Characters, creatures, graphic design, costume and armor design, and now comics- Marko's doing it all. Previous clients include White Wolf and projects include Degenesis, Hellgate London, Tabula Rasa, and over 30 others during his two years full time at Massive Black Inc.  Marko is one of the industry’s highest profile concept designers specializing in human characters and monsters. He is a wizard with a pencil and a generous teacher, having attended every single one of the conceptart.org workshops as a professional instructor. Marko is currently doing work for Marvel Comics and living in Germany with his wife.

Marko Djurdjevic is a Senior Concept Artist and Cover Illustrator for Marvel Comics. His recent contributions include the upcoming HULK movie, Spiderman, Blade, X-Men, and others on the comics side of the industry.

www.sixmorevodka.com

Representing the great lone star state, Coro originally hails from the filthy border town of El Paso, where he began his career defacing public property with spray paint. Through this illegal medium he honed his interest in the arts. In 1997, Coro moved to San Francisco, where he studied traditional illustration at the Academy of Art College for three years. After amassing a massive debt in college loans, he left school and began working in the production art industry, where he resides today.

Coro feels that "variety is the spice of life" and this is evident in the broad range of subject matter and varied execution in his art. It is also evident as he has contributed concept design to over 120 AAA and Next-Generation video game titles for 15 of the top 20 video game publishers and 80 major developers as well as contributions to film projects like Transformers and commercial work for Coca Cola. Although he uses digital media for work, his true passion lies in the time-honored tradition of oil painting, which occupies all of his free time, in an obsessive-compulsive kind of way.

He is one of the original founders or Conceptart.org and the Senior Art Director for Massive Black.

www.coro36ink.com

Dan is a freelance storyboard, concept and production artist. Producing artwork digitally allows Dan to work on projects worldwide from the comfort of his studio in Toronto, Canada. Dan’s clients run the gamut from major advertising agencies to feature film productions and AAA video game developers. He earned his BFA the Ontario College of Art and Design and is a crowd favorite at the Conceptart.org Workshops. His entertaining lectures and professional quality demonstrations are extremely informative. Dan’s most recent work can be seen in the acclaimed Frank Miller’s 300.

In the East, Andrew Jones has been heralded as "the apocalyptic art shaman."   His work is a hybrid of academic training, emerging technology and the mystical experience, bringing together a mixture of archetypical mythology and contemporary magic. Beginning his career working with George Lucas at INDUSTRIAL LIGHT and MAGIC, He has served as Nintendo’s North American concept artist for 5 years where he envisioned the classic metroid franchise, he went on to start and serve as the Creative Director of MASSIVE BLACK. 

In 2002, Andrew co-created the non-profit online art community CONCEPTART.org, which has attracted nearly 87,000 registered users and receives over 1,000,000 unique visitors / month. Andrew has used this internet portal to launch a series of highly acclaimed art workshops, and has traveled the world teaching art to students from Berlin, Romania, Amsterdam, Paris, Montreal, Texas, Florida, Seattle, San Francisco and beyond. With work featured on the box cover of Corel Painter X, he is a leader in the digital fine art community, and works closely with the developers of emerging digital technology to create software that gives artists new tools to create their dreams.

Andrew has now taken his art out of the studio and onto the stage performing live at festivals, from the high rises of Tokyo to the desserts of Burning man, his creative domain includes; forests, clubs and ample theaters, touring with the worlds top underground DJs and bands (such as Bassnectar, glitch mob, tipper, and bluetech).

In his pursuit to master of the digital art medium, Andrew continues to push the limits of what’s possible with the manipulation of light and energy and is on the front line of “innovation.”

Jason is responsible for defining the company vision and successful business model of Massive Black Inc. which has now contributed to more than 150 AAA and Next-Generation video game titles and major feature film and television projects. Prior to leading Massive Black, Jason's work experience includes that of a Concept Artist, Lead Artist and Art Director. His artwork has helped clients like id software, Blizzard Entertainment, Activision, Troika Games, Interplay, Vivendi/Universal, Black Isle Studios, EA, Atari, Wizards of the Coast, Whitewolf, and more.

Jason is also President of our Non-Profit Organization, ConceptArt.org, which now has over 91,000 registered students and industry professionals sharing, creating and learning conceptual development for the entertainment industry. He created the ConceptArt.Org workshops as a way to bring Artists from around the world together for personal and artistic betterment. Jason will be helping artists understand how to reach goals, survive in the business world, and have a workable idea what it takes to strive for success in the field of entertainment while instructing at the workshop.

LUCASARTS / 2007 – PRESENT

SENIOR ANIMATOR
Directed Previsualization and Character Animation
for multiple unannounced projects

SENIOR ANIMATOR
Character Animation for “Star Wars: The Force Unleashed”

MASSIVE BLACK / 2005 – 2007

SENIOR ANIMATOR
Character Animation for Flagship Studios, NCSoft, Disney,
Activision, Blue Fang, ReelFX, and Electronic Arts

WALT DISNEY FEATURE ANIMATION, FLORIDA / 2000 – 2004

INBETWEEN ANIMATOR
Credits Include:
“Brother Bear”
“Lilo & Stitch”
“The Lion King: Special Edition”
“Pocahontas: 10th Anniversary Edition”
“The Little Match Girl”

Wes is a BFA alumni from Cleveland Institute of Art in Ohio. He is one of the most talented young artists in the country and has become incredibly experienced in the world of video games, specializing in character and monster design. He has contributed his character art skills to more than 80 AAA and next-gen titles for PC, Xbox, Playstation 2, Playstation 3, and Xbox 360 as well as feature film. He is currently traveling and working with Massive Black Inc. His fine art shows at the Shooting Gallery in San Francisco.

Bruno Gore (Noxizmad)- Projects include: Duke Nukem, NDA titles for id software, Warhawk 3 for Sony, and over 80 others both prior to, and while at Massive Black. He has also worked on titles for Ubisoft and the French film industry. The team at Massive Black regards Nox as the top digital painter and designer at the company. His demonstrations are not to be missed. Nox makes all of the MB artists better by leading with example. His work ethic is beyond what most people could even begin to endure and the quality of his work shows it. He is an inspiration to watch. We are excited to have him with us at the workshop.

Carl Dobsky is still alive.

Kemp grew up in Athens GA. There he got his degree in Graphic Design and decided to pursue a career in entertainment as a concept artist. After graduating, he moved to San Francisco to work with Factor 5, then Massive Black where he has worked on many great projects and became one of the leading industrial designers and illustrators working in film and games today.

www.kempart.com

Known as "Nobody Knows" on the Conceptart.org forums, Rich was recruited from the community as Massive Black Inc.’s first full time employee and has been with MB since it’s inception. He is a senior concept artist and has contributed to over 80 Next Gen titles for clients like Activision, EA, Sony, Disney, Microsoft, Nintendo and other major developers. He has also been a part of several group shows, showing his fine art at the Shooting Gallery in San Francisco.

Nick is currently a concept artist at Massive Black, Inc. in San Francisco. He studied music and art in Georgia and NYC before joining MB in 2005, and has contributed to over fifty next generation titles.

Whit is from Bath, Ohio. He draws things and paints things. He attends the Conceptart Atelier and works at Massive Black, Inc.

Born in 1973 in Montpellier France.David studied industrial design at the European Institute of Toulon France from 1992 to 1995 along with his bot friend Barontieri, where he graduated with a BTS (Brevet de Technicien Superieur). From there he went to Maastricht, Netherlands to study Interior Architecture where he graduated in 1996 with a BA with honours in Industrial Design and Architecture (including a nomination to the Hoxtinjpreis).

Upon graduation, David was invited to become part of a large video game company in Europe called Cryo, in Paris, France as a concept artist. From there he went to London where he directed another videogame project created with his own team, which got released on arcade using a flight simulator technology in association with Thomson in 1999. Then, he worked as a freelance illustrator in London, working for various major game companies in UK, Argonaut, Bits Studios, and Acclaim to name a few. Acclaim studios decided to hire him for their studio in Austin, Texas, as a lead Artist on Turok, one of their key project, and got promoted as assistant art director in 2002, responsible for the graphics of licensed projects such as the Red Star, NBA jam, and others. In addition he has been featured guest speaker at the Game Developer Conference (officially selected by Animation magazine in 2003), at the north American concept artist workshop in 2004 and 2006(regarding art creation process), the Gnomon workshop in 2006 and as a creative process teacher at Gemini’s illustration school in Austin, Texas. He then moved to Dallas and served as a creative director for Reel FX creative studios, located in Dallas, Texas. David also was as a senior Concept Artist at Ubisoft Montreal on projects such as Prince of Persia and Assassins, and currently lives in Austin,TX, working for Spacetime studios, and giving concept art classes at gemini's art school.

Creating a moment that communicates emotionally with the viewer is the essence of Gregory Manchess artwork. A native of Kentucky, he earned a BFA from the Minneapolis College of Art & Design in 1977, but is largely self-taught in drawing and painting. He spent two years as a studio illustrator with Hellman Design Associates before striking out on his own in 1979.

Ryhythm and timing, conveying emotion through brushwork and achieving a balance of concept and aesthetics are essential components of his technique. This has garnered prestigious assignments from an ever-widening list of clients. His art has highlighted covers for Time, National Geographic, Atlantic Monthly, and the Major League Baseball World Series Program; spreads for Playboy, Omni, Newsweek, National Geographic, and Smithsonian; countless advertising campaigns and book covers. For Federal Express he created five paintings for display in the companys corporate headquarters, which were then reproduced and distributed as posters and greeting cards. He has also illustrated movie posters for Paramount, Columbia, and Disney; conceptual work for The Chronicles of Narnia. His portrait of Sean Connery was used as the defining climactic moment in Warner Brothers Finding Forrester.

Manchess interest in history and his excellent figure work has made his paintings a favorite choice of the National Geographic Society on many occasions, including an expedition to the Fond du Lac river in Canada for the 1996 article David Thomson: The Man Who Measured Canada, and illustrations for The Wreck of the C.S.S. Alabama. Gregory has completed a large portrait of Abraham Lincoln and seven major paintings depicting his life for the new Lincoln Memorial Library in Springfield, Illinois.

Currently, he has finished ten mural paintings for a National Geographic exhibition on an actual pirate ship. Entitled, Real Pirates: The Untold Story of The Whydah, from Slave Ship to Pirate Ship that will tour 15 cities and is currently showing in Philadelpia at the Franklin Institute.

His work has also been recognized in the childrens book market. His first book, To Capture The Wind by Sheila MacGill-Callahan, was published in 1997 and nominated for a Caldecott Award, followed by Nanuk: Lord of the Ice, by Brian Heinz, released a year later. His second collaboration with Heinz, Cheyenne Medicine Hat, a story about wild mustangs, was released to wide acclaim in 2006. Other books include, Giving Thanks, 2003, The Last River, 2006, and Magellans World, released by Mikaya Press in 2007. He has just completed a lavishly illustrated book of 5 classic Robert E. Howard stories with 60 paintings. A black and manchesse version was published by Del Rey in 2006 and a full color limited edition is forthcoming from Subterranean Press.

Widely awarded within the industry, Manchess exhibits frequently at the Society of Illustrators in New York, where he has won a gold and four silver medals. The Society of Illustrators in Los Angeles awarded him two silver medals and a Best in Show Award. His peers at the Society of Illustrators in New York honored him with the coveted Hamilton King Award in 1999, based on an artists career accomplishments. The following year they awarded him the Stephan Dohanos Award for the best illustration of the year by a member. Artists Magazine gave him First Prize in their 1990 Wildlife Art Competition. He was featured in Communication Arts in 1995, and featured in 1996, 1998, and 2000 in Step-By-Step Graphics. He has since appeared in many issues of the Communication Arts, Step-By-Step, and Spectrum juried annuals. Spectrum awarded him a silver medal in 2001 and showcased a painting for their call-for-entries 2003 poster. He has exhibited with Eleanor Ettinger Galleries in New York and Hong Kong, and in 1997 was featured in a solo exhibition at the Witham Gallery in Ohio. Gregory is included in Walt Reeds latest edition of The Illustrator in America, 18602000.

He lectures frequently at universities and colleges nationwide and gives workshops on painting at the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, MA.

Jon Foster lives in Providence, Rhode Island, where he churns out an unending array of incredible art. A freelance illustrator and accomplished painter, his work has been featured on many book covers and editorials. Back for another round of instructing at the Insomania Workshop, Jon is one of the most humble, dedicated and talented guys you’ll ever meet.

Aleksi has been working in the videogame industry as a Concept Artist and Art Director for 7 years. He was Lead Artist on the horror-action game called Cold Fear (developed by DarkWorks for Ubisoft) and more recently on the hit Splinter Cell 4. He contributed to high-end promotional materials for the Heroes of Might & Magic 4 and Prince of Persia . He is an illustrator for books, RPG manuals (hundreds of interior illustrations), magazines, cards and a comic book artist. He did covers for Mage, Vampire, C.O.P.S Rpgs, Tolkien, J.V.Jones, Bradley books, and cards and packaging for Wizard of the Coast ( Dreamblade, Magic cards).

He was an early contributor the comics adaptation of the videogame Alone in the Dark 4 and a former artist for Todd MacFarlane Productions. He’s currently doing covers for the Hellgate comic-books for Darkhorse and completing an ambitious artbook about Merlin (130 fully illustrated pages). Aleksi brings his veteran skills and proven teaching abilities to our workshop.

We are fortunate to have him
with us.

Jason Felix is known for his digital photo manipulations which have won awards and appeared in numerous art collections of Expose and Spectrum. Jason is also held accountable for creating character/creature concept art on high profile video games franchises such as StarCraft, Prince of Persia, and Hellgate:London.

He lives in San Francisco and can be found fraternizing with other local artists, wrestling his 2 cats of terror, or working at home on his next personal art project.

Shawn Barber's body of work focuses primarily on painting and illustration. He received his BFA in 1999 from the Ringling School of Art & Design, in Sarasota, FL. Shawn has instructed and given painting demo's at several American Universities and Art Institutions, including the California College of Arts, Ringling School of Art, the Academy of Art and the ConceptArt.Org Workshops in Prague, San Francisco and Montreal.

Commercial clients include: Atlantic Records, The New Yorker, The Grammy Awards, Rolling Stone, Converse, Scholastic Books, GQ, MTV Networks, The Source, Maxim, Elektra Records, Juxtapoz Magazine, Rock Star Games, TV Guide, The Village Voice and Electronic Gaming Monthly, among many others.

Shawn's paintings have been exhibited in diverse solo and group venues across the country and featured in many prominent art publications as well as being prominently featured on the TV show Miami Ink.

Kevin Llewellyn lives in Los Angeles, where he is represented by the Forum Gallery. A graduate of the Ringling School of Design and a student of 19 th century realism, Kevin is a breath of old world fresh air mixed with contemporary edginess. His work is featured in prominent private and museum collections across the country, and has appeared in several solo and group shows.

http://www.kevart.com/

Coming up for air recently, out of his turpentine soup, he paused to reflect that he’s been painting in oils since 1949!  He has mixed feelings about that.  It means he knows his way around paint, but he’s sobered when he realizes how many mistakes he still makes.

He’s been a professional artist since 1965 and has painted extensively in acrylics, gouache, watercolor, casein, and drawn with pencil, charcoal, and magic markers (high tech in 1968…)  His special love is doing academic drawings in Nupastel.

He’s had a fair share of attention, won awards and stuff, been featured on PBS, been in some big galleries, been accessed (and de-accessed) by a few museums, painted a few interesting portraits, taught at a major university, and so on.

He’s always drawn pretty well and works at his craft every day.   He enjoys being around the fabulous young talent at these concept art workshops – having been young and completely crazy himself once.

He is old, grey, overweight, missing large quantities of hair on his head, and conveniently hard of hearing, but he’s approachable, knowledgeable, and wants to help.  He’s a time machine.  If you’ve made a few mistakes or are planning on doing so soon, he’s sympathetic.  When it comes to picture making, he’s about done it all and has enjoyed every minute of the trip.

Mikko K is currently working as a Concept Artist at BioWare Edmonton. His duties include creating concepts and mattepaintings for franchises like Mass Effect. Having worked as an Environment Artist in the past, he now applies his solid understanding of 3d into his concepts. In his spare time he can be found creating painterly and loose speedpaintings.

In 2008 he co-founded Concept Bros inc. with his brother Ville, a Concept Artist best known for his work on Funcom's Age of Conan. Together they continue to work on projects for clients such as Blur Studio.

CGsociety.org Portfolio