We were lucky to catch up with Katie Payne recently and have shared our conversation below.

Katie, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today We’d love to hear about when you first realized that you wanted to pursue a creative path professionally.

For me, the day I started drawing was as much of a milestone for my life as were first words. My earliest memories are analytical thoughts about drawings- one that stands out is in Kindergarden lecturing my classmate that the sky is not just a line of blue at the top of the page, but should reach the horizon line as well. And so I always knew that I would have to pursue art as a career so that it could continue to be a part of my daily life. So, my conflict in life as I got older was knowing I wanted to create, but having no clear direction of where that fit in with paid pursuits. And also, the issue has been going from creating because I had something in my heart and mind to express, to creating because of a commercial need and someone will pay me to do it..
Eventually I started doing both on a daily basis, and that has led me to start to align at last of where I fit in both on a personal and professional level creatively.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I’ll elaborate on my winded career path- After graduating from college I pursued game art as my career. However, the industry is unstable, so I moved over to big corporate marketing artwork. In-between that I also starting creating dozens of editorial illustrations.
Years into that I thought my real passion was visual development for animated movies, so I decided to pivot and create a whole new portfolio just to get into that(a huge undertaking which I took classes for).
However; eventually that fizzles away as I pivoted once again to book covers and board games.
After doing that for awhile, I had yet another creative maneuver- I wanted to be a children’s book illustrator! And I did just that for a few years, then toyed in animation again… until getting back into the gaming industry.
After all of this maneuvering, I decided to stop chasing “career” as my artistic outlet, and simply go back to creating as I did in my youth and drawing exactly was I was passionate about.
Since then I’ve gotten involved with fandoms that I’m a part of myself, but I’m entering the space as a creator in my own way. Through that I’ve met a lot of fans and been able to make art that finally feels like I’m “home” creatively, and I hope to stay here for a long time.

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

I just did that in the previous page!

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

In professional creative pursuits, you’re going to encounter people in-charge that are not creatives themselves, but are there to manage and critique you. And you’re going to have to develop a resilience to figuring out what feedback they give is right, wrong, or downright rude- and with that discernment grow and move forward creatively.

Contact Info:

• Website: Www.katiePayne.com
• Instagram: Artofkatiepayne
• Facebook: Artofkatiepayne

Image Credits
Me