3DTotal: At one point in your childhood I guess you may have thought wow this art stuff is cool and then now you are working in a successful games company as a character artist, so can you briefly fill in your journey in-between for us?
Tamara: I started to learn drawing when I was six years old. I went to a small art class for kids. We were painting, sculpting with clay, and making art using many interesting techniques. So it was fun, and later I decided to continue my art education and go to an art-school.

I can’t say that I was a very thorough student, but I liked drawing in a fantasy-style, especially the ancient Greek myths.  After my high-school graduation I attended Saint-Petersburg Art-college where for three years I was learning to do and teach art.

Anyway, after graduating I was sure that I didn’t want to be an art-teacher, and a couple years ago I discovered the magical world of computer graphics, and I started to learn Photoshop and to draw funny things. At this moment I want to turn back in time, when five years ago my parents got me a birthday gift, a video-console called Aida (some clone of Atari I think). That was the beginning of my video game addiction. Later there was a Sega Mega Drive II. I can’t say exactly how much time I spent on Mortal

Combat, Dune II, the Sonic series and other games, but I’m sure it was a lot.

There was a time when I didn’t have a personal computer, and I often visited my friend, a happy PC owner, to play Dungeon Keeper. One of the happiest days of my youth was when I got my own PC, many games were played, and at some point I installed Thief 3: Deadly Shadows. Gosh! This game tore off my head and kicked it away! I had never seen thatkind of atmospheric and interesting game before. At this time I had passed my college studies and thought to myself, “Why not, I have no idea about game art, but I should try that”. So for six months I sent my poor resume into many of the Saint-Petersburg’s game companies, and got no replies of course. But if you keep trying you get what you want sooner or later. Then finally one day I got job as a texture artist.

At the beginning I dreamed of becoming a concept artist, but whilst in my first job I started to learn 3D modeling and I really liked it. Time passed by, and I was happy to work in the game-development industry, but I’ve always dreamt of something more than a simple texture artist job. That’s why I tried to learn something about 3D modeling and CG painting in my spare time. I’ve spent lot of time in art-forums and LiveJournal, chatting with CG artists and in one of them I met the great 3D artist Molotov aka Slipgatecentral. I didn’t imagine that he’d not only become my teacher, but eventually my husband – this was another happy point in my life. At last I moved to Moscow and started freelancing for the art-awesome game Allods Online and that let me spend more time improving my art skills.

3DTotal: Thanks for that fantastic glimpse into your past. Being married to Molotov do you find yourselves talking about the latest feature of ZBrush when you are having a romantic meal?
Tamara: Sure, we often talk about our jobs, current art-projects or strategies for Zerg in Star Craft 2.

I know it seems far from being like a romantic meal. “Please, pass me the salt dear, and....don’t forget to build two Spine Crawlers near your resources line next time.”

3DTotal: Looking at your Deviant Art portfolio http://firstkeeper.deviantart.com/ you seem to have mastered 2D, concept, 3D sculpting, real-time, not to mention some hand-made costumes! Did one discipline lead onto another? And where do you like to concentrate your skills at the moment?
Tamara: Of course all disciplines and experiences including negative ones can be useful for work. For example 2D art helps to make hand-painted textures. Knowledge of fashion history gives me more references for character design, I’ve studied a lot of handwork disciplines at art-college: for example embroidery, leather working, sculpting, and  I’m pretty sure these things increase accuracy.

Currently I have given myself a goal to learn more about digital sculpting, human anatomy and next-gen character modeling, and try to practice more concept-art. I have no idea how I’ll find time for all that, but
it’s so nice that I share my interests with my husband.