Cornys: Oliver hasn't played the LoS games yet (he's a busy fellow). If he ever gets the chance to play them, I'll be sure to ask him what he thinks. He couldn't play much of EtD (gave up after about two hours of trying to play) and he's said before that he likes to see what other artists have done with his character designs.

The original idea for Spyro came about before Oliver was hired (he came into Insomniac near the end of production on the first game). Universal's video game department commissioned an artist (I can't remember his full name, but his first name is Chalres) to design a dragon for a video game.
http://www.theanimationacademy.com/spyromenu.htm

I will be sure to ask him about the differences between working on R&C and Spyro.

Sheep: Oliver has a ton of sketches of the enemies, inhabitants, and random characters from all of the games he worked on. He doesn't have many of them scanned, but I got to see a lot of them in person. The ones I remember are early concepts for Ratchet himself, the hula girls in Idol Springs, the Sorceress, the wizards and warlocks from Cloud Temples, and a bunch of others (he came to the eatery with his portfolio and a giant folder stuffed full of art from all different stages of his career).

I'm trying to organize my thoughts enough to send Oliver another e-mail soon and I'll be sure to ask him the questions he hasn't already answered (or I didn't know the ansers to).

Oh, one more little bit of Spyro trivia I remembered from meeting Oliver: he showed me Zoe the fairy's original design. She was, initially, supposed to be a younger character. She was very childlike and cute. Ted Price talked him into making her sexier (apparently, Ted had a thing for making sexy female characters and pairing up as many of the male leads as he could in all of his games ).

re: the picture
That is a good picture (I think just got back from an emergency eye doc visit and I can't see for a dang) but please stay on topic here.

BOT
It was sheer luck that Oliver and I started talking, yes, but not luck that we met up. He just happened to be re-playing the original Spyro and needed some advice. He came here looking for help on a level and saw my topic asking for Elora art and sent me that e-mail. From that point on, it's all been work (and fun; he's a very nice guy). We both got a laugh out of my re-telling of my reaction to getting that first e-mail though. I think I just stared at it for a good half hour or so trying to absorb what had just happened. XD

In the meantime, I actually had dinner with Mr. Wade on Sunday (Feb. 22). He's a very nice guy in person, has some really awesome stories, and brought a bunch of great art to share. Also, he knows how to pick great places to eat. If you ever encounter an Oliver's Eatery (no relation ) stop by. Their sandwiches are incredible.

Yes, he does have sketches of a lot of the incidental critters and enemies he designed for most of the games he worked on, but I don't know if he's up for scanning all of them (the folder he brought full of concept art was quite thick XD)

Some fun trivia he said I could share:

Oliver is the only person to ever make it into the "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?" hot seat with a wrong answer (the show had it wrong, too). He won $32k.

Not only has he worked for Insomniac, but Oliver has also worked for Disney, Don Bluth, Nickelodeon, and EA Games.

Ahg. That's all I can remember off the top of my head. I'm afraid I was a bit nervous and shy when I met him and it shorted out my brain a bit.

My question is of his opinion of the new Spyro games. (tLoS) What is is overall opinion of them and has he played them.

Also who was it that had the original idea of Spyro?

Hope that isn't asking too much. I understand that what he is doing is unheard of for any game maker of staff thereof.

Tell his that I appologize for the inconvenience also please since it's been a while since we've bothered him.

With all due respect,
~cornys~

Also if it's not too much of a nucence ask him how his experience with R&C & Spyro differed

[Stormy: Don't double post.]

Can I ask R&C questions since I'm more interested in that than Spyro?