Daniel Stultz sketches detailed images that look like they could exist in the land of Azeroth, a place inside the popular World of Warcraft game from Blizzard Entertainment. His artistry is inspired by the massively multi player online game and because of his choice in colleges, he’s closer to Azeroth than most gamers.

Stutz, pictured on right, got a chance to work with artists from game company because he attended the Laguna College of Art+Design in Laguna Beach, just 7.6 miles from Blizzard’s headquarters in Irvine. The Laguna college has 22 students in its brand-new video game major, which ended its first year last week. (This is the same college that hosted a World of Warcraft art exhibit last year.)

Read my story today about the perks of going to video-game school — here’s the LINK.

Thanks to the very connected Sandy Appleoff, the college’s chair of the Game Art major, students also got to work with artists from Dreamworks Animation, Double Helix Games (formerly Shiny Entertainment and The Collective) and, of course, two guys from Blizzard. Specifically, Blizzard’s Ely Cannon and Dion Rogers are on faculty at LCAD. Blizzard also sent a team to scope out talent at last week’s student showcase, which is where I interviewed Stutz.

“I can’t play Warcraft anymore,” confided Stutz, who has been drawing and playing Dungeons & Dragons since he was four. “The options were I play Warcraft or I finish school.”

He finished school. Now, he’s looking for a job. (All images are from his portfolio, btw…)

“I talked to Blizzard. That was a huge deal,” Stutz told me. Blizzard reps told him he needed a bigger portfolio with more 3D art, which is basically what every game studio wants these days.

He wasn’t the only Warcraft fan at the art school.

Lindsay Groce, a skinny, wide-eyed animation student pictured on right (Photo by Register photographer Lorren Au), also wouldn’t mind a gig at Blizzard.

“Their style is so passionate and free,” said Groce, a gamer herself who prefers first-person shooters and role-playing games.

Groce is currently working with some UC Irvine computer-science students, Blizzard’s Cannon and a few other art-school students to create their own game. I’ll post more details when I get them.

I spoke to Lenny Grossi, Blizzard’s Senior Manager of Global Staffing, about Blizzard’s sudden interest in college life.

The company only this year launched its official internship program, its University Relations unit. Grossi didn’t know how many students applied to play work at Blizzard, but many were invited to visit the campus. Eight have been chosen and are being notified right now.

“Historically for Blizzard, there wasn’t a clearly defined university program. Over the last year, we formalized and developed it. We’re adding headcount to the group and building it out as a small staffing group,” Grossi said.

The program focused on students in Orange County and Los Angeles, so they wouldn’t need to relocate. For those who didn’t make the cut, there’s always next year.

Related Blizzard posts:

• Blizzard Entertainment moves into new campus
• WoW developer’s dad hooked on Warcraft
• Bigger, better BlizzCon coming in October

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