Karen Cheung. creative Futures.

KAREN CHEUNG

BA(Hons) Natural Sciences (Zoology)
University of the West of England, Bristol
BA(Hons) Illustration 1st 2002-2003
Pembroke College, Cambridge University
MA Cantab. 2003-2006

Cheung states that she is obsessed with freaks, weirdos, outsiders and mythological beings.

Karen Cheung started out in zoology before she moved onto illustration due to being more interested in the doodles she would do while listening to her lecturers. She won the Macmillan prize for children’s picture book illustration in 2006 and has worked for many clients including Virgin Media, Paramount comedy and penguin books. As well as illustration Karen Cheung specialises in animation, winning the BBC new animator runners up prize in 2005.

Karen Cheung is represented by her agent, Jelly, who helps her track down work and stay productive. An agent takes a cut from the pay on offer, but you are more likely to find work using one.

Karen Cheung offers the advice that we should all:

Learn to take rejection. (Thicken our skin)
Be as versatile and reliable.
To always trust yourself.
Never take anything personally.
Do your Tax returns.

In the event that you want to get into editorial publishing then one should draw people, and check the roster of the company you are interested in, making sure to check that your style will fit in with the house style of anyone you might want to work with.