The start photos for the latest Creative Challenge are now up! Challenge 15 presents a summery selection of cityscapes, desert scenes, crashing waves, rural landscapes… and a penguin. Clone them, copy them or just be inspired to see what you can create from them. The Creative Challenge is always a great chance to experiment with something outside of your normal style. We love getting images that surprise us (Although James is currently predicting a narrative about Penguar the super penguin variously duffing up elephants, conquering New York and flying off into the sunset, so you’ll have to get pretty creative to get us to raise an eyebrow this time round!)

You can start sending your entries to opm@imagine-publishing.co.uk right now - remember to mark your subject line as ‘Creative Challenge 15 entry’. As ever the prize is a year’s subscription to the magazine, and you can enter as many times as you like. The final deadline for entries is 10 September 2009. The winner of Challenge 14 will be announced in issue 32 of the magazine, on sale 16 July, and we’ll start showcasing your new Challenge entries in the issue after. Happy painting!

Click here to see Ehsan’s Gallery.

You really need to see this as large as possible to appreciate the textured brushwork in Ehsan’s paintings - it has all the verve and exuberance of Manet or Sargent but in more of a fantasy art context. Ehsan does some really stunning work in this style so check out all of his gallery for a real texture treat!

Konnichiwa! As you’ll have seen from our new website backdrop, issue 31 of the Official Corel Painter Magazine is on sale today! You really can’t miss its cover on the newsstands - it’s possibly the brightest and bounciest we’ve ever done, and it’s based on the art of anime, a unique style of animation created in Japan.

Inside the magazine you’ll find a great mix of articles. Our feature this issue is a roundup of some of our favourite art sales websites, so you know which will be the best one for you to use when selling your artwork, prints and more. Our photo-based tutorial is from Greg Banning, who shows us how to create a 50s style vintage pin-up portrait. If it’s brushes you’re after, Celia Yost presents some interesting ways to use the Oil Pastels, while advanced readers can learn how to create motion and high speed effects with hot rod artist Dwayne Vance. Fantasy artists can discover a new pet project in the shape of our Art Study from Amber Hill, which shows how to create magical, mythical beasts from real life references, while in Drawing 101 Sophie Elliot explores the brushwork style of Rembrandt using the casual impasto technique sprezzatura. Angie Jordan is the interviewee in our hot seat this issue and she discusses how she creates caricatures in just six minutes using Corel Painter. All this plus our reviews of the best products to enhance your creative projects, primers to get you up and running in Painter and the latest news and views from the Corel Painter community. And of course you can learn how to paint that bright, bold cover I mentioned in our create the cover tutorial, Paint Like Anime, from rising star Reinaldo Quintero. So what are you waiting for - pick up a copy or subscribe today!

Click here to view Jeremy’s gallery.

Take a look at this as it explodes across your screen! The dynamic perspective in Jeremy’s piece is a great example of extending reality into what we call the hyperreal: playing with the kind of conventions that can be used in action-packed media like comics and cartoons in order to add impact and ‘otherness’ to a scene or character. In real life we don’t see the kind of curvature of linear perspective Jeremy has used here, but we understand it (subconsciously, thanks to our consumption of media like cartoons, comics videogames etc) as something that denotes cinematic effects like a scene stretching, curving or streaming away - so despite the fact we’ve never seen anything ‘real’ like this it still feels possible. Hyperreality’s a complex theory so enough of that; let’s turn our attention to the details. I love maneki neko (Japanese Lucky Cat statues) so the little one on the shelf in the background instantly made me go “Aww!” but take a look at the daruma or dharma dolls on the nearer shelf, which echo the facial characteristics of the figure. Daruma dolls are for making wishes - you paint one eye to make your wish and the other when it comes true. These seemingly insignificant details of cute little ornaments give us so much information about the character, and the crisp, clear painting style encourages and rewards an extended look at this image.

A little blog post this morning to introduce another member of Team Painter; our senior designer, James Shead. James’ job is to take the giant pile of text documents and images I present him with every month and turn them into the gorgeous glossy magazine that drops through your door a few weeks later. Having been lured onto the website by a trail of biscuits, he’s now able to approve images, meaning that this will be a speedier process even when I’m out of the office! So please give him a very warm welcome to the website (He’s JamesPainter) but remember that he can’t answer editorial or tech support enquiries as he’s very artistic

Click here to view Nikolay’s Gallery.

Creating the cities of tomorrow has fascinated artists for thousands of years. As centres of civilisation, they’re often the cultural hubs that allow art styles to grown and evolve through exhibitions, public art, and architectural spaces. Since the turn of the 20th Century however we’ve been fascinated with dystopian cities - places that aren’t quite the perfect centres of civilisation that we’d like them to be. Nikolay’s image treads a fine line between dystopian and utopian - is it a perfect city, as evinced by the delicately painted translucent blue buildings, which one person in this painting’s Comments thread cleverly pointed out look like holograms, or is it an imperfect one out on the edge of a watery warm world. Note how the way the water is painted and the plane of perspective used in relation to the scale of the city suggest subtly that this city exists on the edge of a high and almost endless ocean. The refuelling platform suggests long journeys made by ships docking at cities like this, and also showcases the fantastic way hat Nikolay utilises that sci-fi staple, red lights in compositions overwhelmingly based on blues. Notice how far the light travels from its source, and look out for this effect in other works in his Gallery such as Scouting A New Planet.

And remember it’s Drawing Day 2009 tomorrow! Get doodling now! The person who submits the most pics tagged ‘Drawing Day’ as of midnight GMT tomorrow will win a lovely copy of Mastering Composition by Ian Roberts, published by North Light Books. What are you waiting for?

Those of you who have already picked up issue 30 of the magazine will know that we’re supporting the annual Drawing Day event this year on Saturday 6 June. Drawing Day aims to get a million drawings done in a day to promote art and artists worldwide. It’s easy to get involved - click the banner above to find out more, or just get creative and then upload your work to your regular Painter Gallery with the tag ‘Drawing Day’ in the title. Let’s see how many paintings we can create!

Stuck for inspiration? Take your sketchbook or graphics tablet outside, set up a still life, discover self-portraits, visit your local or national art gallery or simply “take a line for a walk” as Paul Klee said! There’s a wealth of creative inspiration inside the pages of Painter this issue, so why not grab those tutorial files and power up your steampunk skills, discover the techniques behind Helen Chierego’s Kookaburra Princess, learn how to use the Impasto brushes, be inspired by Cher Threinen-Pendarvis or learn some sneaky tricks from the Painter Cheat Guide?

The lovely people at Hahnemuehle, the fine art paper company, are running a competition to celebrate the company’s 425th anniversary. It’s open for another four weeks and can be entered by individuals and academic institutions alike. The total prize fund exceeds a massive 36 000 euros while the winners will have their work displayed in Europe, America and Asia, and the competition is open to entrants worldwide. If you’re into photography, why not have a go? Visit the Hahnemuele website now! The competition closes on 30 June 2009.

Click here to view Allen’s Gallery. What a delightful image this is! Clear, complementary tones create a harmony of green and honeyed gold with flashes of cerulean, while the idea of the bird’s feathers transforming into leaves is a great one, and has been managed very well - the movement is exuberant but still delicately done. One of the things I like most about this image though is its background, a lovely combination of floated-in colour and tone creating wooded hills rising into the  distance.

Our sister magazine Digital Camera Buyer  (the first title I worked on for Imagine Publishing, fact fans) is changing its name to Digital Camera Essentials from June this year.

Launched in 2002, Digital Camera Buyer becomes Digital Camera Essentials from issue 85, on sale 11 June 2009. Aimed at first-time digital camera users as well as those looking to upgrade their current kit, Digital Camera Essentials is written by industry experts with an unrivalled knowledge and passion for photography.

Digital Camera Essentials features the same in-depth reviews, hands-on group tests and 25-page buyers’ guide it has become famous for, but also now incorporates a large photo techniques section, allowing readers to get the best buying advice, as well as discover how to use their new gear.

Editor in Chief of Imagine’s photographic division, Debbi Allen, said:

“Digital Camera Essentials is aimed at the hobbyist photographer who’s looking to update their equipment and learn more about shooting techniques, from buying a new compact, bridge or DSLR, to taking the perfect shot and then editing it afterwards. It’s an exciting phase in the magazine’s development, and it has been designed to allow greater levels of interaction with readers and give them a complete view of each product from shop to shoot.”

For the first time ever, Digital Camera Essentials readers will also be able to subscribe to the magazine. “A new look deserved a brilliant new subscriptions offer,” explains Subscriptions Manager, Lucy Nash. “With all the outstanding features and developments it seemed like the perfect time to launch our new subscription programme for Digital Camera Essentials.”

Head of Sales, James Hanslip commented: “After seven successful years as Digital Camera Buyer, we felt the time was right to overhaul the magazine for the new generation of digital camera owners. Digital Camera Essentials will allow advertisers to reach a wider demographic of reader and get involved with more features and reviews.”

Imagine Publishing is one of the UK’s fastest-growing consumer specialist publishers. Formed in May 2005, Imagine now publishes 20 magazines and 27 websites in the videogames, computing, entertainment and photography markets. An Imagine magazine is purchased every ten seconds. For more information about Digital Camera Essentials, visit www.digicambuyer.co.uk