Sony Online Entertainment's Gamers In Real Life design competition has awarded a 10-week paid internship and $10,000 scholarship to Art Center College of Design student Sylvia Liu, to help in her pursuit of a creative arts career.
Liu's application for the G.I.R.L. scholarship, which aims to bring more women into the creative arts and eventually bring more women-friendly games to market, included concept art for a new EverQuest II environment and a new EverQuest II boss character.
While the official competition rules do not preclude male entrants, so far all three winners have been female.
Each finalist was required to submit two pieces of concept art and a 500-word essay, which were judged by a panel of SOE employees.
"I feel so happy and honored to be chosen as the winner this year," said Liu in a statement. "I worked hard on my submission and am very proud of what I accomplished for this competition. This opportunity will help me a long way in my career so I can't wait to get started!"
"It has always been my passion to design new visual ideas and tell stories through my artwork for others to enjoy," she said in an official Q&A.
Julia Brasil, the winner of the inaugural 2008 scholarship, was given a scholarship at SOE's Seattle office, and has remained with that studio since then.
This is great for her and I congratulate her. Now if we could just get everyone, both companies and consumers, to stop thinking in terms of "girl games" and "other (i.e. male) games" since all any gamer wants is a game that is enjoyable for them regardless of specific content or mechanic.
I must say that the contest itself seems a bit confused since it's stated intention is to encourage females but claims to not exclude males. The stated intent and even the acronym doesn't seem inviting to males. I would have advised SOE to either be more neutral or simply focus on their stated intention. However, I'd also point out that SOE and others should stop viewing sexual identity as dichotomous because it is not (i.e. it isn't only female/male but rather includes a broad spectrum). We would be better off treating everyone in an inviting fashion. Of course, this tends to go against the commonly held desire to attempt to categorize everything and everyone into nice, neat, clearly delineated sections. Reality doesn't work that way, though. Everyone, especially companies, would fare better if they were inclusive of intersexed, transgendered, transexual, and all other aspects of our life spectrum rather than attempting to focus only on one segment or facet.
In most art for cartoons and things like manga.. blue was the most expensive colour to use because of the materials to generate the colour. So i think blue is a statement to that.
I must say that the contest itself seems a bit confused since it's stated intention is to encourage females but claims to not exclude males. The stated intent and even the acronym doesn't seem inviting to males. I would have advised SOE to either be more neutral or simply focus on their stated intention. However, I'd also point out that SOE and others should stop viewing sexual identity as dichotomous because it is not (i.e. it isn't only female/male but rather includes a broad spectrum). We would be better off treating everyone in an inviting fashion. Of course, this tends to go against the commonly held desire to attempt to categorize everything and everyone into nice, neat, clearly delineated sections. Reality doesn't work that way, though. Everyone, especially companies, would fare better if they were inclusive of intersexed, transgendered, transexual, and all other aspects of our life spectrum rather than attempting to focus only on one segment or facet.
That is great artwork for sure.