Bio:Debbie Hughes

Debbie Hughes

Biography: Debbie was Born at the Good Samaritan Hospital in Lexington Kentucky on May 14th, 1958. Her father was a well-known photographer by the name of Harry Mack Hughes, her mom was a model by the name of Meldagonde Ryland. She was their 3rd child, her brother Donald Hughes was 4 years older and her sister Diane was 6 years older. At the age of 2 , Debbie's father died of an apparent drug overdose. He had already lost most of his business as well. Her mother was in the process of moving the family to Fort Lauderdale, when this occurred.

After a disraught marriage, her family moved in with Meldagondes mother: Hildegarde Hamilton - a well known landscape artist. They lived in Fort Lauderdale a year until Hildegarde forced the family of four out on the streets, and Debbie's family lived in poverty for a year, until Meldagonde met her next husband, Henry Hughes. On a sparse amount of money, Meldagonde bought a car, packed up the family and moved them to Atlanta Georgia, they lived in government subsidized housing, called Capitol Homes. Henry supported the family on a sparse income driving dump trucks for a living.

It was also during this time that Debbie was hit by a car while playing with her brother at a nearby park in the neighborhood. She suffered a complex fracture of her left leg and stayed in traction for over a month, she was released in a bodycast and had to learn how to walk again a year later. She was age 5.

It was during this time that Debbie developed a love of art and drawing, in schools she was very introverted and feared speaking in classes, so she would draw images to illustrate her story or book report in order to direct attention away from her to the drawing. Her fear of class speaking was so severe that she would shake all over and be unable to finish talking. Elementary and High School were hard on her, lacking the skills to be a popular student, Debbie instead concentrated on being a straight A student in which she received the attention of teachers. Throughout Elementary and High School her family remained poor with little money for clothing for the kids or any extravagances.

With the help of her sister, Debbie entered College in 1976 at Furman University, she received a scholarship which paid for most of her college, it was supplemented by one small loan. Her course study converted from Math to Art by her Junior year and she pursued it with a fervor. It was her passion.

When Debbie left college, she found little outlet for the style of painting she chose - surrealism, it was not until she met her first husband: Mark Maxwell that she discovered the world of Science Fiction and Fantasy at what it offered. Debbie started showing her surrealist work at local Science fiction conventions and was immediately accepted, she even had sales, but this was not enough, Debbie wanted desperately to illustrate books, magazines or albums, afterall, she had done this as a kid in school and it was always a dream.

After many years of perfecting her style and technique Debbie sold rights to Science Fiction Chronicle for a painting she had done a year prior, called Solid State. The year was 1989, 3 months later Jim Baen from Baen books hired her to do 3 covers. After Baen Debbie started working for a company called MBI/Easton Press under the then director Pam Pia. Other work that followed were interiors for Amazing Stories Magazine, Science Fiction Age Magazine and Realms of Fantasy Magazine.

In 1992, Debbie started assignment work for a local company which became famous in the computer gaming world: Cyberflix - owned and operated by Bill Appleton. She started doing illustration for them when they were merely 4 people in the garage of Appleton’s home, the company later leased a large building in downtown Knoxville and became one of the most successful gaming companies in the world. Debbie started out doing illustration for all the characters in their game, “JumpRaven” - a futuristic shoot-em up arcade game. Later she went on to learn the macintosh and various programs like Photoshop and Macromedia - Director to animate the characters she had developed with paint on board. After JumpRaven, Cyberflix signed on with Paramount Pictures, so her next assignment was to paint characters from the tv show “Viper” and go on to animate them. This was followed by the game “Dust” - a western cd rom game, however, much to her disappointment, Appleton decided to go with real people on this game instead of painted characters. Nevertheless, she did get to do animation work on this game.

Debbie left Cyberflix in 1995, after disagreements on payment for work, several years later the company closed its doors leaving 100's of unemployed workers and several lawsuits against them.

Debbie went on to work for another local company called “The Bookworm” where she again returned to painting images on board that were later scanned in and used in the product. This was a wonderful year of illustrating works from the Classics and Debbie worked under a retainer for a year. Once again, she left under disagreements about payment and the company left Knoxville with several lawsuits against them as well. Debbie was never paid for her last month of work and the owner of the company stole several of her paintings. After The Bookworm, Debbie delved into several years of doing CCG - Collectible Game Card work which included work for 8 different Game Card companies, the last of which was Last Unicorn Games and Five Rings Publishing who did DUNE. These companies offered a lot of work for struggling artists, unfortunately, the pay was sparse. After the Game Card work, she eventually phased a lot of the work out, since the pay got less and less, Debbie started exploring the internet and what it had to offer. She learned various programs in web design and put some of her experience in Macro-Media director to work. When she published her webpage she was awakened to new communities and possibilities. Most of her commission work these days comes from the Internet.

Debbie worked for The Knoxville News Sentinel for five years and left under undo stress related to working a 60 hours a week, and failing health due to the pressure.

Presently Debbie works freelance, in both graphic design and Illustration, she also paints her own works and exhibits them in galleries across the United State. Recently, Debbie has begun teaching art and graphic design. Her recent illustrations include Spider Robinson's newest book, Very Hard Choices, published by Easton Press in 2008, Ruins Metropolis Ruins Metropolis (Paperback)by Eric T Reynolds (Editor) The third volume in the Ruins series from Hadley Rille Books. Thirty-five fantasy and science fiction stories based on Debbie Hughes's cover art, "The Spirits of Hathor." 2008 and The Margarets, Easton Press edition, 2007. Written by Sheri Tepper. Color Frontispiece. Limited Leatherbound Edition.

Debbie is also listed in the newest edition of Science Fiction and Fantasy Artists of the twentieth Century, written by Jane Frank.

On a personal note, Debbie lives in Tennessee, with her husband Dean Erickson and two cats, Tokyo and Trip.