Stephan Martiniere, QUANTUM DREAMS

“When I grow up I want to be an astronaut!” declared a six-year-old Stephan in 1968, a year before man walked on the moon. Not surprisingly, his first doodles featured blazing rockets and space ships. Growing up in France, and not permitted to watch much TV, Stephan spent a lot of time at the corner cinema. There he was introduced to the Werewolf and the Mummy, to Dracula, Frankenstein and King Kong. He traveled on the Voyage to the Center of the Earth and experienced The Day The Earth Stood Still! The blood, guts and slime in all these classics were overwhelmingly cool. As Stephan's doodles of astronauts became doodles of monsters and aliens. Stephan found himself enjoying drawing more and more the dream of becoming an astronaut gradually faded away. His calling was to be in art.

Stephan 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, to spend some time with Bambi and Cinderella. But only 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 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 and a lovely wife and daughter 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 had the exciting opportunities to design for the feature films Virus, The Astronaut's Wife, Red Planet, Dragon Heart 2, I, Robot, and Star Wars Episodes II and III.

Armed with years of experience as a concept artist, the Photoshop palette, and a bit of 3D under his belt, 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 , two expansion packs and the upcoming Uru sequel. During these years Stephan also established himself as a book cover illustrator. In 2004 Stephan received the gold Spectrum Award , the excellence Expos é Award and two masters Exposé Awards.