You can really impress future employers by taking advantage of our two expert tutorials this month. Taken from our Character Animation Foundation and ZBrush for 3D Artist courses, they are designed to give you pro-skills in very specialised areas.

It's that time of year when everybody makes a multitude of New Year's resolutions. I am of the opinion that they are not worth doing unless you are going to stick to them. Having said that, we have actually decided to start the year with a resolution. It’s a fairly simple one: we are resolute in our wish to give you more of the free tutorials that you want. There you are, I told you it would be an easy one.

As you know we have spent the past month judging the 170-odd entries we received for this year’s CG Whiz awards.  I have to say the standard of entries was incredibly high, and our judges had an extra-tough job singling out those who showed the sheer talent and potential they were looking for.

Yesterday, Pixar announced an unprecedented price drop in their flagship product RenderMan® Pro Server. The 40% reduction will allow studios and freelancers that were previously unable to buy into the technology, to get a slice of the Film / VFX industry standard renderer. With the global CG expansion, Pixar appreciate that the growth of renderfarms is real and happening now, this move allows existing customers to ramp up their rendering capabilities in a more cost effective manner whilst allowing smaller shops and freelancers access to the toolset.

I have been checking out all the entries received so far into our CG Whiz competition, and it's been a lot of fun watching all the work submitted. Thanks to everyone who has entered so far.

CVMP is a unique opportunity to network with production and post-production specialists from the worlds of film, broadcast, games and imaging and graphics researchers. If you register on or before 17th October 2010 you can save yourself £100 on full registration!

Calling all aspiring artists and CG wannabes!  Here’s your opportunity to build your dream career.  Today we launched CG Whiz 2010 our annual search for the hottest amateur computer graphics talent. We’re offering over £15,000 or $24,000 worth of prizes for the winners, thanks to our co-sponsors, The Mill, CG Society and 3D Artist.

I went to see Scott Pilgrim vs. the World at the weekend and I was taken with the visual style of the whole movie. Eccentric humour aside, the movie was pretty simplistic as far as plot is concerned, but the aesthetic complexity displayed was pretty amazing. The use of augmented reality styling with major references to to the likes of the Tekken franchise were really interesting to see.

Firstly, a big thanks to everyone who has entered our CG Graduate Design Competition Award so far. Entries have been coming thick and fast and as always the standard has been exceptional.
 
Thanks also for keeping in touch via all our social networks - it really is great to hear from you all and it just reaffirms our belief that the UK and the US have a wealth of talent and will undoubtedly produce many future stars in the CG world.

It's great to see entries coming through for our Graduate Design Awards. Just a quick reminder you need to upload your show reel to our YouTube channel and then complete your entry by sending your contact details to escapestudios@brands2life.com. We need your name, showreel title, email address, telephone number, year of graduation, university and course attended.