After months of hard work and fantastic projects 22 art finalists from around the UK and Europe arrived at the University of Hertfordshire for the 7^th annual Search For A Star & Sumo Digital Rising Star Art Finals Day!

Finalists underwent an industry-styled interview in front of a panel of experienced specialist judges for a chance to win an interview with a leading UK studio.

Throughout the day students networked and received advice from a number of studios including Sumo Digital, Playground Games, Creative Assembly and Codemasters, as well as sit in on a series of inspiring talks from Andrew Oliver, and Codemaster’s Daniel McCabe, who broke into the industry at the young age of 18.

The bar was set even higher this year; all our finalists were fantastic and brought something unique to the interview table. Judges struggled to pick overall winners for each category, but we’re happy to announce their choices for our 2017 art competition!

Search For A Star Character & Environment Art 

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Overall and character art category winner:

Michael Starovoytov – University of Huddersfield

Environment art category winner:

Jake Missing – Sheffield Hallam University

Sumo Digital Rising Star Character & Environment Art 

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Overall and character art category winner:

Dorota Sekula – Abertay University 

Environment art category winner:

Sam Sharpe  – University of Huddersfield 

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Search For A Star Animation and VFX 

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Overall Winner and VFX category winner: 

Niels Dewitte – HOWEST

Animation category winner:

Luke Robson – Teesside University 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5lWnlAuyOI

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Sumo Digital Rising Star Animation and VFX 

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Animation category winner:

Alexander Gray – Buckinghamshire New University 

Animation category runner up:

Hollie Whitehouse – University of Hertfordshire 

We’re incredibly proud of all our all our finalists and winners. They’ve produced some fantastic work and we look forward to watching them begin their careers!

You can see the work of all our finalists here.