Art and design workshop REVELATIONS comes to Seattle

Artists and designers from all over the world will flock to Seattle this weekend looking to get inspired.

They trek to REVELATIONS, a multiday art and design creativity workshop aimed at unstifling those stagnating in cubicles.

"For four days, you just live and breathe art," said Melissa Lee, director of operations for conceptart.org and Massive Black, the two San Francisco design establishments that organized the workshop.

This is the first time the workshop, which has been running since 2003 all over the world, has come to Seattle. It will be at the Bell Harbor International Conference Center, by Pier 66.

"Seattle seemed like the right place to do it with its proximity to so many companies," said Coro Kaufman, an instructor and one of the founders of the workshop.

About 50 professionals and instructors — in video games, toys, comic books, film, illustration and fine art — will conduct presentations, hands-on instruction and demonstrations. It's a rare opportunity for laymen to come face to face with industry leaders, such as the artists from the movie "300" and Marvel Comics, and such big names as Lorne Lanning, creator of the Oddworldseries.

"It's a thrill when somebody that you grew up on, signs on," said Kaufman, art director for the video game, movie and toy design company Massive Black. He will be teaching classes on creature design, weapon design and oil painting.

The workshop spawned out of an online art community — conceptart.org — that Kaufman and some other artists founded in 2001. The site now numbers 92,000 members.

Their first workshop was five years ago in Amsterdam with 100 artists. And this weekend in Seattle, they expect 500, with artists coming as far away as New Zealand, Germany and Turkey.

"The first time I went to the workshop, I was blown away. I could not leave the venue," said Lee, who adds that there are conventions parallel to this, like the Game Developers Conference, but nothing specifically on art and design.

The workshop spans the traditional and digital realm, catering to both the brush and laptop user, diving into such topics as comic-book cover illustration, speed painting and animation. A lot of classes will focus on concept art, a relatively new industry that arose from video games and movies, which is about creating characters from scratch.

"Somebody has to come up with what Darth Vader looks like, and that's what we do," said Lee. "We make others' dreams come true."

There will also be a job fair whose past participants include such big companies as Blizzard Entertainment, Sony, EA and LucasArts. Besides interviews, the company representatives will be conducting portfolio reviews.

"We've placed a ton of people in jobs," said Lee.

There's also a reception at the Space Needle with a burlesque theme to kick things off.

"Besides just having a really good time and soaking up some knowledge, I want people to walk away with the knowledge that there are other people like them ... that a ton of people out there are struggling with the same thing," said Lee.

Marian Liu: 206-464-3825 or mliu@seattletimes.com