Kathryn Hudson still shakes her head in amazement: “I never thought I would get all the opportunities that I’ve been afforded.” Hailing from a small town (population 150), Hudson’s journey from the Mississippi Delta to Los Angeles is anything but straightforward.
Hudson showed an interest in art as a young girl but doodled on her own since her school didn’t offer an art program. Fortunately, her mother found an art teacher in Jackson, Mississippi (about 60 miles away) teaching figure drawing to adults; she wrote a doctor’s note to excuse Hudson from school every Wednesday and then the two headed to the DMV. At the ripe age of 14, Hudson got her hardship driver’s license and started commuting to art classes weekly.
By the time she was 16, she had amassed enough work for a portfolio and applied to the painting programs at both Ringling School and the Memphis College of Art but reality set in when she couldn’t afford the tuition.
“God works in mysterious ways,” says Hudson. “My art teacher, Bob Pennebaker, was approached by a small college [Belhaven University] in Mississippi to chair the art department and he said, ‘I’m going to take this girl with me.’” Hudson has more than a full scholarship to thank Pennebaker for, she also met her future husband in his art class.
After graduating with a BA in Art, Hudson grew concerned about the prospect of having a 9-to-5 job doing what she loved. She decided to apply to grad school and was accepted into the Illustration program at SCAD. Only this time, she would be personally responsible for the tuition and she figured if she was going to go into debt, she may as well go study in France as well.
“It changed my life because that’s where I discovered artists that still influence me today,” she says. She was inspired by Viennese artist Egon Schiele, she visited Marguerite Sauvage’s studio and found herself crying in front of Bernini’s works in Italy. She soaked up the environment, but she wasn’t a great networker, preferring to retire to her quiet dorm. After graduation she was left with few options for work. She and her husband returned to Mississippi—“That was not a good idea,” she adds.
Hudson got a temporary job selling cellphones but ended up working there for four years. “I think everybody should work in retail at one point in their life. It teaches you so many valuable lessons—you’ve got to deal with assholes, you’ve got to deal with bosses, you’ve got to deal with crazy customers and nice ones. It’s public facing…that helped me grow a lot,” she says.
Though the experience helped shape Hudson’s customer service skills, she still dreamed of pursuing art. Her husband, a retail store manager, said, “There’s a Walmart everywhere, what do you want to do?” The couple headed to the travel section at Barnes and Noble and chose their next destination—Atlanta. They didn’t know anyone in the city; Hudson got a job selling hot tubs and they both started taking figure drawing classes from Brian Stelfreeze.
It was in that class that Hudson’s future would be determined. One of the students there was illustrator Tommy Arnold, who encouraged her to get in touch with Floyd County Productions. The timing was perfect—someone on Archer was going on maternity leave and they needed an artist to fill in. “I’d never taken a test before and I didn’t know anything about animation,” she says. She logged onto Lynda.com and taught herself to use Photoshop and Illustrator. “The day I opened Illustrator, I started crying,” she laughs. She muddled her way through the test and, according to the production, was “terrible at the puppets.” Fortunately, the test had also included some character design, which they liked. Against all odds, she got the job.
“I had never heard of Archer, I had to Google it,” she says. Two weeks into the job, the production had to lay off staff—miraculously she survived the cuts. As she grew in confidence working in animation, she began to explore other artistic vehicles. Her sister made her open Instagram and Twitter accounts, she attended her first “Con” and decided to sell her own creations. She needed to raise money to fund a range of enamel pins and started a Kickstarter campaign. She couldn’t imagine how far news of her campaign would reach.
“I was bobbing around and somebody sends me a Friend request on Facebook—it’s Lauren Faust!” she remembers. Faust sent Hudson a note, admiring her work and asking if she might be available to work freelance on her new show, DC Super Hero Girls, as a character designer. When Faust asked, “Do you live in LA?” Hudson didn’t flinch; she and her husband packed up their house and she was on the Warner Bros. lot two weeks later. “I think they felt so guilty that I moved across the country, they just kept me,” she laughs. “Life experience is really valuable. Every little thing leads to something else!”
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