Today we’d like to introduce you to Karen Heckman.
Every artist has a unique story. Can you briefly walk us through yours?
I’m definitely one of those kids that were always drawing. I loved writing stories, creating characters, and making them come to life on a page. A love of animation followed and by the time I was in high school I had made the decision to make art my career.
I attended my local community college before enrolling in the Art Institute of California, San Diego and graduated with a B.S. in Media Arts and Animation in 2008. I learned valuable fundamentals there, gained experience with an internship at Nickelodeon Animation Studio and made a lot of wonderful friendships and connections.
One such friendship helped me to get a job as a medical illustrator/production artist for an E-learning company in San Diego where I worked for 7 years. While I enjoyed creating scientific content, I found myself no longer growing artistically and desired more creative work, so it became time to make a change. I began working from home as a freelance illustrator in 2016 and launched my first webcomic in February 2017.
Please tell us about your art.
Currently, I freelance as an illustrator and comic artist. I do commission work where I draw a variety of character portraits for role-playing games, write and illustrate a long-form webcomic, and did the art for a cover of a self-published novel.
A major theme in my art is strong, competent ladies in fantasy settings, which is what I always wanted to see growing up. I’ve always been a lover of the fantasy genre, so magical abilities, creatures, and stories tend to find their way into almost everything I make and I always try to infuse a soft, romantic feel into my work regardless of the subject matter.
Over the last year and a half, the majority of my work has become focused on storytelling and making an online webcomic. I had a desire to tell a story using a visual medium and indie webcomics are a great platform for this. It’s forced me to learn to draw things I used to avoid, like backgrounds, and I have to really think about how I want to push the story forward and communicate to the reader visually each week.
All my illustration and comic work are done digitally. I primarily use Photoshop CC, Clip Studio Paint Pro, and a Wacom Cintiq 21UX monitor tablet. I start by sketching out a general concept then move on to ink, color, and add any lighting effects using multiple layers. Comic pages are created in almost the same way, but I work off a script I’ve written and spent more time planning out the panels or layouts for each page.
While my comic is still in the early stages of its story, it will touch on the subjects of friendships, loyalty, consequences of family secrets and mental health. I hope exploring these themes in a fantastical, fictional setting will be entertaining, satisfying, but still relatable.
What do you think is the biggest challenge facing artists today?
I feel like the biggest challenge is finding your audience and knowing your worth. There are so many wonderful artists out there and with the accessibility of the internet and social media, it can easily feel impossible to find where you can make your mark and really stand out among the crowd.
Learning how to market yourself and knowing the value of your own work can be difficult and “for exposure” offers are still very common. It takes time and consistency to build an audience and it can require a lot of energy that you’d rather be putting towards your art.
How or where can people see your work? How can people support your work?
All my work can be found online. My portfolio website is karenheckman.wordpress.com and my webcomic work can be found at lasttravelercomic.com.
I’m also on several social media sites including Twitter, Instagram, and Tumblr. I am the most active on twitter and I have a Ko-fi account for tips and donations! (ko-fi.com/kiidkat).
Contact Info:
- Website: https://karenheckman.wordpress.com
- Email: kiidkat@gmail.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kiidkat
- Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/kiidkat00
- Other: Tumblr: kiidkat.tumblr.com
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