Artist Profile: Karen Hallion

Karen Hallion is originally from Nahant, Massachusetts, located just north of Boston. She is a 1997 graduate of Ringling School of Art and Design and holds a BFA in Illustration. Karen taught elementary school Art until 2009 when she transitioned to working full-time as a freelance artist.

Karen’s clients include Marvel, LucasFilm, Cartoon Network, DreamWorks Studios, Cryptozoic, TOPPS, Her Universe, Disney, Patrick Rothfuss, Chronicle Books, Hank Green, Eaglemoss, StudioX, and Disney Imagineering. 

Karen has created variant covers for Titan Comics and IDW, and was a featured artist in the 2015 ImagineFX The Art of Film – Star Wars publication. In 2015, Karen designed the “Wizard School” card game created by DFTBA Games and Hank Green, which raised more than $450,000 via Kickstarter. She also raised more than $70,000 in Kickstarter in 2017 to fund the creation of her original character, Celara, via a 13-month calendar.In 2018, she was a contributing artist for the book Star Wars: Women of the Galaxy by Amy Ratcliffe.  In 2019, she illustrated the exclusive covers for the Star Wars Celebration edition of Star Wars Insider Magazine. 

She has been a guest panelist throughout numerous years for Threadless, Nerd for A Living, and Tee Fury, as well as a special guest panelist with John Green at the 2016 NerdCon to record the podcast ‘Dear Hank and John’. She was also a featured artist at the 2015, 2016, 2019 and 2022 Star Wars Celebration Art Shows and a 2017 guest at VidCon, NerdCon and Awesome Con.

Karen wrote and illustrated her first children’s book entitled “Never, Never Quit” published in 2020 via Kickstarter, which raised more than $76,000. In 2021, Karen raised more than $240,000 to fund the publication of the “She Series” book with an anticipated release date of spring 2023.

She currently lives in Swampscott, Massachusetts with her two children and her husband, Brandon.