Artist Spotlight #4: Trudi Castle

11 Jun

A digital image by Trudi Castle of her fabulous Coffee Crew — *Image copyright © Trudi Castle*

Artist Spotlight

Welcome to the fourth of my short blogs series ‘Artist Spotlight’. Let me introduce you to the super talented Trudi Castle, aka @Lady_Tea.

Trudi Castle

Trudi is a British artist, now living in Vancouver, Canada. I first came across her quirky digital art on Instagram a number of years ago and was immediately drawn to the playfulness of her illustrations and the personality of her characters.

I’m not shy to say I’m a big Pokémon fan! And I’m sure it was Trudi’s interpretation of Pokémon characters that first caught my eye and brought her art to my attention. When I saw that she also drew Link from The Legend of Zelda, and then came across her amazing Coffee Crew (the first image in this blog), I was hooked!

Associate Art Director

Trudi works as an Associate Art Director at independent videogame developer Red Hook Studios in Vancouver, and specialises in concept art, illustration, storyboarding, and gaming design.

After admiring her art style on Instagram for a while, I noticed Trudi was promoting Red Hook Studios’ first game, Darkest Dungeon, on her social pages. I couldn’t resist, so bought a copy of this gothic role playing game for my Nintendo Switch! It’s an engaging & challenging game, with a lot of the darkness of the illustrations standing out due to the layers within the characters and environments. Darkest Dungeon ll is now out, so I’ll need to put some time aside and get started on that!

Publications

Elsewhere in her freelance illustration career, Trudi has contributed to visual works produced by organisations including Snapchat, Cartoon Network & Wacom. She’s also a contributor to a number of books including ‘Everyday is Play: A Celebration of the Video Game’ and the ‘World of Warcraft Tribute Art Book’.

A digital illustration by artist Trudi Castle of a cat like characters in an orange rain jacket and welly boots, holding a strong paw up holding an electric blue baguette in the air! — *Image copyright © Trudi Castle*

Spotlight

I hope the examples of Trudi’s artwork included throughout this blog give you an idea of the range in her style, the level of her talent, and how she can create engaging characters and atmospheric environments that tell stories of their own without further detail or context. I’d encourage everyone to check out her work across social media, and of course the Darkest Dungeon games.