#Cody Walzel

[codywalzel]

It is my personal belief that no one can teach another human being a single useful thing about how to make art. My understanding of “teaching” is giving someone something directly, like a full-proof method for balancing algebraic equations, or the definitions of SAT words. I went into art school with the hopes that cryptic lesson plans would lead to a Mr. Miyagi style evolution that would unlock my hidden powers. If I knew what I do now about how to art-learn, I might have gotten something substantial out of college. But in my experience, art education begins and ends with either: 1. Another artist opening your eyes to an idea about drawing that you hadn’t noticed before, or 2. Elaborating on their go-to solutions they use in their own work. Someone can tell you that you can ground your storyboards by drawing a ground grid. But using that grid in correct perspective, to it’s intended effect, is not something someone can do for you. Art educators and mentors can help you identify solutions to problems, then you work out how to implement it yourself. At the risk of sounding like a pedant for drawing that distinction, I’ll say that since I started approaching creative learning from this perspective, I get a lot more out of it. It’s become more “guided experimentation” than recording a recipe for the perfect painting. That said, storytelling in art is definitely something you can teach yourself. You’ve identified a trait already, storytelling, so you’re already at the limit of where some teachers can take you. Plus you identified something astute, because I’ve been trying to incorporate storytelling into my art for a while, and have only recently started to get a handle on it. So in my opinion, you’ve done the bulk of the thinking work. Now comes the heavy practice work to master this new spell. This journey has a lot to do with finding your voice as a storyteller, so the tone of “YOU”, and the style of rendering that best expresses that tone in this time and place, will have a unique set of challenges for each person. But, I’ll take you through some of the realizations I had on the path to where I am now: A proud adult with two cats and a hit or miss batting average at clearly expressing thought in a sketch.

Capturing an entire scene in a single, static drawing is something my mentor Ian Abando does masterfully. I used to try to emulate the personality I saw in those drawings, but I was only copying the surface. I realize now that me and Ian’s outlooks are so different, that Ian and I would never tell the same type of stories, much less the same exact same story about those people at the adjacent cafe table. He’s personable, outgoing, jovial. Ian is like a friendly labrador with a dark streak in his sense of humor. He can sketch two strangers and capture a warmth that makes you realize they’re actually two old friends that haven’t seen each other in years. I can find something in that coffee shop too, but I’m just a way bigger weirdo, so I’m more interested in weirdo shit. For me, the first step in capturing those stories was finding the right subject. I keep a sketchbook with me at all times, and I’ve developed a patience for waiting, for hunting the right subject. When Ian and I meet up at a coffee shop to sketch, it always seems like he can draw anything. He seems to rest his gaze somewhere in the room at random, then drop pencil to page and watch that snippet explode into life. But now, I think he’s hunting too. I think he’s searching for what’s interesting, what’s worth drawing to him. It only seemed random to me because I couldn’t see what was beautiful about a subject. That he can see a particular magic in a certain 6 square feet of space, and not 6 feet next to it, has to do with who he is. In my mind, he was making that table of pleasant, unremarkable strangers more interesting on the page than it really was. But in his mind, maybe he saw that a girl was counting down the seconds until the end of a bad date, and the guy was trying to find subtle ways to flex.  Even now that I can “see” more, I might never appreciate the specific things that Ian does until he draws them.

The potential exists for that to be true of all of us. Art is a magic that lends other people your eyes. So let people see the pieces of your world that only you can. Just like he can do for me, I can see what’s interesting in scenes that Ian would overlook. And there are a million scenes where we’d see the same fascinating thing, but we’d have a different approach to it (for one, his approach would be to be way better at drawing than me). And there are a million more scenes that we’d both see something interesting in, but we’d each attach to a different feature of it.  All of that to say, don’t just pick out something and draw. If you want to tell a story, then don’t draw just to put something down on the page. Wait. Observe. Find a moment that makes you laugh. Find somebody despicable, and capture what’s despicable about them. Use a sketch to vent. Or make a sketch intentionally cold, and show everyone what your specific brand of loneliness feels like without begging for sympathy. I’d rather keep observing and draw nothing than to try to draw something dull because it’s in front of me. Find the stories you’re personally interested in, you probably have something funny or insightful to say about a given situation that is unique to you. Try to put that weird part of you on display. If it scares you, then it’s probably coming from an honest place, and you should keep going. It may be clumsy at first. The story I want to tell still doesn’t come across on the page every time. Meanwhile, Ian seems to capture his stories without a single failure. If stories are Pokemon, he’s tossing great balls while I’m stuck with a standard issue poke ball. He’d probably say that comes down to pencil mileage. So keep practicing. Keep putting pencil to page even on the shit drawing days. It’s a toll you have to pay to be good down the line, even if you’re not good today. But, please, keep your brain turned on, that means always make an effort to be interesting. (Everyone go ahead and make that same effort in life too. Being boring around the water cooler at work is super rude and depressing.)  Like I said, being interesting in your art usually just comes down to taking an extra second to consider your subject before you start drawing. What am I seeing here? Is this the thing I want to draw? Where am I going with this? Is this coming from a real place? Am I digging to find the best I have today, or am I just making the same tired observation about airline food that I’ve seen before? And if I’m drawing something a lot of people draw, I make sure to ask what can I bring to this? What story can I tell about this that no one else is telling? Example: for the most part, if everyone around me is gushing about some new Star War via fanart, another well rendered post telling the story that you also enjoyed the Star War isn’t that interesting to me. I’d rather a worse drawing driven by a more interesting idea. You can participate in the cultural conversation without just repeating what’s already been said. I’m more likely to enjoy your Star War art if it comments on that one character’s funny butt pose in the third act. Or whatever. That’s just an hypothetical it doesn’t have to be butts. The point is to put more thought in to your art. Wait a sec for the right idea, don’t just start drawing. You will know when you spot the right subject because you will already see it on the page. Plussss, when you start drawing with a clear idea where you’re going, not only is it more interesting, but it actually informs your craft- your drawings will come out better. Okay, let’s say I’m not interested in the people a table over at the coffee shop, how do I know what else to look for? As stupid as this sounds, tweeting helped. Not just reading other people’s tweets, but putting myself out there, wording an idea with limited characters, figuring out what types of things could be explained, and what things were hard to express. And then I started to notice more and more effective way to express those ideas with a specific tone. One thing I realized about myself was that I trying to say two or three things about something at once. It made good ideas muddy, and weakened all three. I challenged myself to clarify, to combine, to present a single, strong idea. I’m still working on it, but for me tweeting is a storytelling exercise that’s helped put more “me” into my art. It forced me to get thoughts, ideas, jokes, frustrations, etc. out into the ether unadulterated by technique. There was no consideration of line quality or volume, so a thought had to stand on it’s own two legs. I doubt tweeting would help many artists in the same way.  But I think in words exclusively, images come later. I write outlines and dialogue in detail before I ever touch storyboard or comic thumbnails. But I’m in the middle of transitioning into writing, so I think my brain is naturally more verbal than most artists. Even with so much internal commentary, my art was without clear storytelling for a long time, because ideas either got lost in the drawing stage, or were too complicated to fit into a single image. Tweeting taught me how to be concise, (I’m clearly not using that skill for this reply, but whatever). So find your own method for making yourself comfortable enough to open up. Which leads me to the most my recent storytelling realization: Don’t be afraid to put your opinions in your art. What you feel passionate about from the deep to the mundane can guide you in your search for a subject. I think people’s egos are funny. LA’s coffee shops are flooded with aspiring creatives mouth-shitting hot takes on art with dogmatic authority, and all from their designated unemployment-check-opening-butt-crater that they’ve worn into the cafe couch. I’m not denigrating anyone that hasn’t made it yet. But I am laughing at the unearned confidence of beardy over at the next table, and the volume at which he’s dropping that savage insight into the Black Mirror episode using stolen lines he just finished reading in a Robert McKee book. Beardy is a “writer” you see, I know because he might have mentioned it a few times to the people he’s with. So yeah, one thing I like to draw is people with their ego’s showing. It makes me laugh. Probably because I too have a big, fragile ego.

That “storytelling” thing is a muscle, like being funny at a party. You get good at party banter if you put yourself through the pain of attending multiple parties close together. (I’m convinced no human being actually enjoys parties, by the way. We all think we’re the idiot just outside the conversation circle that can’t find a big enough gap in people’s shoulders. But parties are the hardest social video game and It’s a little fun to be good at it.) The same way, you keep that storytelling muscle active in your drawings, and you’ll get momentum. If you take a month off, it’ll get weaker, and you’ll have catching up to do when you come back to it. Draw “you” day in and day out. One day you’ll starting getting these bursts where you stop thinking about the drawing process. You’ll stop actively trying to make it “good”, you’ll be swept up, and you’ll disappear into your own rhythm. It’s probably on that day that you’ll look down and realize you just communicated on the page. But let’s move on to a matter of real importance:

The older I get the more I resemble an anime. Thoughts?

[erikdmartin]

Farewell, Solar Opposites  ! This was an incredibly fun show to be the background lead season 1 and supervisor season 2. The crew brought so much incredible talent to an insanely fun Sci-fi show! Everyone brought their A-game and I could not ask for a better BG Team! (S1) Arlan Jewell, Assaf Meir, Alex J. Lee, Megan Ho, Namsuk Cho and Jackie Lee, Alisa Rastorgueva, (S2) Joey McCormick, Cody Walzel, Steven Hai  Thanks to the Art Director Yaoyao Ma van as for surprising me and putting me in a finger lickin` good scene!  Off to a new gig soon!  

[cgshorts]

Makeshift Satellite by Cody Walzel Oslo's trailer park home falls into a sinkhole, and he must choose between a life of warm simplicity and rigid luxury.

[eatsleepdraw]

Solvang, California is my new favorite fake European town.  Cody Walzel  Instagram Twitter

[fuckyeahillustrativeart]

Onnneeee PUUUUUUUNCCHHH Cody Walzel Instagram Twitter

[luridss-blog]

By Cody Walzel

[drawn-imagination]

Breadheads from Cody Walzel on Vimeo.

My Senior Film at Pratt.

Each frame, background, and effect were carefully hand drawn to bring the world of Breadheads to life for your viewing pleasure.

Twitter: twitter.com/CodyWalzel Website: codywalzel.com Blog: codywalzel.tumblr.com

Music by Pete: vimeo.com/singerbren

Festival Awards and Selections:

1st Place Student Film-Asifa East 2014 Northwest Film Festival- 2014 Fort Meyers Film Festival- 2014 Stash Magazine 103 Feature- 2014 International Animation Festival CHILEMONOS- 2013 Cartoon Brew Pick of the Day-2013 Animae Caribe International Animation Festival- 2013 Golden Orchid International Film Festival- 2013 Daily Feature, Review Crew Pick,Weekly Users' Choice: Newgrounds - 2013 Montreal and Quebec City International Festival Selection- 2013 Freeky Creek Film Festival- 2013 Indie Demand Film Festival Selection-2013 Channel Frederator Network Feature-2013 Mad Artist's Publishing Selection-2013 Martha's Vineyard International Film Festival- 2013 Jury Prize Selection- SIGGRAPH MetroCAF Film Festival- 2013 Anim'est International Film Festival- 2013 Beloit International Film Festival- 2013 Bang International Film Animation Competition - 2013 Jury Prize Selection SoDak Film Festival- 2013 Animated Eden Film Festival- 2013 Vimeo Staff Pick- 2013 Shorts Non Stop International Film Festival- 2013 Adobe Design Achievement Awards Semi Finalist- 2013 Animation Block Party- 2013 Dirt City Flixxx- 2013 Pratt Show Manhattan Center- 2013 Wallabout Film Festival- 2013

[shortanimations]

“Breadheads” directed by Cody Walzel

[darnell]

MOON RIDER from James Kwan on Vimeo.

This is the proof of concept for MOON RIDER, a kids action-comedy series. The show follows Roger and June as they bloop around the moon.

Produced with Tongal and Project Greenlight Digital Studios.

Created by James Kwan Roger: Teo Ziolkowski June: Dean Lenoir Sound Design: Bryce Barsten Music: Jacob Reske Animation: James Kwan Additional Animation: Konstantin Steshenko, Kyle Bunk Backgrounds: Konstantin Steshenko, Uriah Voth Compositing: James Kwan Special Thanks: June Kwan, Emily Poulis, Steve Winfield Meyer, Christine Wu, Aarati Akkapedi, Cody Walzel, Maclain Maier, Caleb Reske, Eddie Ewing

See more @ tongal.com/nextgreatanimatedseries and help get the pilot produced. ♥

[aboutanimation]

MOON RIDER from James Kwan on Vimeo.

This is the proof of concept for MOON RIDER, a kids action-comedy series. The show follows Roger and June as they bloop around the moon.

Produced with Tongal and Project Greenlight Digital Studios.

Created by James Kwan Roger: Teo Ziolkowski June: Dean Lenoir Sound Design: Bryce Barsten Music: Jacob Reske Animation: James Kwan Additional Animation: Konstantin Steshenko, Kyle Bunk Backgrounds: Konstantin Steshenko, Uriah Voth Compositing: James Kwan Special Thanks: June Kwan, Emily Poulis, Steve Winfield Meyer, Christine Wu, Aarati Akkapedi, Cody Walzel, Maclain Maier, Caleb Reske, Eddie Ewing

See more @ tongal.com/nextgreatanimatedseries and help get the pilot produced. ♥

[codywalzel]

Some storyboards I did from The Star.  When in doubt, make a Rube Goldberg Machine out of a stable.

[shirtsnshorts]

CODY WALZEL / Breadheads / 5:32

[eatsleepdraw]

Solvang, California is my new favorite fake European town.  Cody Walzel  Instagram Twitter

[olskratch]

Nice drawererings and purty animates!

[ofpixelsandpens-blog]

"Breadheads" by Cody Walzel

[mographfr]

Breadheads

from Cody Walzel