TyRuben Ellingson is the Lead Vehicle Designer for James Cameron’s AVATAR. He joined the team at Lightstorm in early 2006 and provided the designs for the AMP suit and RDA combat aircraft. As the show moved into post-production, TyRuben designed the RDA mining equipment and RDA ground vehicles, several of which were also used in the AVATAR video game.

The son of a Minnesota art professor, TyRuben spent his childhood in his father’s studio drawing and painting. While completing his Master's degree at St. Cloud State University, Ellingson taught drawing and design courses at the university and exhibited his paintings in regional and national juried shows. His Master of Fine Arts degree was completed in 1987 at Southern Methodist University. In the film business at large, holding an advance degree is extraordinarily rare, especially a terminal degree.

Combining his fine art successes with a life long interest in film, Ellingson landed a position at George Lucas' Industrial, Light and Magic in 1989 as a Visual Effects Art Director. While at ILM, Ellingson contributed to the creation of ground-breaking special effects in films such as Jurassic Park, Star Wars: A New Hope, and Disclosure.

In 1995, Ellingson accepted an invitation by Director Guillermo Del Toro to act as principal designer of the signature creature for his film, Mimic. TyRuben also designed weapons and equipment for Del Toro on Blade 2 and the Hellboy films.

As a result of his unique and robust understanding of story, production, visual effects, and design, TyRuben collaborates with directors in a manner that extends well beyond design work. Known for his creative thinking, he brings value to each project by proposing new story elements, set pieces, and/or sequences in addition to inventive designs. Other films to which he has lent his creative talents include Blade Trinity, Signs, Eagle Eye, Surrogates, Priest (2011) and Battle: Los Angeles (2011).

Throughout his career, Ellingson has spoken regularly to students and professionals regarding his work and the film industry at large. Speaking engagements of note over the past twenty years include the following; Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, Stanford University, San Jose State University, Expression College for Digital Arts, Guadalajara Museum of Art, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Gnomon School of Visual Effects, Saint Cloud State University. In 1993,he was a keynote speaker at the National Association of Art Department Deans, and that same year taught a semester in the cinema department at San Francisco State University.

Yuri Bartoli is the Supervising Virtual Art Director for James Cameron’s AVATAR. In May of 2005, he began work on Avatar as one of four artists initially hired to work directly with James Cameron to design the creatures and environments of Pandora. His journey ran through to the very end of production, five years in total, making Bartoli the longest running creative on the picture.

From conceptual design, he moved on to supervising the Avatar Virtual Art Department. His responsibilities included leading the team creating digital sets for the real-time virtual production process of the Volume, which included the performance capture and virtual camera systems. With constant input from Cameron, Yuri assisted in creating a world that existed only in the computer, innovating and improving the look of the template of the film. As production wrapped and moved into post, Yuri art directed the work of vendors on the VFX side, including Weta, ILM, Framestore, Prime Focus and others to realize the full extent of the environments, creatures and graphics that the film required.

Coming from a background in traditional art, film and illustration with a BFA from School of Visual Arts in New York City, Bartoli made the move to California to work as a concept artist on Star Wars: Attack of the Clones. He has been working in the visual effects, commercial and film industry for over 10 years at companies such as Pacific Data Images and Dreamworks Animation. As Visual Effects Art Director on such films as Evolution, Minority Report and AI, he honed his skills in special effects, art and matte painting as well as computer graphics and later transitioned into computer animated feature films. It was while working on films such as Madagascar and Shrek 2 that he learned valuable pipeline production techniques that would assist him in later films.

The opportunity to work, learn and contribute to the process of making Avatar was unique- from Virtual Production to 3D stereography, from concept design to technical knowledge of the Volume; he looks forward to applying it all to future projects, and pushing the envelope even further.

Recent presentations and interviews for Avatar by Bartoli have included the Director’s Guild of America, the Gnomon School of Visual Effects, the American Society of Cinematographers, several presentations for Microsoft, two Siggraph 2010 VIP events hosted by Autodesk at Giant Studios, and Sideshow Collectibles, as well as online interviews. He will be appearing at an upcoming Avatar benefit hosted by Microsoft.