of sophisticated art asset creation. We are very proudto have hosted this contest and look forward to presenting it again in the future."