Futuro 2017: a Digital Arts Festival to Remember

Inspiration, admiration and deep appreciation to the masters. This is how we can describe the experience Futuro 3. For the third time in a row, this year’s edition of the annual digital arts festival took place in beautiful Varna known as the “Sea capital” of Bulgaria.

Experienced lecturers from different parts of the world gathered under the same roof of Black Sea hotel located right in the heart of the Sea capital. The big names in the industry were eager to tell their personal stories, share valuable insights with us, and answer the audience’s questions about the world of digital art.

Futuro 3 took place between 20-24th of August 2017: five days full of inspiring stories, game-changing art techniques, tips, tricks and lots of eye-popping art. So here is what happened during these 5 unforgettable days.

Day 1: Grand opening.

The excitement of what was about to happen was huge. As everyone was receiving their entrance bracelets, the special festival feeling was already filling the air. The first day was marked by a truly breath-taking art session. Zhivko Donchev and Aris Kolokontes put an awesome start to the digital arts festival with a live demonstration of sculpting. Enjoy a few shots:

Day 2: GraphicMama at Futuro!

Day 2 was actually the first day of the lectures and everyone was excited to learn what’s new and trending in the world of digital art. The first lecturer was Martin Punchev. The talented artist shared with us interesting techniques and tricks for character texturing in Substance Painter. After Martin, Mathias Zamecki took over the mike and talked about environment design and self improvement. He revealed insights of his working process, shared fun stories of his experience and valuable pieces of advice. Check out several shots of these artists’ presentations:

We were absolutely thrilled that GraphicMama was also a part of this incredibly inspiring art event. The master illustrator of the team Nick talked about vector art and our working process. What was particularly interesting for the audience, was Nick’s live demonstration of how a fun sketch gets turned into a badass vector sticker. Everyone was also welcome to get free vector stickers as keepsakes from GraphicMama. Here are a couple of photos of Nick’s presentation and demonstration.

The end of Day 2 was put by the presentation of Darko Markovic who talked about hard surface psychology and his passion for car designs. Needless to say, there were plenty of impressive design examples he showed. Here are just a couple to help you get an idea of Darko’s presentation:

Day 3: In search of inspiration.

Well, the first lecture set the tone for the whole Day 3. The day started off with Sabin Boykinov, a concept artist who talked about his proven methods of drawing inspiration for his own artwork. He showed us plenty of stunning art pieces by master artists and talked about the importance of traditional drawing. The following lecturer was Darek Zabrocki who covered all the basic techniques of building compositions: structures, lights, shadows and more. Check out photos of both these artists’ participation in the digital arts festival:

In the afternoon, we soaked up wisdom by Stefan Atanasov, Todor Hristov and Michal Kus, who talked about 2D modeling, how to become artists in the entertainment industry, and drawing and render techniques, respectively. Here are a few indoor shots of their presentations:

Day 4: The different faces of art.

Day 4 was the last day of lectures and it was filled with art in its various forms. The day started with Aris Kolokontes and his lecture about character and creature design in clay. The master of clay figures shared his experience with us and plenty of astonishing works of art that simply left us breathless. Then, Eddie Bennun took over the stage with his incredibly inspiring story of how he got into the gaming industry and survived. As the creator of Assassin’s Creed Rogue visual concept, Eddie Bennun proved everyone in the hall that dreams come true indeed. Here are some photos of these artists’ presentations:

Darek Zabrocki and Michal Kus took over after the lunch break. They shared with us what are the pros and cons of working together on a given design project. Both artists had actually started collaborating on a design specially for the digital arts festival Futuro 3, and shared with us all the challenges they had to face, as well as the benefits they enjoyed during the collaboration.

The last but not least lecturer was Jean-Baptiste Monge with his absolutely fascinating presentation “The world of Jean-Baptiste Monge”. We were certainly captivated by the creations the French artist showed us. As he was revealing his working process, we caught ourselves gazing with awe at his breath-taking illustrations. Here are a couple of pictures to get an idea of what you missed:

Day 5: Workshop.

The final day of the digital arts festival was really fun: a workshop with Darek Zabrocki in which the participants finally unleashed their own creativity and had to draw along with Darek. The artist made a live demonstration of building an illustration composition. Then, he guided all workshop participants and helped them for the creation of their own compositions.

Here is what Nick from GraphicMama came up with: speed painting done in 1 hour 15 minutes.

We must say, our team was pretty thrilled the entire time. Here is what a few GraphicMama members shared after the digital arts festival Futuro 3:

“Futuro brought a great experience to all of us. I, personally, am happy I had the chance to get all the insights of the creative processes of the bigger names in the industry. Whether it was peeking at Aris Kolokontes’ personal collection of creature sculptures, or the progress of Jean-Baptiste Monge creating an amazing artwork of Tyrion Lannyster from scratch, it was unforgettable and highly educational.”, Al

“I’m so glad that I had the opportunity to be there! It was an amazing experience and I’ve learnt so many new things about digital arts.”, Ludmil

“Futuro is always a source of inspiration and knowledge. Seeing how much the biggest names in the industry are just like us, making mistakes and learning from them to become better in their field, is priceless, along with getting a close and personal look at their techniques and experience.”, Didi

“This year I was able to participate most of the lectures, and I am mostly impressed by the diversity of the topics we were presented with. The lecturers were approachable, easy-going and provided a lot of insights for the industry. I think the organization of the festival and the after-parties/networking were awesome. Definitely going next year.”, Billy

Looking forward to Digital arts festival Futuro 4. Are you with us?