The Redmond Arts Commission will be hosting a Digital Arts Festival on October 4th-5th, in Redmond, WA. The presentations and workshops are free of charge, but the event does require registration from their website. Admission fees will be charged for the lunch, Digital Dance Party, and Short Films/Movie Night. Presenters include industry artists from Sega, Microsoft, Valve, and Gas Powered Games.

Artists can also submit their work and register for cash prizes up to $1,000. The deadline for submissions is August 31st.

Sketchfeed is planning on attending and blogging the event. Stay tuned.

Wacom today announced a price reduction of $500 for the Cintiq 21UX:

That’s right. We ran out of cozy sweaters to keep Cintiqs warm, but have no fear. We’ve decided to bring you a better offer. Our flagship Cintiq is now $500 less - indefinitely.

Now you can get your very own world-class interactive pen display or only $1999.

If you’ve been holding off on one of these due to budget concerns, perhaps now is the time to take the plunge.

A few of the major art media publishers have new announcements and releases this week:

• Ballistic Publishing has announced the upcoming release of d’artiste Digital Painting 2, and is calling for artists to submit new entries for publication. The entry deadline is March 24th.
• The Gnomon Workshop has several new videos available of interest to the 2d illustrator: Speedpainting to Matte Painting by Sebastien Larroude, and Character Design Pipeline by Thierry Doizon (aka BARONTiERi).

Jason Chan is back in a new Massive Black/Conceptart.org video release. In Digital Illustration, Jason uses Photoshop and his mastery of painting to create this 100% digital image of a damsel in distress. It sucks to wake up and find yourself being dragged underwater by a slimy monstrous giant, but as Jason shows us, at least you can still look sexy on your way down.

And yes, the giant tentacle is removing her clothes.

If you’ve been following our posts on these videos, you’d know that we just love’em. This is no exception, and well worth the money as always. Purchase and download from dvd.massiveblack.com.

Concept Designer Xavier Marquis shows off his concept art for the Playstation 2 title Killzone 2.

Additional images can be found here.

The Gnomon Workshop has announced several new instructional DVDs:

• High Resolution 3d Vehicle Illustration - A step-by-step demonstration by Brendan McCaffrey using Maya, Photoshop, and Mental Ray.
• Digital Creature Painting - Chet Zar illustrates his process of designing and painting a creature concept.

Check out also the interview, Dynamic Inspiration, with concept artist Sebastien “Rainart” Larroude.

CGSociety is accepting enrollments for new workshop with matte painter guru David Luong. David has worked on projects such as Underworld Evolution, Superman Returns, and Night at the Museum. Painting, color theory, perspective, and composition using both 2d and 3d tools are a few of the topics to be covered.

Check out the link for the class schedule and signup form.