Allegorithmic announce X-TAON Art Car contest results

Allegorithmic has announced the winners of the X-TAON Art Car Texturing Contest. The competition, backed by us, required aspiring video game artists to use Allegorithmic’s Substance Painter programme apply textures and patterns to a specially-designed sports car by Takumi Yamamoto, in the most imaginary way possible. The results, organised into ‘Pro’ and ‘Student’ categories, are suitably spectacular.

Prizes for the top-three include a copy of our upcoming yearbook (for the winner only), the latest Interior Motives issue and a year’s subscription to this very website – along with prizes from the other three sponsors.

You can scroll through the galleries for the top ten in both main categories, but here are the winners below, with comments from the designers and judges:

Pro Winner – Ispais Sedano

Sedano went for a monochrome look, livened up by a mix of sharp geometric patterns towards the rear and a flowing, liquid-like design at the front.

They described their entry as “a journey between two hemispheres: rational and irrational, inspired by Dalí Surrealism and Geometric style. I really enjoyed the challenge using deep filters and new features in Substance Painter.”

Contest judge Paul Braddock commented: “The monotone palette works nicely along with the contrasting organic and industrial design elements.”

Pro Silver – Guilherme Marconi: ‘Brazilian Folklore Dance’

Marconi’s multicultural design is alive with colour, transitioning sharply from dense, intricate patterns up front to simpler, flowing details towards the rear, tying it all together with a rich purple centreline stripe.

Marconi: “My references were inspired by African culture, and by some Brazilian cultural elements that usually manifest at ‘Carnaval,’ at ‘Bumba Meu Boi’, or ‘Boi-bumbá’ – these are popular folkloric Brazilian dances – and also by the ‘Folia de Reis’ ceremony.”

Contest judge Pierre Maheut enthused: “Colourful and inspiring – this is definitely a great art car!”

Pro Bronze – JianYou Dong: ‘Pado’

JianYou Dong’s design, in a similar style to the famous Great Wave off Kanagawa painting, features crashing waves with vast sea creatures bursting out of them, all in exquisite detail. They explains that it is “all hand-painted, with only a weathering filter added at the end” of the process. Paul Braddock of the jury enjoyed the “very nice ‘Japanese tattoo’ theme.”

Student Winner – Zacky Romiz Izzuddin: ‘Barong and Rangda’

Izzuddin applied a shimmering gold base layer and then applied a full-body tattoo to the X-TAON; another entry with incredible attention to detail from bumper to bumper.

Izzuddin says of their work: “The concept is to put vintage and artistic ornaments on a futuristic car. I chose the Indonesian (Balinese) folk story about ‘Barong and Rangda’ because I love them a lot – it’s essentially a story about the balance of good and bad. Hand-painted with my mouse, I made all the patterns just in Substance Painter, except for the sponsors’ logos.”

Pierre Maheut of the jury added: “This proposal is crazy when it comes to details. Attention paid to every square millimetre of the car is mesmerising. There is also a great link between the car and the graphics, especially the wings on the back.”

Student Silver – Ilai Perez

Perez had some fun with this really left-field approach, turning the hard-surfaced sports car into an inflatable children’s toy – complete with plastic air seals on the side windows. A truly surprising entry.

“For my submission for the contest, I decided to texture the car like a kind of an inflatable pool toy, specifically a duck,” explains Perez. “I wanted to take the ‘sharp’-looking car model in an unexpected direction and give it a playful spin that would change not only the outer texture of the car, but the whole feel and context of the object, from an edgy metallic sports car to a soft, cushy inflatable toy.”

Two of the judges particularly liked it. “This is lots of fun! Well executed and something different,” commented Braddock, while Maheut agrees that it’s “as unexpected as it is well realised. This entry is one my favourites as it completely changes the purpose of the car. It isn’t a car anymore, but an inflatable toy. Awesome!”

Student Bronze – Isaac Zuren: ‘X-TAON Mexican Art’

Zuren’s dot matrix-style design is truly remarkable in its density of detail, and almost overwhelmingly colourful.

“The X-TAON was painted and textured based on the very traditional and important Mexican art style ‘Huichol’, which consists of pasting tiny beads that form psychedelic patterns and colours to give a model life and uniqueness,” he explains. “Since this style is one of the most transcendental in Mexican culture, every little drawing elaborated for this project has its own meaning and the beads were placed based on the patterns and shapes with a highly specific study on Huichol roots.”

Maheut respected the amount of care that clearly went into it. “Wow, is this for real? You can’t reach this level of detail in 3D without being one of the most perfectionist students on earth! Also, the graphics and colours are so well picked.”

Special Prize – Best Staging: Chamishka Gamage, ‘Loose Nuts’

Gamage got a special mention not just for the hot rod-esque skeleton-on-black theme, but for setting the scene with some aged robots depicted as finishing the livery off. It was good enough to earn them a free Wacom graphics tablet.

“My approach is a little bit different, I wanted to try an old steampunk rusted look. I need to paint all the patterns so that they looked hand-painted – so I had to spend quite some time to get the exact look right,” says Gamage of their final piece.

“Great theme, well executed, lovely hand-painted textures. Lots of work here,” added Braddock.

Special Prize – Best Storytelling: Ronan Mahon, ‘Midnight’

Mahon’s design appears rather subdued at first, but when darkness descends and UV light is projected onto it, previously hidden patterns burst into life with fiery style.

He says of this effect: “Midnight is understated during the day and comes to life at night. The theme was based around the node graph in Substance Designer – how any one node can create an explosion of art. Under UV light the car comes to life in an explosion of colour.”

Maheut praised it as being “breathtaking. Revealing graphics under UV lights is such a bright idea! The consistency of the whole project is unbeatable.”

Mahon won an NVIDIA RTX 2080 graphics card for his computer, which will no doubt help him process the next great project.

For more details of the contest and images of the entries, visit Allegorithmic’s website.