Escape Blog

A few weeks ago we ran a customer satisfaction survey. As part of the survey, we had a prize draw, with the winners bagging a masterclass with our VFX tutor Lee Danskin and the runners up all receiving Amazon vouchers.

We’re pleased to announce that the following three respondents have been drawn as the winners of the masterclass: Ben Nuttall-Smith, Keiron Campbell and Mark Robin. Congratulations to you all!

We’ve also got 20 runners-up, who all receive an Amazon voucher worth £25 (or $40, if you’re into that sort of thing): Kevin Rittenhouse, Jaime Rivera, Dan Nastasa, Marcus Williams, Surapen Yosravikul, Curtis Cooper III, David Godefroy, Carla Gomes, James Pruszkowski, Hugo Guerra, Amanda Carrington, Joe Williamsen, Satoko Kojima, Jason Mullin, Mi Li, Artur Leao, Tom Crate, Luke Caulfield, Jeff Chen and Denise Ebanks.

Thanks to everyone who participated in the survey – we’ll be posting next week about the results and the insights we’ve drawn from them.

Regular readers of the blog will know that last week we had the awards ceremony of the CG Whiz competition. We managed to grab the three winners and some of the judges, including Steve Venning from The Mill, to film their views on the competition. We think everyone had a great time, and over the next few months we’re hoping to have blog posts from Adam Droy, the overall winner, and runners up Ronan McMeel and Marco Barrato, to see how the competition prizes have helped them break into the CG industry.

Well done to all who entered – we were astounded by the standard of the entries. For all those of you inspired by the entries keep an eye out for next year’s competition, and the chance to win another potentially career transforming prize.

A few weeks ago we ran a survey to find out what people thought of the CG industry, with a prize draw and some fantastic prizes for a lucky few. We’re please to say we can now announce the winners of the prize draw.

Andrew Segal, of Essex, won a Lenovo ThinkVision L2440P Wide LCD Monitor and a Wacom Intuos4 Medium tablet. Claude Gayle, won a Wacom Intuos4 Medium tablet and a Nvidia FX1800 graphic card. Dave Wollard, of Glasgow, won a Nvidia FX1800 graphic card.

All the winners are involved in the CG industry in some way, and the prizes should give them a helping hand in the future.

Congratulations to all our winners, and many thanks to all who completed the survey. Look out for the results soon!

We’re delighted to announce the winner of our competition with Computer Arts Project: Matt Long. We received many applications to this competition, and the overall quality of the entries was very high, but Matt impressed the judges with an original and well-executed character design. He wins a copy of Maya, access to the online Maya Core course, and a 6 weeks intensive Characters Course with us at Escape HQ in London.

Matt says “I often enter competitions to keep my skill levels up, and winning always feels fantastic. The great thing about this competition is the prize. The opportunity to have access to Escape’s courses is the icing on the cake.”

Matt Long’s Competition Entry

A late comer to CG, Matt is currently a part-time lecturer and student mentor in Wales. “I’ve tried my hand at almost everything to do with CG and design, from graphic design to website building to 3D design. My passion is for character design, and my dream would be to work in the industry. Winning the Computer Arts Project competition and getting to go on an Escape Studios course can only help fulfil that goal.”

Thaddeus Maharaj and Habib Niazi were runners up in the competition. Thaddeus came second with a well executed idea that has potential but the judges felt needed refining. Habib was third with an entry that impressed with the basis anatomy, although some areas needed further development. Each received an online Maya Core course.

Matt’s work can be viewed on his blog, Sinzalot.

Thaddeus Maharaj’s Competition Entry

Habib Niazi’s Competition Entry