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Artist news, softwAre<br />
events<br />
At the core of the DigitAl Art community<br />
A Rising Star in issue five, Jon McCoy<br />
recently worked on the new Blade<br />
Runner film… though we can’t<br />
take all the credit!<br />
Cover artist Loish’s<br />
style today – varied<br />
and masterful.<br />
From rising stars<br />
to art legends…<br />
Catch up For 11 years ImagineFX has led the charge for digital art.<br />
Beren Neale talks to the artists who’ve been with us on the journey<br />
In February 2006 Jon McCoy was in<br />
his first year of Transport Design at<br />
Huddersfield University. Although his<br />
course provided plenty of challenges,<br />
it was seeing his art in a new digital<br />
art magazine that energised him to<br />
continue with his chosen path in art.<br />
“When I was featured in issue five of<br />
ImagineFX, back in 2006, I was at<br />
the stage where I think artists mostly<br />
need encouragement<br />
combined with clinical,<br />
constructive feedback,”<br />
Jon says. “It’s a stage<br />
where many habits are<br />
formed and tastes developed.<br />
ImagineFX gave me a lot of<br />
encouragement in featuring me as<br />
a Rising Star, and really helped push<br />
me to practise and develop more.”<br />
Last year Jon was a concept artist<br />
on Rogue One – the latest in a long list<br />
of big films he’s worked on, including<br />
the forthcoming Blade Runner 2049.<br />
For the ImagineFX team, it doesn’t<br />
get any better than stories like this – to<br />
hear that we played a part, no matter<br />
Issue one came out on<br />
26 January 2006,<br />
and for artists like<br />
Jason Chan, made<br />
them feel “legitimised”.<br />
Jason would go on<br />
to paint one of the<br />
four covers for issue<br />
18 – along with<br />
Andrew Jones,<br />
Loïc Zimmermann<br />
and Mélanie Delon.<br />
how small, in an artist finding clarity,<br />
getting inspired, and eventually<br />
achieving their goals.<br />
And it’s always been this way. The<br />
magazine launched at the time of a<br />
burgeoning online scene filled with<br />
passionate artists of all skill levels, and<br />
has grown with them over 11 years.<br />
Having identified a friendly online<br />
community with sci-fi and fantasy art<br />
as the common thread, we aimed to<br />
reflect them, to champion art legends<br />
and encourage those starting out.<br />
Around this time, a certain Nicolas<br />
Bouvier had moved from Montreal to<br />
Dallas, Texas, joining id Software for<br />
the development of its new game<br />
RAGE. “This was back in 2005. At<br />
that time I was still<br />
experimenting a lot with<br />
custom brushes,” says<br />
Sparth today. “It was truly<br />
a magical era where we<br />
had the feeling of being like pioneers<br />
in the concept art world. Today, a lot<br />
of the industry has settled down – in<br />
a good and a bad way – but again, this<br />
feeling of discovery was pretty intense<br />
around that time. I think ImagineFX<br />
was embracing that early spirit, a great<br />
translation of what was going on.”<br />
HealtHy obsession<br />
In the second issue of<br />
ImagineFX Mike Hill, today<br />
the founder of Emmy<br />
award-winning design<br />
studio Karakter, was a<br />
19-year-old gamer taking his first steps<br />
into his career. “I was still learning the<br />
basics of illustration and 3D,” he says.<br />
Fascinated with Halo, he was also<br />
driven to learn the trade, “so I could<br />
visualise my adolescent obsession<br />
with the game as illustrated stories.<br />
All in all, it was a largely healthy<br />
obsession because I soon started<br />
contracting in the industry for Killzone<br />
developer Guerrilla Games.”<br />
18 August 2017