Today we’d like to introduce you to Sam Payne.
Sam, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
I am a vector-based illustrator, variant comic book cover artist and pinup artist based in Nashville, TN who draws inspiration from comics and pop culture with a focus to vintage pinup art.
I graduated from Nossi College of Art sometime back in the dark ages and pretty much immediately entered the world of print media as a designer and art directer.
After several years of design centered work I made a slight change and became a print production director in the field of magazine publishing. During this time, I worked on publications such as Parade, Athlon Sports, Maxim, American Profile and Blender magazines overseeing all aspects of prepress, photo retouching and print production.
About 2 1/2 years ago, while still working on Parade Magazine, the decision was made to go to an online only version and eliminate the print magazine. Needless to say, my department was shut down and I had a decision to make: either look for another job in a rapidly shrinking field or pursue my side hustle as an illustrator full-time. It wasn’t a difficult choice to go with option “B” and I haven’t regretted it for a minute.
The side story is that, off and on, during my time in print design and production, I worked on the side as an illustrator, focused mainly on things related to comics.
After a brief stint as a penciller on a handful of independent comics such as Malibu/Ultraverse’s The Strangers, Lightning’s Judgement Day and Heroic Publishing’s Flare and Chrissie Claus, I found my niche, creating work centered around or inspired by pinup up art.
My most recent work includes multiple variant covers for Archie Comics Dynamite Comics, Mad Cave Entertainment, Resolute Bliss Publishing, and Bad Bug Entertainment as well as an array of poster designs and illustrations for various comic conventions.
I recently published my second 80 page art book, Vector Girls 2 – Return Of The Pinups.
I also regularly do commission work for members of the burlesque, pinup and cosplay communities, often used for stickers, prints and other promotional purposes.
My work has been featured in Pikchur, The Night Owl and The Digital Pinup magazines.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
As an illustrator, the path hasn’t always been the smoothest. For most of this time, I felt the need to have a “real job” with adult benefits. I always found it difficult to make the jump to working solely for myself and not having a steady paycheck to fall back on.
It turns out that if you have 100% of your time (and a supportive wife) to devote to your passion, you can make a decent living.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
Most recently, a lot of my time has been spent working on variant comic book cover illustrations, most of which reflect my love of pin up art. The majority of the projects that come my way are for books with strong female lead or supporting characters. I believe a lot of the reason these projects find me is due to my love of illustrating the female form couple with my somewhat cartoony, whimsical art style. The fact that I work almost solely in vector with Adobe Illustrator adds to that in that it gives my art a bright and clean feel that is somewhat unique to comic cover art.
I also am a guest, somewhat regularly, at comic and pop culture conventions in the region.
Let’s talk about our city – what do you love? What do you not love?
As a Nashville native, I’ve seen this city go from a small place without so many large corporations headquartered here to an almost unmanageable tourist destination. I feel like the addition of the NFL and the NHL is a big contributor to that chaos. I’m a pretty big Titans fan and even a Preds fan to a lesser degree but with big time sports comes big time growth. I think most natives have a love/hate relationship with the city. We still love the overall quality of life the city provides but we miss being able to get across town in 10-15 minutes as opposed to 45-60 minutes. The infrastructure is lightyears behind the growth we’ve seen over the past couple of decades.
First world problems…
Contact Info:
- Website: https://sampayneart.com
- Instagram: @paynless2011
- Facebook: Sam Payne Art
