Game-Art-HQ

Ho-Oh

Druddigon

Hello Ruth! First of all can you introduce yourself please and tell our visitors who you are, what you do and most importantly, how and when did you discover that art is probably something important for you?

Well I’m Ruth Taylor, I’m 22 years old and I was born in Scotland but moved with my parents to the Netherlands when I was two years old. My dad is Scottish and my mother is Dutch. So I’ve been brought up with 2 two cultures and two languages. My parents always stood behind me if I wanted to do stuff. I’ve always had an interest for animals, specially dinosaurs.

So my dad took me to a lot of museums. Both my parents are also creative people and once they discovered I could draw pretty well for a 5 year old, they would buy materials and books so I could keep on doing my thing.

In my puberty years I still loved Dinosaurs but I also loved fantasy so I combined the two an started to draw lots of dragons and other fantasy creatures. I was never much into drawing humans, because they weren’t diverse enough. Why draw a scrawny human if you can draw millions of species of animals or even cooler: a fire breathing dragon?

Anyway I attended art school because I wanted to do Illustration, but after seeing people in my class animating their drawings and because I really loved special effects in the movies I saw, I chose to do animation. I wanted my creations to come alive.

In my years at art school I specialised in 3d animation and concept art. I just didn’t have the patience for 2d animation and I really wanted my work to be life like, so 3d seemed to be the best option. I graduated in 2011 and in the summer of that year I got my first professional job as 3d artist and Motion Graphic Designer.

I always loved animals, I always found the more interesting than people, because they are so different from us, and there are so many out there! And you can recreate them in many ways. That’s why I’ve drawn a lot of fantasy creatures. I like creating creatures of my own or draw existing concepts in my own interpretation. Like the Pokemon redesigns I’ve done. They are cartoon animals but what would they look like in the real world? I found this very interesting to find out.

Another reason I Like drawing creatures more than people is that I see people everyday, know people, talk to them. They are always around me. Because we know people so well it also harder to draw them. Because you can see when something is not done right. This is also a reason why I don’t people so much. You can’t make a lot of mistakes, because people won’t take them for granted. But with animals its less of a problem, making a mistake could easily make it an other animal.

I felt like I had start drawing more different stuff. I started being know for my dragons. But this not really what I wanted, because I knew I could draw many other things. So I shifted my focus more on landscapes, and other creature designs and also people.

Torterra

Aggron

Moltres, Zapdos and Articuno

Is the Pokemon Art Series by you an ongoing project and are there other games or game characters we can expect from you in the future?

I’m pretty sure I’m going to do more of them in a future but with pauses though, because there are other projects I want to start with.
I have many other games I like and I’m pretty sure I’ll make some fanart of them in the future. The AC series is my most favorite at the moment. I specially love the scenery within these games and it would be a great chance to level up my skills in scenery drawing.

What are your inspirations for your redesigned versions of the Pokemon?

I get I get inspired by real animals in this world or extinct ones. I use photo’s or drawings of them for references.
I always look up information about the Pokémon and use it to recreate the Pokémon in a realistic way.
And I also get inspired by other artists or by friends of mine, I browse DA to see what other artists did to recreate a certain Pokémon.

Are you drawing them just for fun or is it also some kind of practise for you?

For fun and practise, because I use real life animals as references I learn a lot about their anatomy and behaviour.

What are your three all time video games or game series?

Assassins Creed, Pokémon and Mario Kart. I know pretty diverse, but I like them all.

Whats your favourite game console?

I got a Wii, Xbox 360 and a DS. I find it hard to chose because the all have there own way of playing. I think I’m going for the DS, because I’ve played the most games on that and put a lot of hours into it.

If you could work at a big game company and the game of your choice, what game would that probably be?

Although I love good graphics in games. I think I’ll try to work at Blizzard for games like World of Warcraft. Because the worlds in this game is huge and they need lots and lots of creatures. So I would love to make lots of concepts for them.