Grand Space Opera – Light Age: Production Phase

ArtStation Community Challenges enable you to work on improving your skills, connect with and learn from other artists, create new material for your portfolio and show the ArtStation Community what you’re capable of.  We hope you’re ready because an exciting new ArtStation Community Challenge begins now.

The theme of the eighth ArtStation Community Challenge is Grand Space Opera: Light Age. We’re challenging artists to imagine the universe within humanity’s reach at the dawn of light speed and dimension jump technologies.

Join the Challenge

The question of whether we are alone has been answered. We’re not. We’ve made contact with civilizations in every corner of our galaxy and others, and we’ve reached dimensions that mirror our own but with strange twists.

What we’re looking for is your ability to breathe life into alien races and stories across a universe we’re just learning about. Some will be light years ahead of human achievements, and some will be more recognisable to our history.

The Challenge started with four Concept Art categories (Keyframe Design, Character Design, Environment Design and Prop Design) running for four weeks. We will open up four Production categories (Game Character Art, Game Environment/Level Art, Film/VFX Character Art and Prop Art) which will start on 7 January, 2021.

Enter Phase 2

You can now register for the production art categories and begin the challenge. The briefs will be published on Thursday 7th January 2021.

• Game Character Art (real-time)
• Film/VFX Character Art (rendered)
• Game Environment/Level Art
• Prop Art (rendered)

Don’t forget you can use the concept art submissions as the basis of your entry:

• Keyframe Design
• Character Design
• Environment Design
• Prop Design

Challenge Hosts

In order to help you push your submission to the next level, each category has hosts to give constructive feedback on your updates and general tips along the way.

• Randall Mackey (Freelance): Keyframe Design
• Grace Liu (Airship Syndicate): Environment Design
• Suzanne Helmigh (Ghostfire Gaming): Character Design
• Marina Ortega (Freelance): Prop Design
• Satoshi Arakawa (Amazon Games): Game Character Art
• Mathew O’Halloran (Ubisoft Massive): Game Environment/Level Art
• Karen Stanley (Ubisoft Massive): Game Environment/Level Art
• Gavin Goulden (Insomniac Games): Game Character Art
• Hasan Bajramovic (Blur): Film/VFX Character Art
• Dorine  Laplanche (Cyanide): Prop Art

Challenge Judges

The judging panel for Grand Space Opera: Light Age is out of this world!

• Christian Alzmann
• Sparth
• Terryl Whitlatch
• Philip Boutte Jr
• Gaelle Seguillon
• Alex Jay Brady
• Liz Kirby
• Finnian MacManus
• Paul Jones

Share your Progress

An important part of ArtStation Challenges is posting WIPs so that the judges and viewers can see how you came to your end result and can give feedback along the way.

The official challenge hashtag is #GrandSpaceOperaChallenge. Share your progress with us and others using the hashtag when you post updates on your other social media.

Deadlines

The concept art challenges began on Monday 23rd November 2020 and closed on Monday 21st December 2020. The production challenges will begin on Thursday 7th January 2021 and the entry deadlines will be Wednesday 3rd March 2021. The deadline to register for the production challenges is Wednesday 24 February 2021.

Good luck!