Meet Megan Prunty

We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Megan Prunty. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Megan below.

Megan , looking forward to learning from your journey. You’ve got an amazing story and before we dive into that, let’s start with an important building block. Where do you get your work ethic from?

Honestly part of my work ethic comes a little from spite, as silly as that sounds. I’m the youngest of my siblings, and growing up I was used to people taking my shyness and soft-spoken nature as a sign I couldn’t handle things. Even as I grew more confident with age I still always had this desire to prove others wrong if they underestimated me. Back at animation school I actually remember some professors looking at my artstyle initially and questioning if I could animate the level of detail I designed my characters with, and I always took that as a challenge and gave them twice the work asked back in return just to show I could. I have a very high standard for
what I create, and I want to make sure people know I can be relied upon to get things done.

Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?

I am a freelance illustrator and background artist! I’ve been drawing and creating characters and stories since I was little, and it has always been what I’ve wanted to do with my life. My job varies based on the client, but whether it’s drawing someone’s characters, designing a background, or doing the work for an animated project, I am more than happy to draw whatever I’m asked. I often work with indie filmmakers, gamedevs, writers, or most commonly video content creators with what I do, doing illustrations for characters or backgrounds to set a scene.

In my spare time I actually livestream my own personal work or sometimes commissions on Twitch, which is how I’ve connected with many of my clients. Back at community college I used to set up my laptop and tablet to illustrate in the cafeteria, and often students passing by would stop to simply watch over my shoulder or questions and things. Twitch has replicated that same feeling of people passing by an artist and stopping to watch, and it allows me to both showcase my work, and explain my process and thoughts to a live audience that spans across the globe. I’m not popular by any means, but my tiny group of regulars always are a joy to ‘see’ appear in my live chat feed as I speak over the mic.

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?

For my journey, diligence, support, and accountability were the most important qualities to getting to where I am now. When it comes to art, think of it like a muscle, you need to keep practicing and using it to get better. Every year I’ve seen how I’ve grown, and I know I’ll just keep getting better as the years continue to pass. For support it is very helpful to have fellow artists or even just friends around you! My art friends and myself often chat online and share works in progress with one another, which having people you care about there to provide feedback or to make you laugh after a tough day is really nice, especially during periods of burnout. And lastly accountability is something my first year animation professor instilled in both myself and my entire class. You need to hold yourself to a high standard, and push beyond your perceived limits. You also need to, well, get things done. If you say ‘yes’ to work on a project, or plan to do a specific illustration, animation, ect., you need to hold yourself to that or else you’ll never get anywhere. Don’t hesitate and put things off, push through it and you’ll realize you can do more than you ever realized.

Looking back over the past 12 months or so, what do you think has been your biggest area of improvement or growth?

I would honestly say my art-style! Both my final thesis year and initial post-graduating really have given me a chance to step back and examine my style to see just what I need to improve on, and since then I’ve taken steps to push myself to the next level. I’ve done figure studies to get better at characters, done commissions with a wide array of genres and themes to expand my range both stylistically and thematically, and have taken to catching up on films and stories I missed due to school to get more inspiration. Having been in school my whole life, being half a year out of college still feels strange, I sometimes wake up forgetting I no longer have midterms or homework anymore. Having this endless ‘what now?; question is something I’m still struggling to answer, but art-wise, I’m taking advantage of that open-endedness to where to take my life.

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