We were lucky to catch up with Katelyn McCaigue recently and have shared our conversation below.

Katelyn, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to hear about when you first realized that you wanted to pursue a creative path professionally.

Growing up with an artist mom, I was exposed to creativity and the arts at a super young age. I waffled between a few career paths as I grew up but different artistic careers kept drawing me in. Two that have always stood firm in my passions are creature concept art and comic creation. My original plan for my professional path was to go to Arizona State University to get a more general degree in the arts (which ended up being a BFA in drawing) and then pursuing a career as either a concept artist or a comic book illustrator.

Both of these professional careers though did not pan out right away out of college. I was jumping between different graphic design gigs in my early career. This though was very unfulfilling and I wanted to still pursue those major art dreams. So I started creating art videos for YouTube and crowd funding my own projects! Just because I wasn’t having the best luck getting into the industry professionally didn’t mean I couldn’t create as if I did have that career! So with that in mind, I started my own mini business and started creating art alongside my day job since 2014.

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 have been professionally in the graphic design field for over ten years and also pursing my artistic business for the same amount of time. Currently, I am a labeling specialist for a medical company but when I am not at the day job, I am creating comics, concept art videos for YouTube, or original comics for a series I am currently pitching to publishers,

I have been doing my side art hustle since 2013. It all really kicked off when I did my first comic convention table at Phoenix Fan Fusion. I have been vending at conventions ever since and now travel out of state to sell my work at other cons.

I wound up in this double field of work when my day jobs did not really fulfill the creative needs I wanted out of my career. So I started giving myself design challenges and prompts on YouTube to simulate a concept artist receiving a creative directors prompt. I also work on other passion projects through my business and YouTube channel including crowdfunding my own books and creations. One of these projects includes my original creature compendiums for Dungeons and Dragons 5th edition. And my newest major project is an original comic pitch we finished this year and are currently pitching to publishing companies.

I think my currently proudest accomplishments are:
1. The near completion of a 100 Dragon Drawing challenge. About 5 years ago, I started a drawing challenge where I would draw a dragon based off community suggested prompts. I just posted the 99th dragon and the 100th and final dragon will be posted in January 2024. This was an awesome challenge and it is crazy to believe it is already so close to the end!

2. Crowd funding my original books and goods. It is hard getting a conventional publisher so it is always so cool to see that my community is just as excited for a book or product as I am. Some of my favorite creations were only possible with the help of my community including the first and second volume of my D&D monster manual, The Complete McCaigue Creature Compendium.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

I think one major lesson I had to unlearn was being super tied to “my style.” I see it in a lot of young artists all the time and I suffered from it big time. I felt my work had to always look a certain way and that hindered my learning in college. I was hell bent on having a certain artistic style to everything I did that it got in the way of learning core skills like anatomy and principle drawing skills. I would use the excuse a lot in college of “that’s just my style/look” to avoid doing the more complicated parts of a study.

One major way I saw this was through my study of the human face. I would lean into doing the anime facial look even for an in person real life study because I found certain shapes and planes of the face difficult. Looking back, I wish I had cut away from that mentality and really dug my teeth into the practical studies.

I discovered this about myself in more recent years and had since worked towards learning those base anatomy skills. Once you learn your basics, you can manipulate them in so many ways to fit a plethora of styles in your artistic journey.

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

It is hard to pick one story that shows my resilience for making my career what I want it to be. It overall have been an over ten year journey and it honestly is still going.

When I couldn’t get the career I wanted in the field I was pursuing, I made it myself through doing YouTube and having my community be my creative director. I spent the first 2-3 years out of college applying like crazy for concept artist jobs and at one point, I decided I was done waiting. I wanted to be a creative and if I had to do that on my own, then I was going to make it happen. I have realized over the years that if you have a dream you want to achieve, you are fully responsible for it. I know the wording of that sounds silly but when I was younger, I was waiting for the perfect moment or the dream company to hire me to check off the box for “Dream Fulfilled.” But now I know that in our current digital age, we can make anything happen on our own with practice and dedication.

There have been a lot of ups and downs in this career and achieving it on your own can be taxing. One major example that I am still working through is how fickle social media can be. It is really hard looking at how your numbers can fluctuate and working through the low swings of it all. In my early YouTube career, I saw a lot of awesome growth and a huge spike of subscribers and viewers. It was amazing but after covid hit, my numbers took a steep drop and have had a hard time bouncing back. I would be lying if I said it didn’t get to me a bit to see that and I tied a lot of those numbers and success to my worth as an artist. With that in mind, I still keep working at what I love and keep creating what I want to even if the success of it varies. If you are passionate about what you make and do, people will feel that through your work! And you will draw in like minded creative and community members who will be their for you through your artistic journey!

Contact Info:

• Website: www.KatelynMccaigue.com
• Instagram: Instagram.com/kmccaigue
• Facebook: Facebook.com/Kmccaigue
• Twitter: twitter.com/kmccaigue
• Youtube: youtube.com/c/katelynmccaigue

Image Credits
Comic Page – Layout, lineart and lettering by Katelyn McCaigue. Colors by Erika Gulacsi Wacom Draw Off at Rose City Comic Con – Photo by Christopher Diego