Saturday, March 6, 2010

Lanzendorf Paleoart Prize

If you create paleoart, be sure to enter your work for consideration for the Lanzendorf Prize. The deadline is April 1, and the winners each receive a $600 prize payment.

Paleoart is “the scientific or naturalistic rendering of paleontological subject matter pertaining to vertebrate fossils.”

The John J. Lanzendorf PaleoArt Prize recognizes outstanding achievement in paleontological scientific illustration and naturalistic art. These are the only art awards chosen by the scientists themselves to recognize the work that brings their discoveries to life.

Categories include scientific illustration, 2-dimensional art, 3-dimensional art, and the National Geographic Digital Modeling and Animation Award.

Here’s more about the contest and eligibility and the submission procedure.

5 comments:

goat89 said...

Wow! thanks for the heads up Mr Gurney! Cant wait to see the results of this competition!

groperofeuropa said...

Gorgeous! Something to enter next year. It'll be interesting to see how they judge the 3d animation, considering how much the mechanical physiology of dinosaurs has changed in the last 20 years or so. They could judge it on how realistic the animal appears by animation of its movement or by how well it moves given due consideration to all that they know about it's skeletal and muscular anatomy. I hope they aren't just wowed by the technology, and choose the latter.
Incidentally, theres a fantastically in depth and intricate tutorial in 3D WORLD by Steve Lambert (of Weta Workshop) on the whole process of animating a dinosaur (or any animal) from concept sketching -> modelling in Maya and Zbrush with high detail and correct topology -> texturing -> skeletal rigging -> lighting -> animation -> rendering. The only fundamental element not covered is compositing the animation into a scene. Tasty and rewarding stuff if you can spare 6-8 hours just watching and reading tutorials.
The dinosaur he models is an Atrocitasaurus. He doesn't mention much about paying attention to actual fossil records though. Its mainly a project in making something that would look good in a movie, rather than a museum.

Andrew Finnie said...

Yes, thanks for the info, obliged

Andrew Finnie said...

Make that 'much' obliged :)

Justin M. said...

cool!