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Mauricio Daniel Ruiz, also known as Maury Ruiz, grew up in Southern California, spending most of his time studying and selling paintings for a living until he was accepted to the Art Center College of Design, in Pasadena, in the Fall of 2003. Majoring in Illustration, he gained a stronger foundation in Contemporary Figurative Painting, along with an emphasis on entertainment design, as well as, film production and film history. Maury, being exposed at an early age to Adobe Photoshop, now holds over fifteen years of experience using digital applications as a designer, and due to these experiences with technology, created a foundation and atmosphere of constantly adapting and inheriting new technological processes as they emerged into the industry. Cultivating a relationship with traditional drawing, painting and sculpting techniques gave his digital art a grounding and connection to the great artists in history of both fine art and film.
Ruiz, upon attaining his education at the Art Center College of Design, Pasadena, quickly started working as a concept artists on live action films. His first role, working with the Head Creature Designer as a concept artist on the Paramount production Star Trek 11. There Maury gained experience and knowledge designing aliens for prosthetic suits and applications supported by visual effects, as well as some early prop design.
Pursuing a career designing characters and creatures for special effects studios, Maury quickly started working with several studios like Masters FX, Autonomous FX, Gary Tunnicliffe's 2 Hours in the Dark and most prominently Legacy Effects, the former Stan Winston Studios crew. Freelancing with Masters FX, Maury worked on several productions for film and television like FOX's "The Day the Earth Stood Still, Gold Circle Films "The New Daughter," FOX's "Fringe" series, HBO's "True Blood" series and the Sci-fi channel's "Stargate Atlantis" series.
During 2008, while working with special effects studios, Ruiz continued to learn new technology with the adoption of Pixologic's ZBrush to his tool set. This decision proved invaluable, as it was this tool that gave Maury the edge to start working with Legacy Effects digital design department in early 2009. There, amidst such industry veterans that helped design and fabricate the "Terminator" franchise, "Predator" and "Aliens", and most recently, some of the amazing "Avatar" creatures and technology, Maury learned and was exposed to a plethora of design and production techniques, some of which are uniquely specific to Legacy Effects. Ruiz acquired a working knowledge of Autodesk's 3D animation software Maya incorporating it to standard use with a strengthened awareness and practice of ZBrush. As well as technical skills, designing and compositing techniques for final renders were picked up from Legacy's lead artist, with an emphasis on speed while maintaining quality. At legacy Maury helped design for various film and television projects, but most notably for the commercial division headed by J. Alan Scott. Some characters Maury helped design were Nike's Kobe Bryant and Lebron James Most Valuable Puppets, the Burger King Ironman collaboration commercial, the Dr Pepper Ironman Vending Machine commercial and the Intel "Lunch Room" 2010 Super Bowl XLIV commercial. Various other clients included Captain Morgan, Nintendo DSi, Microsoft, TMobile, Walgreens, Carfax, Old Navy, Old Spice, NY Lottery, Kia, Planters Peanut Man, Warhammer and Jimmy Dean, moreover, some design work for several features yet to be announced.
Maury Ruiz maintains the enthusiasm and admiration to the film industry that inspired his life growing up in the wake of such films as Alien, the pivotal film that gravitated him to the creature design world and its master creators . Dedicated at pushing the industry forward coupled with the embrace of all technology that can simplify and shorten the standard design work flows while simultaneously raising the bar of quality, Maury Ruiz has great ambition to continue working in the entertainment industries, as well as a multitude of collaborative efforts in Advertising, Technology and Fine Art.