After long consideration and voting across the global panel of judges we are now very happy to announce the finalists of The Crystal Canvas Prize 2021!
Maja Ostrowska
FIRST PLACE WINNER
Alex Pieniążek
SECOND PLACE WINNER
Magdalena Mińko
THIRD PLACE WINNER
Addeb Jrrah
HONORABLE MENTION
Bartek Jędrzejewski
HONORABLE MENTION
Ashot Avetisyan
HONORABLE MENTION
Andres Fabian Lopez Naranjo
FINALIST
Magdalena Węgiel
FINALIST
Vladimir Matyukhin
FINALIST
THANK YOU to our incredible Judges: David Mullich, Greg Rutkowski, Kate Edwards, Richard Wright, Tsvetelin Krastev and Renee Gittins for making the tough decision and thank you to everyone for all of the amazing submissions!
As we meet with you on-site again, we are pleased to exhibit not only this year’s beautiful projects, but also the winning artworks from the previous online edition!
CRYSTAL CANVAS
DIGITAL ART CONTEST
The competition is open to all artists worldwide, who devote themselves to create concept and promotional art for video games, as well as to the artists who create digital art not directly connected to computer games.
The awards ceremony and the exhibition will take place at the Poznan International Fair during the biggest gamedev event in Central and Eastern Europe – Poznan Game Arena in Poland, 22.10.2021 – 24.10.2021.
The vernissage will take place at the Game Industry Conference.
The theme of the Competition is “Balance”. The task of the Participants is to create concept and promotional graphics. For more details please read the regulations. Participation in the Competition is free of charge.
Deadline 06.10.2021
The Game Industry Conference will fund Developer Pass for selected artists.
Up to 19 qualified projects will be presented on free-standing boards in the format of 100 x 250 cm.
The costs of the qualified printouts for the exhibition shall be covered by the Poznan Game Arena.
Finalists will be invited to join 80 Level Talent the premium job-matching service connecting video game creatives with top companies at no charge to the artists.
The aim of this competition is to promote art created with the use of digital techniques, as well as to attract attention to the fact that computer games are a form of modern art themselves. Computer games are not only a commercial phenomenon but can also be of artistic and philosophical nature. The name CRYSTAL CANVAS refers to artists turning to other media for expression: from traditional canvas to the liquid one, the crystal display. Digital painting used in design and promotion of computer games, combining the world of art and technology, broadens the discussion of image as a medium for expression and content. The unique phenomenon that firmly developed on account of computer games is concept drawing. For a long time traditional drawing also had not been recognized as an independent form of visual art. Drawings were made to encapsulate the artist’s idea on a sketch in preparation for a painting or a sculpture. Similarly, nowadays, concept art is the introduction and the basis for developing the real games assets; it designs the atmosphere, the characters and the environment of the virtual world. Those elements will affect gamers emotionally or even physically, as they identify themselves with video games heroes. Due to this immersive character of computer games, in addition to creating possibilities, a great responsibility lies on the shoulders of game designers.
ORGANIZED by
and ALEXANDRA LISON
PARTNERS
MEDIA PARTNERS
CRYSTAL CANVAS JURY
DAVID MULLICH
David Mullich is an accomplished game designer and producer best known for managing product development for pioneering educational software publisher EduWare Services and its line of core curriculum tutorials and intellectually-stimulating games, including the cult-classic 1980 adventure game “The Prisoner” and directing The 3DO Company’s “Heroes of Might & Magic” development team for 5 years, producing 2 best-selling AAA titles and several expansions in the hit strategy game franchise. In 1987, David was hired as the first game producer at The Walt Disney Company, where he produced “DuckTales: The Quest for Gold” for personal computers and “DuckTales” for the NES. Other notable games he has produced include Harlan Ellison’s “I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream” for Cyberdreams, and “Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines” for Activision. He also formed his own company, Electric Transit, which developed 3D simulations in collaboration with NASA/JPL scientists and was Electronic Arts’ first affiliated label publisher. David also led the Game Production degree program at The Los Angeles Film School. He is currently Game Producer at CineMoiWorld and Game Design Adjunct Professor at Art Center College of Design.
twitter/David_Mullich
GREG RUTKOWSKI
Greg Rutkowski is a freelance illustrator and concept artist. His clients include: CD PROJEKT RED, Riot Games, Blizzard Entertainment, The Walt Disney Studios, Ubisoft, Wizards of the Coast, Powerhouse Animation Studios.
Greg was born in 1988 in Poland. He began his adventure with drawing when he was a few years old. When he was 12 he started attending art classes after school. Around that time, he participated in most of the art competitions in the area, which he managed to win. When he was 15-16 he began to work hard to learn anatomy and other aspects of painting. Since then, he has been heavily inspired by the works of Tolkien, Simon Bisley, Frank Frazetta etc. Hence he also went strongly towards the fantasy genre. Which continues to this day. Immediately after high school, he was going to attend the Academy of Fine Arts. But that was also a time when he realized that most of the drawings he sees on the internet were made on a tablet on a computer. This prompted him to change his current direction and take a course towards digital art. At the age of 20 he bought his first tablet and started painting digitally. He got to know the entire digital painting community and began to learn different techniques himself. When he started out, there wasn’t much material to learn from, so most of the knowledge and experience he has today is because he was self-taught. In the meantime, a few things had changed in his life. He got married. Two daughters, Gaja and Anna, were born. He built a house where he lives now with his family.
artstation.com/rutkowski
KATE EDWARDS
Kate Edwards is the Executive Director of the Global Game Jam, as well as the CEO and principal consultant of Geogrify, a consultancy which pioneered content culturalization. She is also a Board Member of Take This and is the former Executive Director of the International Game Developers Association (IGDA) from 2012 to 2017. In addition to being an award-winning advocate who serves in several advisory roles, she is a geographer, writer, and corporate strategist. Following 13 years at Microsoft, she has consulted on many game and non-game projects for BioWare, Google, Amazon, Facebook, LEGO, and many other companies. Fortune magazine named her as one of the “10 most powerful women” in the game industry in 2013 and in 2014 was named by GamesIndustry.biz as one of their six People of the Year. Besides being awarded by several events for her advocacy work in the global game industry, she was honored with the Ambassador Award at the Game Developers Choice Awards at GDC 2020. In August 2021, she was included in the Forbes’ “50 Over 50” Vision List as one of 50 veteran women selected from a wide variety of industries. She is also profiled in the December 2018 publication Women in Gaming: 100 Professionals of Play.
www.globalgamejam.org
RENEE GITTINS
Renee Gittins is the Executive Director of International Game Developers Association (IGDA), and a multi-disciplinary leader with expertise in software engineering and creative direction. She is a passionate advocate and connector for developers and diversity in the game industry, with a background that spans across engineering, design, and production. She is outspoken about initiatives to increase diversity both within the game industry and gaming overall to help the game industry grow and improve for everyone. Renee was named as part of the Forbes 30 Under 30 class of 2020 in Games.
igda.org
RICHARD WRIGHT
Richard Wright is an artist currently living and working in the UK.
While studying Graphic Design at Art College I got a summer job at Games Workshop. The summer job turned into a full-time job and I spent the next few years illustrating Space Marines and Orks.
After GW I worked for a video games company, and then a couple of years later a studio called ArkVFX where we created pop promos, commercials and video game cinematics.
During this time I started working on Magic the Gathering and the World of Warcraft trading card games. I eventually left to work full-time as an illustrator/concept artist.
I’ve been working freelance for about 10 years, creating illustrations and concept art for various companies – Adidas, BioWare, Blur, Bungie, CMON, Crytek, D&D, EA, Love Death + Robots, Netflix, One Pixel Brush, Take Two Interactive.
artstation.com/richardwright
TSVETELIN KRASTEV
Tsvetelin Krastev is a Freelance Concept Designer, Matte Painter and Art Director specialized in Film, Game, TV and commercials. Within his 10 year experiance he has been part of various projects spanning from small to big productions contributing to projects such as “Assassin’s Creed: Origins”, “Hellboy 3”, “The Division 2” Having a strong background in Film, Games, he handles different aspects of production, from script and rough concept sketches to finalized visuals. Working closely with Production Designers, Directors and Art Directors assisting them in achieving their creative vision. His clients include: Disney Studios, Ubisoft, Universal Pictures, Legendary, Creative Assembly.
artstation.com/tsvetelinkrastev
SAMPLES FROM PREVIOUS EDITIONS
FAQ
We generally look for the projects created specifically for the contest. However, it is possible to apply with an old design if it perfectly matches the theme.
The Competition cannot accept submissions from studios or teams of artists. Nonetheless, in specific situations, a singular artist may submit their designs, created for a published or under development commercial project, on the condition that the artists have full copyrights to the submitted artwork.
At the first step of application to the competition, the submission should consist of three elements: concept sketches, final illustration and a brief description of the idea for a video game related to the concept of water. The selected artists will be provided with a template for the Expo banner. The Finalists will be obliged to transmit the submitted concept art, final illustration and description of the project to the template. The arrangement of these elements and colouring is at the artist’s discretion. For more information please read the regulations. We recommend checking the gallery from the previous editions on our social media.
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