Kathryn Hicks' artistic journey began with a childhood obsession with dragons that her mother once warned would never lead to financial success.

Starting as a traditional artist with a strong foundation in drawing and painting, Kathryn was initially "anti-digital art" before completely reversing course. At the University of Memphis, she studied studio art before transitioning to graphic design, which taught her to think differently about creative work. Her path then led to SCAD (Savannah College of Art and Design), where she initially pursued animation before discovering 3D modeling was her true passion. The pivotal moment in her career came in 2015 when she experienced virtual reality at SCAD and immediately knew it was her calling. This led to working with extended reality (XR) technologies in medical device training, creating augmented reality experiences for Snapchat, and eventually founding Creature Studio (named for her love of dragons). Her expertise in spatial thinking, 3D design, and world-building culminated in her being chosen to create a location-based augmented reality experience for HBO's House of the Dragon through Snapchat, bringing her childhood dragon obsession full circle in her professional career.

We talk about her current role as co-founder and Chief of Games for Baron Von Opperbean and the River of Time (BVO), an ambitious immersive experience being developed on Mud Island in Memphis. She explains how she approaches designing alternate versions of Memphis for the BVO experience, incorporating local architectural details like the red brick buildings downtown and the grape reliefs on Crosstown Concourse. Kathryn describes her creative process, which involves extensive research, taking reference photos, and testing how elements like flying trolleys and ships will flow through her digital cityscapes. She discusses how she became involved with BVO after Chris Reyes invited her to see the location, and how the presence of full-size ships immediately convinced her to join the project. 

Kathryn shares insights about the immersive experience industry (valued at $150 billion and projected to reach $800 billion by 2033) and how BVO aims to give audiences agency in their experience through interactive storytelling and gamification. She reveals exciting plans for BVO including holographic displays, AI character integration, touchless interactions, and dragon ships. Then, we talk about Kathryn’s dream project idea for "Camp Cryptid," an indoor/outdoor experience exploring Southern cryptids like the White Screamer of Tennessee and the Ozark Howler.