Watch out for a blue dragon on Mud Island. Kathryn Hicks put it there.
Hicks is a certified Snapchat augmented reality (AR) creator. She was recently hired by Snapchat in partnership with HBO’s hit series House of the Dragon for a global project to land virtual dragons “in some of the most beloved destinations around the world,” Snapchat said. Hicks said she was “super excited” to get the call.
“As a child, I was obsessed with dragons,” Hicks said. “My mother made the joke, like she’s not going to be drawing dragons all the time. You’re never going to make money drawing dragons.”
You’re never going to make money drawing dragons.
Kathryn Hicks
Now, her mother is “absolutely stoked” about it, Hicks said.
To see Hicks’ work, walk to the Memphis sign on Mud Island, open Snapchat, and face the city skyline. She suggests searching for it on Snapchat. A House of the Dragon icon can be found on the Snapchat map but it doesn’t always work, she said. With the filter open, walk to the middle of the Memphis sign and get close. Back slowly away and a blue dragon will appear in the sky. Hicks made a button to land the dragon, which “might be a little buggy” but when it works the dragon lands, roars, and flies back into the sky.
Dragons like Hicks’ fly in digital skies all over the world. Look for them around landmarks like London’s Tower Bridge, Gas Works Park in Seattle, Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City, the Hickson Road Reserve in Sydney, Australia, the Bab Agnaou gate in Marrakesh, Morocco, and many more.
Creators were selected for the Snapchat filter campaign after three rounds of vetting. Hicks said they were given the choice of several dragon colors: red, blue, green, bronze, and charcoal .
“I chose blue, of course, because of the Memphis Tigers and the Memphis Grizzlies, and the Mississippi River, “ she said. “Blue is very Memphis. So, I went with blue for that reason.”
She also carefully chose Mud Island’s Memphis sign as a location for her dragon. She considered the Stax Museum, but worried Snapchat users might interrupt traffic on McLemore Avenue or even get hit by cars. Traffic was also a concern about landing her dragon around the sign for Beale Street, as was the street’s pedestrian congestion.
“I also chose the Memphis sign because I feel like a dragon would live [on Mud Island],” she said. “It’s on an island. It’s a good walk to get there. So, you get your steps in while heading towards this filter. It’s kind of like a little adventure. But it’s kind of a perfect area for a dragon to kind of chill and hang out in.”
To get here, Hicks studied art in grad school at Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) after her undergrad degree at the University of Memphis. At SCAD, a friend worked on a virtual reality project that got her interested in the field.
From there, she applied for and won a space in the Oculus Launchpad program in Palo Alto, California. Her graduate thesis was a virtual reality project about a Sasquatch creature roaming the hills of California.
Form there, Hicks took a job as a 3D modeler with a company called Digital Precept. In 2020, she got into AR filter creation and won a slot in Snapchat’s Storyteller Residency.
The sky, it seems, is the limit for Hicks. For now, though, head to Mud Island and watch the skies for her work in Memphis.