Search for a Star 2018 Meet the Finalists – Animation

It has been almost 6 months since this year’s Search for a Star started accepting its 1^st Round of submissions back in September last year. Now, with Final’s Day almost upon us, we have whittled things down to a handful of amazing finalists.

You have already been able to read about some of the amazing video games veterans who have helped assess this year’s submissions. Over the next couple of weeks, we will be introducing you to the 2018 Search for a Star finalists and giving you a chance to look at their work.

Today, we will introduce you to this year’s Animation finalists:

Search for a Star 2018:

Callum Batty (Sheffield Hallam University)

A Masters student, at finals hosts Sheffield Hallam, Callum produced a beautiful set of animations for a Bat Sniper model inspired by turn-based combat games. His submission impressed assessors, not just in his ambitious use of movement, but also the detail of his research and documentation.

His animations show a great maturity not just when the character is leaping around, but also the subtlety of the character at rest. Definitely, someone to watch out for.

You can see more of Callum’s work here

Adelaide Coldham (Hertfordshire University)

A Game Art student at Hertfordshire University Adelaide confesses to initially struggling with inspiration for this year’s challenge. She also had not worked with 4 separate animations that would need to be looped together before. However, we a sure you will agree that the results are doubly impressive when you consider that they used techniques Adelaide has only just learnt.

Graduating this year, Adelaide impressed judges by taking on such a dramatic set of animations.

You can see more of her work here

Rosie Summers (Leeds Arts University)

Meet Bob the Robot. Rosie seriously impressed assessors with her use of a model she built and rigged herself. Bob is also unusual because of Rosie’s choice to have a robot that breaks. Compared to other finalists whose animations are notable for their smoothness, Bob’s quirky set of jerky movements helps this project stand out.

Rosie graduates this year and has been studying Animation at Leeds Arts University.
You can see even more of her work here

Sumo Digital Rising Star 2018:

Alongside Search for a Star, there are also the students competing for a possible internship at Sumo Digital. Meet the Sumo Digital Rising Star Animation Finalists.

Alex McCunn (Abertay University)

https://vimeo.com/254135696

Studying a BA in Computing Arts at Abertay University Alex’s animations are inspired by the fighting styles seen in animated shows like Avatar: The Last Airbender and the Legend of Korra.

There’s a genuine sense of power coming from the movements. Graduating in 2019 we are sure Alex has a bright future in games.

See more of Alex’s work here

Saif Munawar (Bradford University)

Saif is currently studying a 3D Animation & VFX (BSc) at Bradford University and has made a splash in this year’s challenges with Reinhart. A very different robot by comparison to Bob, Saif impressed assessors with his skilful application of animation fundamentals.

Clearly a big games fan, taking inspiration from popular titles like Overwatch we hope to see Saif making another big splash after graduation.

Check out more of Saif’s work here

Patrik Taylor (Sheffield Hallam University)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OxCYzPViX1k

Patrik sees another finalist for Sheffield Hallam, and 2/3 of the animation finalists coming from Yorkshire. This MA Games Design student has made the bold choice of selecting a very simple rig, allowing assessors to focus on the motions rather than the character design.

As an additional level of difficulty, Patrik chose to animate a drunk character with all the challenges of trying to build in a level of instability into the model’s motions.

Graduating in 2021 you can have a look at Patrik’s portfolio here

We are really looking forward to finding out who wins.
We would love to see you at Finals Day, register HERE to find out more.

Tickets are free for to all students, lecturers & academics involved in games-related courses.

If you are from a studio or publisher and would like to attend contact Rachel at rachel@aswift.com.

See you on the 6th of April