Alchemy and the Dominance War challenge...

I discovered a pretty interesting painting program called Alchemy recently. It's a fairly bare bones program, nothing like Photoshop (I don't even think it has undo), but it has some neat tricks - it looks like it is designed for concept artists. Consider it an alternative to fancy photoshop brushes for the design phase, though photoshop is a great second step. You can find it here:

http://al.chemy.org/download/

Also, there is a huge online game art challenge starting tomorrow, unless it gets pushed back again. I can't believe I hadn't heard of this before, but its called the Dominance War. It pits the largest online art communities against each other (cgsociety, cgtalk, polycount etc). It sounds really awesome! The challenge will have its fair share of industry professionals kicking everyone elses butt, yet at the same time they will be offering great feedback to the rest of us. Sure there are prizes, but a portfolio piece and loads of beneficial critiques are gauranteed - not to mention it could be a great way to get noticed. I'm doing it, let me know if anyone else is - I want to keep track of my friends as the challenge goes on... which by the way, might be a long time! I'm getting the impression it might be a month+ long challenge to allow people the time to participate.

http://www.dominancewar.com/

Heres a warmup I did today, which began in Alchemy and was "finished" in photoshop. (the sig is pretty much temporary)