dressed 2 kill
Judges : Professional
Linda Sellheim
Linda Sellheim has over twenty-five years of experience as an artist, designer and educator, with a B.F.A from Art Center College of Design in Illustration and my M.F.A. from California State University in Visual Arts Linda has worked in everything from fashion to video Games. She currently works for Autodesk as the Curriculum Development Manager for Media and Entertainment coordinating learning material for schools using 3D software for entertainment design and visualization. Over the years her work has included designing and illustrating for editorial publications, advertising campaigns and designing toys for Galoob, Ideal, and Mattel. She has also worked in many areas of the entertainment industry including concept design, special effects, and costuming and at one time had a gallery in Los Angeles featuring her art to wear.
Stefan Henry-Biskup
Stefan Henry-Biskup is the Creative Director and partner in Liquid Development LLC. The Portland based production studio has contributed to many of the top game titles of the day including The Beatles Rockband, Fallout 3, Mass Effect, and Killzone 2. Stefan began his career in 1992 when 3D graphics and cdroms were just becoming the cutting edge of the industry. As an Artist, Teacher and Creative Director he has consistently pushed for an eager embrace of the tools and technology available to the artist while maintaining a disciplined eye on the goal of aesthetic excellence.
Farzad Varahramyan
Creative Visual Director Farzad Varahramyan has always had a passion for drawing and creating new worlds and characters. Farzad’s a graduate of Art Center College of Design, and has been in the game industry for the last 14 years.
As Sr. Production Designer at Oddworld, he helped develop the visual look of ABE’S ODDYSEE, ABE’S EXODDUS, and MUNCH’S ODDYSEE. He has also contributed designs to films such as JUMANJI, ALIEN vs. PREDATOR, and RACE TO WITCH MOUNTAIN.
In 2002, Farzad was a co-founder and creative visual director of what became High Moon Studios. He established the concept art department and co-created multiple original IP games, such as DARKWATCH.
He’s co-authored THE ART OF DARKWATCH, and was published in books like THE ART OF ODDWORLD, CONCEPT DESIGN 2, and publications including SPECTRUM, EXPOSE, EXOTIQUE, and APHRODISIA.
On Halloween 2008 he co-founded APPY ENTERTAINMENT, dedicated to creating video games and entertainment for the i-Phone market.
Farzad attributes his good fortune in games and film design to his
teachers and mentors. However, the biggest influences in Farzad’s life
are his wife Vera, son Maxwell, and daughter Isabella.
John Nee
John Nee is a long time member of the comics community having co-founded WildStorm Productions with Jim Lee in 1992 which they sold to DC Comics in 1998. He's been involved with launching many of the best comics franchises in the business including: Gen13, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, The Authority and Planetary to name a few. Most recently he was Senior Vice President of Business Development for DC Comics where he handled global licensed publishing, interactive and new media and manga businesses. These days he's enjoying his independence and involved with a variety of projects including www.printwarcraft.com, a platform for rendering 3d game assets and creating high quality, printable imagery.
Ryan Meinerding
Ryan Meinerding is a concept artist for the film and games industries. After working on game titles like Gauntlet: Seven Sorrows and Return to Castle Wolfenstein 2, he got his start in film at Iain McCaig's Ninth Ray Studios. While there he worked on projects like Outlander and John Carter of Mars. Since then he has helped develop characters and key moments for movies such as Iron Man, Iron Man 2, Transformers 2, Watchmen, Thor, and Captain America. He is currently employed at Marvel Studios.
LOUISE COFFEY-WEBB
Chair, Fashion Design Department,
School of Media, Culture & Design
Woodbury University
Raised in England where she worked for the British Broadcasting Corporation, Louise has been a Los Angeles resident for 3 decades. She has curated many fashion and costume collections, working on exhibitions and archives, such as the Warner Bros. Museum, Sony Pictures Entertainment Archives, the Audrey Hepburn Estate Collection and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. She teaches the History of Costume Design and Costuming for Motion Pictures and Television at Woodbury University. Her lectures on costume history have been heard all over the US, Canada and Great Britain, and she has appeared on E! Entertainment TV and A&E discussing Hollywood costume, lingerie and Princess Diana’s dresses. She has written and narrated a mini-documentary on Victorian underwear released in the special boxed edition of John Wayne’s “McClintock” and recently lectured on Art Deco Costume and Film at The Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood.
Joe Peterson
Joe Peterson has a background in traditional illustration, and has been a concept artist in the games industry for over five years. He was recently the lead concept artist at Red 5 Studios. Before Red 5, Joe worked at Blizzard Entertainment in the cinematics department, where he contributed to such projects as World of Warcraft, Diablo 3 and Starcraft 2.
Judges : Student
Joe Shoopack
Joe Shoopack is Director of Artistic Development for Sony Online Entertainment Studios located in San Diego, Austin, Seattle, Denver, Tucson, and Taipei.
He works to facilitate cross studio solutions and maintain high art quality standards for all SOE titles.
Joe is involved with academic programs in a mentoring and advisory capacity and helps define career paths for artists within SOE.
He has developed Massively Multiplayer Online games and single player games since 1988 on platforms ranging from the PS3 back to Atari 7800. He has worked with Sony since 1997.
He holds a BFA in illustration from Brighamn Young University and has shipped over 30 game titles.
Justin Thavirat
Justin Thavirat has been working in the video game industry for 15 years and is a Senior Art Director at Blizzard Entertainment. Justin got his start in the game in 1994 when he answered a local job posting at school that read, "Do you like to draw and play video games? If so, please send you resume and portfolio to Blizzard Entertainment." Since then Justin has enjoyed contributing game art, concept art, cinematics, and marketing illustrations to many of Blizzard's games in the Warcraft, Starcraft, Diablo, and World of Warcraft series and is currently art directing an unannounced massively multiplayer online game at Blizzard Entertainment.
Anthony Waters
Anthony Scott Waters is a concept artist and illustrator based in Orange County, California. His career has taken him from the early days of interactive software all the way to Hollywood, with many stops in-between. He?s known as a monster maker and environment designer for Magic as well as companies like Microsoft, Hasbro and Electronic Arts. His work has also been featured in Spectrum: the Best in Contemporary Fantastic Art and toured the country in the MacExpo Digital Art Show. He is presently employed as a Senior Concept Designer at Red5 Studios in Irvine, California. His work can be viewed at http://www.thinktankstudios.com, his portfolio site; http://fyreant.deviantart.com and his blog, http://bloated-nose.blogspot.com/.