Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Taylor Eby. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Alright, Taylor thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. We’d love to hear about when you first realized that you wanted to pursue a creative path professionally.

I grew up in an incredibly artistic family. My grandmother has a masters degree in musical performance and was a former pageant queen, and my late grandfather was a water-color painter, I can remember when I was little my grandfather would let me use his watercolor paints (which were far too expensive for me to be using), so I always grew up knowing that the arts as a whole were valuable and helped to bring my family together. In addition I grew up watching a ton of cartoons, I would draw my favorite characters over and over again, so when I found out that I could have a job designing the characters that little kids could get inspired by, there was no other option for me from that point forward.

Taylor, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

So for those who are unfamiliar with my work, I work in character design. More specifically I do character design for children’s entertainment. My position mostly entails meeting the needs of a director/art director. I am often given a variety of materials from the early development stages: scripts, moldboards, rough sketches, etc, and it’s my job to synthesize these materials into one cohesive design that fits the mood and style of the story. One of the jobs I’ve recently worked on was a senior thesis film which takes a stab at classic fairytales, in this I developed the design of the mermaid necessary for the film, it was incredibly fulfilling to see that design brought to life by practical effects and is one of the projects I’m most proud of!
I try to focus my work around strong shapes and bright colors. This is mostly because of my focus on children’s entertainment, you want a grab the attention of kids and the best way to do that is through bold and engaging design choices. I believe that’s what sets me apart from other character designers, rather than focusing on detail I try to focus on the overall design and its ability to capture focus, and inspire!

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

For myself I had to unlearn the need for perfection. In character design, we are tasked with creating tons of sketches and designs in a short time frame. Often these are for the purpose of getting the ideas down on paper, not for them to be finished products. However, it can be challenging as a creative to not always present your best work. I had to start learning that perfection is the enemy of finished; that deadlines wait for no man and a client would rather see finished work on-time, than perfect work late. I also had to learn that perfection is impossible to achieve so trying to achieve it is a fruitless endeavor. I instead advocate for doing the best you can under the circumstances provided, as that’s all that any of us can do!

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

My goal artistically is to inspire the kids of today. Growing up, the cartoons I watched acted as an important escape for me. These stories I grew up with allowed me to focus on all of the fun that exists in the world, rather than all of the negatives. That’s really what I strive for as an artist. It’s hard, to turn on the news and see all of the horrifying things going on around us and it’s hard to imagine children growing up seeing that as well. As one individual I can’t change any of that, but what I can do is make something that will inspire them, and allow them to escape from the negative stuff that goes on around them, that’s really what drives me as an artist.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://ebytaylor17.wixsite.com/my-site
• Instagram: @taylor_eb14
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/taylorebyillustration/