We were lucky to catch up with Imogene Chayes recently and have shared our conversation below.

Imogene, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Are you able to earn a full-time living from your creative work? If so, can you walk us through your journey and how you made it happen?

Since around 2018, I have been very fortunate to be able to make a full time living from my art career, but it was quite a rollercoaster to get here! I started out going to school at The Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising in the hopes of becoming a costume designer for film and television. During this time, I was excelling in the fashion illustration and digital design classes, and eventually found out that costume illustration is a role in the costume department that I could be well suited for.

After I graduated in 2010, I earned internships on the TV series’ True Blood and Big love by winning a competition held by the Television Academy of Arts and Sciences, was working as a costume designer on low budget/student films (paying my dues, so to speak), and was also lucky enough to have landed a few costume illustration jobs on projects such as Glee and American Horror Story. At this point I was still questioning which path I wanted to take. Because I was working as a costume illustrator, I got the opportunity to witness what the day to day was like for a costume designer who was at the level I was aspiring to, and ultimately decided that job was just not for me AT ALL.

As you can probably guess, I then committed to becoming a costume illustrator, however, the job opportunities started to dwindle FAST. I got very lucky after graduating and did not properly learn the art of hustling, and I quickly realized that jobs would not continue to just fall into my lap.

I decided that what I needed was to drastically improve my art skills. What I learned in college in terms of art was very limited, and I was only referencing the work of other costume illustrators, which there very few of at the time. I started to seek out artwork from concept artists from production design, creature design, character design, video games, etc to get an idea of what the level of quality that is needed to be successful in this career.

That’s when I joined Gnomon School of Visual Effects in 2012, specifically their Entertainment Design program, where I was able to fill the gaps I had in my foundational art skills, as well as learn the techniques that are commonly used in concept art. One of the classes I excelled at was, unexpectedly, clay sculpting, and this is where my life took a big detour!

I was still struggling to get work as a costume illustrator, but I had this interesting new skill in clay sculpting, which is what landed me (to my own astonishment) at the Honda Design Studio as a clay modeler! I didn’t even know that WAS a job until I was practically at the office. That experience held me over for about two years, but I still had the desire to work in entertainment, so I gave it another go.

I was living in Southern California at the time, but for personal reasons, I moved back the the Bay Area (where I grew up). Although it seemed like it wouldn’t be an issue to try to work remotely with costume designer as an illustrator, it was not yet an option that was widely accepted, which made it even MORE of a challenge to find work. After about a year and a half of no luck, without getting into the details, I got the opportunity to move to New Zealand (the roller coaster continues).

The goal while living in New Zealand was to work for Weta Workshop, the studio that best know for all of the design work on the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Believe me when I say that I hustled my butt off… and never got a job at Weta. However, through my relentless hustling I managed to get hired onto the classic Jason Statham, film The Meg, which is what I would consider the ‘turning point’ of my career.

One thing led to another and I moved back to the US in 2016, and that’s when the momentum started building, and by 2018, everything was in full swing. I honestly don’t know how or if I would have done anything differently that would have made this journey more efficient or practical, because it’s very unique to me and eventually got me to the place I dreamed to be at. I don’t believe that there there is a clear or set pathway to any career in art, and the only thing we can truly control is the quality of the art we put out into the world.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I am what is known as a costume illustrator/concept artist working in live action film and television, living in San Francisco with my husband and two feline children.

My role is to work closely with a costume designer in order to develop and visualize what each character will be wearing throughout the story. The art that I create is then used to get approvals from the necessary powers at be (producers, studios, directors, etc.) so that the design can be put into production, and is also used as a visual guide for the artisans in the workroom who are building the costume.

Throughout this process we are able to determine fabric choices, color combinations, style lines, fit, accessories, in order to ensure that we don’t run into any issues down the line once the costume makes it to set. Because of my background and education in fashion design, I’m able to utilize my knowledge of clothing construction to create an image that not only is able to sell the design to the studios, but also provide a clear roadmap for those constructing the costume.

Considering the challenges I have gone through to make it to where I am today, I am very proud to have managed to make a lucrative career out of such a small, niche corner of the entertainment industry. Because of the recent troubles Hollywood has been facing, such as strikes, the threat of AI, and productions moving overseas, I have adopted the attitude of trying to make each illustration my best one yet, no matter if it’s a main character or a background. I’m obsessed with delivering the highest quality that I’m capable of with every assignment. I believe that this mindset is what sets me apart from from others, as it quickly demonstrates to the designers that I work work with that I am there to support their process to the best of my abilities.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

I briefly touched on the ways I had to pivot in earlier paragraphs so I’ll go into more detail here….

I was really struggling to find work in the early days of my career, so I decided to go back to school at Gnomon School of Visual Effects. One of the classes in my program was Character Sculpting. I had never sculpted in clay before, and was shocked at how quickly I took to it. This gave me the thought of possibly abandoning costume illustration and figuring out how to turn this new skill into a career.

I then attended a wedding where I randomly struck up a conversation with someone who worked at the Honda Design Studio in Torrance, CA. He was curious about my background and I ended up showing him some photos of the sculpture I made for the class. He then says, ‘Oh, you should check out our clay department!’ Me: ‘Your what?’ I had no idea that clay modeling was utilized in automotive design, and I was obviously intrigued. I never thought I would go the corporate rout, but I needed to start making money so I decided to pursue this. One thing led to another, and I was hired! I joke that they “brought me in off the streets” due to my complete lack of experience.

My time at Honda was fascinating, and I sometimes forget that this was even a chapter in my journey. It was completely different from character sculpting, as I was learning to sculpt hard surfaces, both exteriors and interiors of vehicles. There are cars on the road today that have a door handle that I sculpted!

Even though I eventually decided to move on from Honda, I believe that it greatly impacted my 2D artistic skills. I became more in tune with how objects exist in 3D space, and how to translate the curvature of surfaces in my illustrations.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

In terms of having to be resilient, there’s a rather significant detail that I’ve omitted from most of these stories of getting my start in this industry, which is that over a five year period I was in a mentally and physically abusive relationship (YIKES, real talk).

While I was trying and failing to move upward in the industry, this person in my life was continuously telling me that I would never make it, that my art is terrible, and that I should give up. The pressure to be successful was immense, to the point of desperation, because at that time I believed that if I made this career work everything would be better in my relationship.

The abuse escalated when we were living in New Zealand, and when we moved back to the US, I had a reality check that allowed me to muster up the courage to leave.

I strongly believe that the universe rewards you for making the right decisions. Once I was safely out of that relationship, I let go of all the pressure to be successful. I didn’t care about any of it and just wanted to heal. However, low and behold, that’s when the flood gates opened for all of the projects I ever wished to be apart of, and it has not slowed down for me since! I am also very happily married to the perfect person for me.

I don’t often talk about this experience publicly, but I hope that those who read this who are going through something similar can know that it is possible to turn your life around and have all the success and love that you deserve.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.imogenechayes.com/
• Instagram: @imogeneann_art