ImagineFX: Issue 14

The latest and possibly greatest issue of ImagineFX is out now, with a cool retro cover from US-based artist Patrick Reilly.

Inside issue 14
Master of Art
Marko Djurdjevic. The man behind some of the most memorable Marvel covers in recent times...

ImagineFX Legend
Meet Bob Eggleton, one of the world's best-known fantasy artists

Artist Portfolio
Skjan Srisuwan, Issue five's cover star talks LEGO and how he paints with a mouse!

Top Ten
The fundamental rules of art that you've forgotten…

Artist Q&A
The leading digital artists answer your artistic questions. With tips and technique from Jonny Duddle, Melanie Delon, Henning Ludvigsen and more!

Workshops

* Marko Djurdjevic on shedding your artistic fears - one you can't miss!
* Sci-fi landscapes in Bryce 6. Master the new version of this 3D app with Adam Benton
* Effective character design. Create better characters with these 25 tips from leading concept artist Francis Tsai
* Feto lives! Create an unborn alien foetus in ZBrush
* Get to grips with panels. Comic art foir beginners with Frazer Irving.
* First snow. Paint an incredible sci-fi scene in Photoshop with Marc Brunet


On the DVD

* FULL version of Bryce 5. Yours to keep...forever!
* Ryan Church video training - the Star Wars prequels concept artist!
* High-resolution multi-layered files for each ImagineFX workshop
* The latest software demos
* 15 fonts, high-res images and textures
* Wallpapers of every ImagineFX cover image
* And much more!

iwNEWS: Galactica Cancelled?

Reporter Rob Owen of the Pittsburgh Post Gazette attended an NBC Universal party Friday night and had an opportunity to talk with executives and cast of Battlestar Galactica. Sc Fi Channel on which Battlestar Galactica appears is owned by NBC.


In an article that appeared January 16, Owen wrote: “Despite stellar reviews, ratings are down, not necessarily because fewer people are watching, but because so many viewers are watching on DVR or via iTunes downloads, not on cable. Sci Fi Channel executives hope to reverse the ratings trend by moving Galactica to 10 p.m. Sunday this weekend, but they're not ready to discuss the show's future.”

"I can't talk about season four," Owen quoted Sci Fi Channel executive vice president of original programming Mark Stern.

Because the contracts with the actors expire next month, Stern said a decision on renewal will come by mid-February.

Actress Tricia Helfer, who stars in Galactica as the Cylon Number Six, acknowledged that the current third season, which wrapped production before Christmas, doesn't end with "anything tied up, that's for sure."

"I think we all feel like it's coming back," Helfer said, "but we don't know. We're all looking at [this time as a break, not an ending], but in this business you never know."

Helfer said the move to Sunday is viewed by some as a death knell, because Sunday is more competitive than Friday. Others see it as potential salvation because more people watch TV on Sunday and might tune in.

iwNEWS: Sci Fi TV series will channel Wizard of OZ

The Wizard of Oz is about to get a makeover -- but not like any makeover you know.

A wildly re-imagined, six-hour science-fiction fantasy called Tin Man will start shooting in Vancouver this spring, and will premiere on the U.S. Sci Fi Channel in December, Sci Fi program chief Mark Stern announced Friday at the semi-annual gathering of the Television Critics Association.

Tin Man is loosely based on L. Frank Baum's classic book, and will feature Tony winner Alan Cumming in the role of Glitch, one of a motley crew of colourful characters trapped in a netherworld called "the Outer Zone."

Tin Man tells about a young woman pulled out of her dreary day-to-day life and transplanted into the Outer Zone, a realm "rife with wonder but oppressed by dark magic." Her journey begins on a fabled "Old Road," which eventually leads to a wizard known as the Mystic Man.

The miniseries is being written by Steven Long Mitchell and Craig Van Sickle, who created the cult TV series The Pretender, and produced by Gulliver's Travels' Robert Halmi, Sr. and Robert Halmi, Jr.

iwNEWS: Schwarzenegger to reteam with Cameron

California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and filmmaker James Cameron are set to work together again on new sci-fi movie Saturn 3, according to internet reports.

Fansite TheArnoldFans.com reports the California Governor will lend his voice to a robot in Cameron's Saturn 3 movie. Cameron is slated to produce the project.

The film is a remake of a cult 1980 film, which starred Farrah Fawcett, Harvey Keitel and Kirk Douglas.

Schwarzenegger and Cameron previously worked together on The Terminator, its sequel and True Lies.

iwNEWS: Munich welcomes the Digital Elite

For the third year running, chairmen Dr. Hubert Burda, Publisher and High-Tech Investor Dr. Yossi Vardi will gathers foremost international experts, designers and pioneers from the digital industry, the media, and the world of art and design at the DLD (Digital - Life - Design) in Munich. Two days before the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, 500 selected participants will meet from Jan 21st to Jan 23rd 2007 to exchange ideas and introduce new projects and developments.


The future of markets, society and lifestyle is the centre question at the European Innovations Conference. As a consequence of the rapidly progressive digitalisation of all areas of life, "Life and Design" will assume a much greater thematic significance this year: New schools of thought in arts, architecture and design as well as a NGOs (Non-Governmental Organizations).

The main topics are: "Gutenberg 3.0 - Media in Transition", "Audiences, Communities & Brand Spaces", "Start-ups made in Europe", "Search, Social Networks & Gaming", "Future of TV & Wireless Revolution", "Digital Arts & Design - developing a New Modernity?"` as well as "The Climate Challenge".

iwNEWS: MGM Greenlights New Stargate Movies

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. (MGM) announced the extension of the hit "Stargate SG-1" franchise with two movies based on the popular series. Titled "Stargate: The Ark of Truth" and "Stargate: Continuum", the movies will both be made available to the television universe and home entertainment marketplace by MGM. The announcement was made by Charles Cohen, Senior Executive Vice President, MGM.

"Stargate SG-1 is to MGM Television what the James Bond, Pink Panther and the Rocky franchises are to our feature film unit," said Cohen. "We are committed to continuing to release new SG-1 content and its Stargate Atlantis spin-off, and we're also steadfast in our dedication to extending the franchise. Stargate is an indelible brand for MGM and we will support it well into the future."

With its high quality production values, long-term stability in the show's leadership and strong chemistry between the lead actors in the series, all of whom have big audience appeal, Stargate SG-1 is the longest-running science-fiction series in U.S. TV history. The series has a strong worldwide fan base and can be seen in over 120 countries. Stargate SG-1 cast members Ben Browder, Amanda Tapping, Christopher Judge, Claudia Black and Michael Shanks are confirmed to star in both movies. Written and produced by Brad Wright and Robert Cooper, the new movies will feature the latest visual and sound effects, providing viewers with a theatrical movie-going experience.

In the first movie, Stargate: The Ark of Truth will bring a conclusion to the primary storyline of the past two seasons of the SG-1 television series. More thrills and action-packed scenes are planned for this special event movie, which will be directed by Cooper. The suspense will end as fans will see the conclusion of the epic Ori saga.

In the second movie, Stargate: Continuum the SG-1 team is now free to embark on new and exciting adventures throughout the endless Stargate universe.

Below are the synopses for the new "Stargate" movies:

"Stargate: The Ark of Truth"

As SG-1 searches for an Ancient artifact which they hope can defeat the armies of the Ori, they learn more Ori ships are about to be sent through the supergate to launch a final assault on Earth. Daniel discovers that the artifact, the Ark of Truth, may be in the Ori home galaxy, and SG-1 embarks aboard the Odyssey to find it, and pre-empt the attack. The IOA has a plan of their own and SG-1 ends up in a distant galaxy fighting two powerful enemies.

"Stargate: Continuum"

While SG-1 attends the execution of Ba'al, the last of the goa'uld system lords, Teal'c and Vala inexplicably disappear into thin air. Carter, Daniel and Mitchell race back to a world where history has been changed: the Stargate program has been erased from the timeline. As they try to convince the authorities what's happened, a fleet of goa'uld motherships arrives in orbit, led by Ba'al, his queen, Katesh, (Vala) and his first prime, Teal'c. SG-1 must find the Stargate and set things right before the world is enslaved by the goa'uld.

Once Upon a Troubled Planet, continued…

BOOK ONE of our blog-story serial Faithful continues with the chapter entry “The Agreement.”

It is some time after the day that all of Creation shuddered, when The Archangel was cast down to Aideena. The entity has been sequestered by the theocratic Faith. We meet our protagonists Michael Constantine and Paul Sebastian and a deal is struck in good faith (no pun intended. Really!) that I suspect will be tough to live up to.

My Universe Keeps Expanding and Expanding…

I have been asking other bloggers and web-acrats whose sites I admire (and in some case rely on my sanity) for permission to link to them. Wha-du-ya-know! A few have graciously agreed! I am very grateful and honored. I’ve said previously that I am new at this and teaching myself technically and entrepreneurially how to get voice to the character I’ve held close for so long. It’s gratify that others are willing to give me opportunity to success and stumble by linking to them.

On the sidebar here (as well as the imaginedworld.us studio site) you will find the start of a links list. With time I hope they will grow. I am addicted to web-surfing and I love to discover new destinations. Asking to add a link to sites also permits me to let those content-owners know I appreciate all the time and effort they’ve put in. Who knew, they are also nice people! Please, check them out!

Stefan Ingstrand, Sweden’s answer to Indiana Jones, publishes Science Fiction Stories. It is a website of his own writing and served as one of my biggest sources of encouragement to try online self-publishing myself. At the moment, there are two series and a small collection of self-contained stories to choose from.

The award-winning Planet Magazine provides safe harbor for short science fiction and fantasy by emerging writers and illustrators—something I can identify with. The groundbreaking electronic zine has been encouraging its own brand of fun “online and in color” since March 1993, and its totally free! Yes, indeed, the Dark Gods are laughing…and having a good read!

Rowan Dai and his writing partner are writing a fantasy novel online. They are taking their collaboration from first draft to finished product right before your eyes. Along the way A Novel Idea shares great insight into the writing process with warmth and intelligence.

Eric and his friends at MyBlogLog want bloggers to become friends with other people who read your favorite blogs. To eee what else they're reading. To check out their MySpace and Friendster profiles and view their Flickr photostreams.

MyBlogLog is a communities service to empower authors and readers to operate at the same level. Everyone who reads a web site or blog can learn about and engage with one another, and in the process take the conversation to a whole new level. MyBlogLog enables you to take advantage of your existing presence on the Web and ties it into communities of like-minded readers and authors to add context to the conversations in which you take part.

Doug Chiang led George Lucas’ team of illustrators and conceptional artists on the Star Wars prequel films. Look at the droid army in Phantom Menace and you’ll see his signature design. Doug’s award-winning "Robota" imagines worlds where exotic creatures and robots co-exist with humans.

The Sci-fi Portal organizing a vast directory of science fiction and fantasy web links into a near comprehensive collection.

Scifi Chrome keeps up with what’s new in scifi and anime and it is a great place to show your fan-based site to the scifi community.

If you would like me to add a link to your blog or site, drop me an email.

iwNEWS: Flash Gordon Returns

Sci Fi Channel green-lit production on a new series featuring popular comic book superhero Flash Gordon, the network announced Friday at the Television Critics Association Tour.

Producers Robert Halmi Sr. and Robert Halmi Jr. (Tin Man, Mitch Albom’s The Five People You Meet in Heaven, The Ten Commandments) will produce 22 one-hour episodes of the series, which is slated to debut on Sci Fi in July, the network said.

iwNEWS: "A Night at the Museum"—For Real!

If you are ever in Oakland, Ca, a good excursion is the Chabot Space And Science Center, a state-of-the-art facility unifying all science education activities around astronomy. It offers interactive exhibits, hands-on activities, indoor stargazing, outdoor telescope viewing and films. General admission includes exhibits, a single planetarium show, and parking. Additional planetarium show: $5 general; $4 children.

Ongoing Exhibits include "Designed for Space Travel," a behind-the-scenes look at the restoration of Chabot's collection of space artifacts, such as spacesuits and other equipment. Learn about space travel and the history of the artifacts. Watch staff and volunteers prepare the artifacts for future exhibitions in the Space Artifact Lab.

iwNEWS: Cameron returns and its titantic

If you've visited any sci-fi news website this week you’ve likely heard already that legendary Canadian director James Cameron has announced plans for his first movie since 1997's Oscar-winning epic “Titanic.” Film trade newspaper Variety reported on the story in its Tuesday, 9, 2007 issue.

Cameron will return with a $200 million science fiction film titled “Avatar,” which tells the story of a band of humans locked in a battle with inhabitants of a distant planet.

The movie is due for release in 2009, 12 years after “Titanic,” one of the most expensive and successful films in the history of cinema. The film grossed $1.8 billion at the box office and bagged 11 Oscars.

Cameron will work closely with New Zealand director Peter “Lord of the Rings” Jackson on the project, Variety reported

iwNEWS: Scientists fill a void by shining light into black holes

Wall Street Journal reporter Marc Kaufman wrote an insightful piece on the enormous scientific scrutiny black holes are receiving. The article offers great fodder for new, more informed science fiction, I think, and a good introduction for the lay person like myself.

Over the past 10 years, Kaufman said, black holes have moved to the center of the world of astrophysics, leading to a steady flow of discoveries that have begun to answer, or at least better describe, some of their mysteries.

He writes: “The fast pace of recent discoveries has set the stage for a new generation of sophisticated observatories, which together have been dubbed Beyond Einstein by NASA. While several of the proposed satellites would study black holes, the most pertinent is Constellation-X, a four-telescope X-ray observatory planned to be 100 times as powerful as any instrument now available for investigating X-ray radiation and black holes.”

iwNEWS: Kirk talks the language of IT Security

Where no Star Trek character has gone before… Captain Kirk joins more than 1,800 information security professionals in celebrating technology and innovation at InfoSec World Conference and Expo 2007.

The key IT security event being held March 19-21, 2007 at the Rosen Shingle Creek Resort in Orlando, Fla, the conference will tackle every angle of information security today. Along with hearing William Shatner's keynote address "From Science Fiction to Science Fact," attendees can learn about two-factor authentication, strategies for preventing data leakage, ways to protect employees' information while they're on the road, and how top organizations have successfully enforced security policies.

For information about InfoSec World, Call 508-879-7999 or visit: www.misti.com/infosecworld2007

iwNEWS: U.S. contest seeks to be "American Idol" of books

Reuters reports that a major U.S. book publisher is hoping its new Web-based writing contest can tap into the popularity of interactive competitions like hit television show "American Idol." As part of the "First Chapters" contest, aspiring first-time authors and members of www.gather.com can post manuscripts on that social-networking Web site, organizers from publisher Touchstone Fireside and gather.com announced this week.

What if...

What if your everyday experiences challenged the assumptions society and tradition demanded? What if others around you were suffering the indignities of inequality over class, gender, and heritage while you lived comfortably, enjoying the privileges those inequalities afforded? What if others were willing to fight and die for their beliefs, while you did no more than question your own? What would it take for you to risk everything and act on the truth in your heart?

Questions, such as these, have weighed on me for some time. Given world events of the last seven years, you probably are not surprised! But actually I have been wondering about “social responsibility and consciousness” for most of my adult life.

Like many issues, my way of exploring such themes is to invent characters and place them in situations where they are challenged to answer questions and live with their consequences. It’s a way of working through circumstance I don’t fully comprehend myself. Through the lives of invented characters I may never arrive at answers or a position, but I can better understand myself—at least, that’s the hope. I am sure I am not alone in this and that many creative people do what they do to work through what they see around them.

The questions I have about what turns a person from denial or neutrality about the social order to activist were actually sparked by events after the fall of the Berlin Wall. The former Soviet states of the early 1990, suddenly confronted by a complete break with their identity of more than fifty years, struggled with new economic and social realities.

Reunification was both glorious and painful for both sides—trying to fit into a world that’s comfortably western and capitalist while also trying to integrate groups of people abandoned by assumptions and a way of life long oppressed upon them. (My friends in West Berlin would write to me about those “uneducated greedy easterners.”) Russia struggled horribly early on with westernization. The Balkans, without the Communist social structure, succumbed to ethnic cleansing and civil war.

In the Times and elsewhere, I read remarkable stories of people coming to terms with not only a skewed troubled past but working to change their present, to look past capitalism’s failings and to carve a place in the new social order they found themselves in—often violently, sometimes peacefully, frequently inspirationally. New states were created and new social institutions manifested.

It was at this time that the characters of Faithful first introduced themselves and began to germanate in my imagination. Since then, they have morphed, but essentially remained on the same quest: what does it take to move from passive participation in the world to active. What does it take to abandon assumptions based on past prejudices and loyalties and embrace new worlds of thought?

Certainly today, as the Western world confronts the growing Islamic worldview, both moderate and radical, these questions hold significant relevance. Perhaps a fantasy story will not yield answers, but then a wise man once said that the journey is more important than the destination. Fantasy and science fiction has a long tradition of holding a mirror to society and reflecting humanity’s Medusa and it’s coat of many colors. I don’t know what conclusions the characters of Faithful will draw for me. I only hope I can make it as honest and interesting a journey as I can.

RICHARDSON

Wear Your Imagination For the World to See!

An imaginedworlds T-Shirt tells the world you (yes, you!) have a distinctive voice, a unique point of view, and good taste in fashion! I would love it if you didn't hide it. Visit the imaginedworlds store at Cafepress!

Launch!

Welcome to imaginedworlds and cross the threshold into original weblog storytelling with a distinctive science fiction and fantasy voice. We begin with a story to be serialized online called Faithful. Set in an alternate reality, you are invited to witness its world evolve as the story progresses. It is a multi-dimensional experience blogged in prose, graphic designs, artwork and any other means that broaden its universe.

There are plenty of other story blogs, many much better executed than imaginedworlds. This excursion hopes to have some fun, to offer someone somewhere an entertaining distraction, and to create an outlet through which I might learn something meaningful about myself.

I have always had a passion for story writing, although it’s been only a casually pursuit. I try to find a satisfying way to commit the characters in my head to some creative form: film, comics, prose, stage. I have always sought to combine these different communication forms in new ways and leverage my varied interests in comics, illustration, theatre, graphic design, media production, concept design and computer arts. Alas, my effort are often frustrated by time, money, a demanding professional career, levels of interest and, most of all, ability.

I have long been inspired by the abilities of others to realize flights of fancy. My heroes such as Doug Chiang, Chris Foss, Joss Weldon, Jim Lee, Michael Richardson, Roddenberry, Lucas, Asimov, are too numerous to list. Never schooled in any of the disciplines in which they are masters, I’ve set about to teach myself by trial and error using the (VERY) limited talent I have. Imaginedworlds is my self-tutorial.

I look forward to making many mistakes (and lots of crap!). I also look forward to seeing what I can accomplish, even if I am the only person who finds value. I’ve lived with a number of worlds in my imagination and if by exorcizing them online helps teach me a thing or two and helps me grow as a person, then it doesn’t matter what comes of it.

In the least, I hope I meet other like-minded people from whom I can learn something and share in their creativity. As much as I’m driven to tell my own stories and I certain hope this will lead me to entertainments created by others.

RICHARDSON