Forever Heroes Challenge

Create a digital statue of your favorite hero & You can win a full scholarship for our Seaside Sculpt Jam (July 18th – 22nd, Krapets, BG)

Send it to forthewin@amc.ro and if it proves to be great 3D artistry, you’re in for the win!

  • 3 full scholarships for the Seaside Sculpt Jam (Krapets, BG) powered by AMC X ARC Academy X FAR   
  • 3 internships in AMC’s Character Dept. 
  • 3 mentorships with AMC Character artists 
 

Deadline for submission: J̶u̶n̶e̶ ̶2̶0̶t̶h̶ July 1st

Partners: The National Council for Studying the Securitate Archives, ARC Academy, FAR (Future Artistic Requirements) platform
Statement:

To all 3D Character artists about to start their careers, here’s a chance for you to get into the industry of co-development for video games. 

We’re AMC, 3D art and design studio, and sharing knowledge is one of our main missions. Our training portfolio includes teaching digital modeling at the National University of Arts, Politehnica University, Cinetic, and Ion Mincu Architecture and Urbanism, in Bucharest, for the last four years. 

We also help aspiring artists through mentorships, internships, and podcasts.

For the summer of 2022, we partnered up with ARC Academy in Sofia (BG) and FAR (Future Artistic Requirements) platform alongside #UnicreditBank, to create an unforgettable five-days learning experience for 3D Character artists.

We reserved three full scholarships for this jam in our challenge. Here it comes!

Forever Heroes Challenge is a call for stories through the symbolic gesture of making a digital statue. We want to celebrate personalities that culturally impacted communities, people that deserve to be recognized and remembered but are very often left outside public recognition. And to give you a voice to speak up about authentic role models.

Let’s celebrate together the beauty of humankind in arts, science, tech, and human rights. You’re the one giving credit for outstanding merits to the greater good of society.

FAQ:

1. What’s in it for me?

Three winners will get full scholarships for the Seaside Sculpt Jam, a five-days learning experience from industry professionals, and internships in AMC, one month at the office, learning with your AMC buddy and the whole team, a chance to catch the vibe of a co-dev office and learn plenty. More than half of our interns became our colleagues.

Seaside Sculpt Jam aims to bring together passionate people, to share their love for video game art. Learning straight from industry professionals will give participants a better understanding of the industry-specific pipeline & workflow requirements, plus inspiring insights, and a skill set tailored for Zbrush-loving Character Artists.

Your trainers will be: AMC’s Character Artists Daniel Merticariu and Marius Petre, freelance Character Artist Claudiu Tănasie, Nikolay Naydenov and Anatomy Teacher Sofia Christov from ARC Academy.

We will sculpt in 3D by day and make campfires on the beach by night in Krapets, a quiet Bulgarian fisherman’s village, close to the Romanian border. At the end of the workshop, we believe you will have new & empowering tools to overcome the newcomer’s challenges. The artworks resulting from the boot camp will be displayed in a collective exhibition at RADAR 2022. 

A full scholarship: tuition, accommodation, transportation (within a 150 euro budget/winner).

Outside the podium: 3 mentorships with AMC Character Artists, you can further work on your chosen model together or other asset with the guidance from a 3D artist from AMC as a mentor for 2 months. A real opportunity for a young artist to upgrade their portfolio. Read about our internship & mentorship programs here. 

 

2. What are the deliverables?

A full-body high poly model of a statue/statuary group. 

  1. Character Turntable 1920 x 1080px
  2. Beauty shot of Character at least 1920 x 1080px
  3. Final Zbrush scene in .ztl format
  4. A text of max 1000 characters about your hero and the reason you’ve chosen this person.

 

This is a Sculpting challenge, so it won’t be judged on mesh flow or texturing. But it would be helpful for participants to have a decent lowest level division in case you want to render in Maya or 3DS etc. You can use any version of Zbrush/Maya/Max to create the hi-res sculpt. 

For Beauty render, you are free to apply whatever Post-FX in any software (Arnold, Marmoset, Photoshop, etc) on this entry image submission. The submission can be an image with multiple angles of your entry or just one big version based around a scene with good lighting.

You can include environments, texture them, or add FX, etc.

 

3. What’s the best practice?

The main things that you should be keeping in mind are those first things that pop up when you’re looking at a piece of artwork, because, as you can imagine, those things will also be our judging criteria.

Make sure to be as original as possible, to build a mood that is easy to notice and that speaks to the viewer, to make sure that your organic sculpt is of good quality. Pay attention to anatomical details and keep an eye out for chances to be expressive. Don’t slack off on the cleanliness of the hard surface sculpting either, if you’ll have any of that in your work.

Silhouette is also key in bringing all those details together and helps you keep everything consistent. Finally, it doesn’t hurt to keep everything properly named and organized – keep in mind that someone else might need to look in your scenes and files, and it should be just as easy for them to navigate there, as it is for you.

And last but not least, post your intention to participate on our Discord channel for FHC and share your progress with us.

In case you don’t have an account, get one! It’s free, easy to set up, and will allow you to interact with other participants, making the whole process even more fun!

 

4. Can I submit more than one artwork?

Yes, you can.

 

5. Can I win multiple prizes? 

No, you cannot. You get one chance with your best artwork. 

 

6. Can I use any old work which suits the challenge theme?

No, all entries must be newly created specifically for the purpose of this challenge.

 

7. Can a team of artists participate with one entry?

No. This challenge applies to individual artists.

 

We will announce the winners on July 5 by updating this page and on AMC social media.

The Jury consists of AMC Character artist (Daniel Merticariu), AMC Studio Art Director Dan Cocină, Claudiu Tănasie (freelance Character artist), Nikolay Naydenov (Gameloft BG, ARC Academy), Georgiana Toea (Community Builder AMC).

Special thanks to Cristina Anisescu (Psychologist, Head of Educational Programs Service, Research Department, Exhibitions of the National Council for Studying the Securitate Archives), George Petrineanu, Bogdan Dumitrache, Carpați de Timișoara, Alexandru Radu, Cristian Dragomir, Flora Pop, Ciprian Ocean, Ovidiu Bejan, Claudia Ursu, postmodernism.ro. 

Our winners are:

 

Boot camp goers (+ internships in AMC):

 

Paraschiv Teodora – Desmond Doss

Desmond Doss, Teodora’s hero, was raised as a pacifist and stayed true to his beliefs even in war. He chose the path of an army medic and became an example of valor and selflessness.

 

Coroian Eduard – Bob Marley

Eduard chose Bob Marley because he saw a true fighter for freedom and equality in the singer. In Bob, he sees someone who truly understood the essence of life.

Vișan Andreea – Michelangelo

Andreea was fascinated by “The Atlas Slave”, a sculpture of a man who seems to carry a heavy weight on his head. Though there are many interpretations of the artwork, Andreea has a favourite:

That Michelangelo left the statue unfinished on purpose, to symbolize humanity’s eternal struggle to free ourselves from our material trappings.

 

Mentorships with AMC character artists:

Chircuș Ștefania –  Herself

Stefania Chircus’ forever hero is none other than herself. And her sculpture is also a strong metaphor: that the power to develop ourselves is in our own hands.

She began building herself patiently from many points of view. She is her own hero not because of the result, but because of who she was and who she became, alongside the difficult process of getting there.

Andrei Gălățanu – Father Paisios

Meet Andrei Gălățanu’s forever hero, Father Paisios – a Greek Eastern Orthodox ascetic from Mount Athos.

Andrei learned of him from a book and felt that the monk explained modern problems using the stories of others. And that truly resonated with him and helped him overcome challenging periods of his life.

Cristian Rădulescu  – Stephen the Great

We’re going back in history, to one of Romania’s medieval rulers, Stephen the Great. Cristian has loved video games since childhood (we can relate to that!). He was super fascinated by fantasy games. Castles, magic, cool armors..all of it. 

So he jumped at the opportunity to bring the renowned Stephen the Great to 3D.