Stephan Martiniere

Stephan Martiniere is an internationally acclaimed artist. In the past 25 years he has become known for his talent, versatility and imagination in every entertainment fields including feature films, animation, video games, theme parks, editorial and book covers.

Stephan Martiniere attended high school at one of the most renowned art schools in Paris, where he studied anatomy, perspective, advertising, architecture and a banquet of other useful fields. The classical art and illustration masters became part of his daily sustenance, as did such landmark films such as 2001, A Space Odyssey, Alien, Blade Runner and The Dark Crystal.

After graduating from art school it was off to animation school, but halfway through, Stephan was hired by an animation company and was immediately sent to Japan to work on Inspector Gadget as a character and background designer. The next several years went by frantically, as he eagerly worked between Asia and the United States on a variety of projects, including Heathcliff and Real Ghostbusters.

Finally settling in California Stephan became a television director for a number of animated shows including Dennis The Menace, Where's Waldo and the animated musical adaptation Madeline which received the ACT Awards, the Parent's Choice Award and an Emmy nomination. Several years later, Stephan left the realm of television production for the theme park industry. He found great artistic excitement in creating whimsical and fantastic environments. Theme park work eventually led to motion rides where Stephan helped design the attraction Star Trek: The Experience and The Race For Atlantis in Las Vegas. Not surprisingly, those two projects led Stephan to Hollywood, where he established himself as concept artist working on such feature films including Virus, The Astronaut's Wife, Red Planet, The Time Machine, I, Robot, Star Wars Episodes II and III, Knowing.

Armed with years of experience as a concept artist and art director Stephan made his foray into the game industry as a visual design director working for Cyan, the creators of Myst . For several years Stephan created and oversaw the artistic content for the game Uru: Ages Beyond Myst, the expansion pack, Uru: the path of the shell and Myst 5. In 2004 Stephan joined Midway games as a Visual design director to work on the game Stranglehold. During these years Stephan continued his involvement in the film industry and also established himself as a book cover illustrator working for such publishing companies including Tor Books, Pyr, Simmon and Schusters, Penguin and Random house. Stephan is the recipient of the gold and two silver Spectrum Award, 5 Master and 16 Excellence ExposГ© Awards. he is also the winner of The Chesley Award and the British Science Fiction Association Award for best cover of 2004 and 2006 and the Hugo Award in 2008. In 2004 Stephan received the Grand Master Expose Award. Stephan Martiniere is currently art directing the game "Rage" at ID software. Stephan frequently gives lectures and workshops in the US and abroad and is also an advisory board member of the CG society.