Today we’d like to introduce you to Charlie Faulks
Hi Charlie, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I’ve loved art for as long as I can remember and have always been known as “the guy that can draw”. A title I’m not crazy about because it usually leads to “can you draw me!?”
During the 2020 pandemic, I started working as a freelance character designer via the online freelance platform Fiverr. I was 16 and it was an exciting time to be home for months on end, getting small, random jobs from all over the world. I was fabulously lucky during the lockdowns and I recognise that it wasn’t a joyous time for most people.
Like everything in this industry, it took a long time to build a name for myself. I spent three years on Fiverr and in 2023, I was able to break away from that and work off my own back – I finally had a stable network. At this point I had also built a healthy audience through Instagram. It was immensely freeing to be able to move away from Fiverr; that transition made me feel particularly confident about my work.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
I’ve lived an extremely comfortable life and I’m very grateful for that. I’ve been happy and healthy for the vast majority of it. This means my obstacles – relating to creativity – are entirely internal.
One of the mental obstacles I’ve grappled with has been comparing myself to others. This is a pretty universal problem within the art world because it’s such an innovative and competitive space. We look up to others for inspiration and almost always compare. It’s instinctual I think. When I’m absorbing an artist I like, I quickly begin comparing my work to what they make – and usually, my stuff falls short. For the most part, I’m secure about my art but there are moments where I’ll come across a brilliant artist and it leads me to myopically spin out trying to analyse the discrepancy.
I also struggle with jealousy. It’s never external, because then I’d be a dick, but it creeps up on me every so often.
I’ll occasionally stumble across art that’s better than anything I’ve ever made and I feel a little sick to my stomach. Every once in a while, I’ll see something so great that it surpasses jealousy and I instead become excited. I think jealousy is also threaded into my need to compare. They seem linked in some vicious way.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I’m a character designer and animator with a modest audience online. In 2023, I created the animated web series Bloke of the Apocalypse. Since then, it’s been approved for funding by New Zealand On Air and we are just about to head into full production on season one. The series is about a father and son combating the zombie apocalypse in rural New Zealand, based heavily on my life growing up. Bloke of the Apocalypse is far-and-away the project I’m most proud of. It allows me to exercise a lot of the positions within a proper animation production; writing, directing, animating, storyboarding, voice acting, sound mixing and so on. I felt an urge to make something long form and tell an original story in a serial format.
A lot of my online presence includes work in styles you’d see on Cartoon Network, Nickelodeon and Adult Swim. I’ve weaponised the nostalgia associated with those styles to build a little audience. For a while there, I was posting my work on Instagram everyday. This quotidian output gradually brought more people to my page, and every so often, a post would hit the mainstream and spike my numbers.
I generally try to ride the line of making stuff for my audience and making stuff for me. A drawing of SpongeBob in 5 different art styles is always going to garner more attention than an original idea. Most of the “x in the style of x” pieces are to boost my numbers but a lot of the time, I post things that the general public isn’t really going to care about. That stuff is for me.
Over this time of posting something on Instagram everyday, I was desperately trying to stay relevant. I know that when I’m not popping up on people’s feeds, no one notices. Now, with a legitimate animated series in the works I can relax a little bit. I can take a back seat, scurry away and work on this show out of the limelight. I think because I feel a little more validated by the industry whereas before I felt somewhat invisible.
Any big plans?
Nothing is set in place after we wrap on Bloke of the Apocalypse season one. It just feels so distant. My entire life now and for the next 18 months will revolve around Bloke and Oliver; it’s hard to see past them. I do hope the show turns out well and people like it and I can continue making things. Maybe season two, NZ On Air? Wink wink.
With the announcement of my series, I’ve been contacted by a bunch of creatives in the industry. It’s been a blast being able to meet all these new people, those connections are so important and I’m sure they’ll be valuable as I finish up on Bloke of the Apocalypse.
Having the freedom to pivot creatively and make something completely different is extremely attractive to me. I’ve got a couple of different things in the works that I would love to have a go at – stuff that isn’t animated. For example, I have the second draft of a comedy/horror live action feature screenplay titled Upchuck that I’m passionate about. It’s rough and patchy but it’s a project close to my heart in a weird way. It’s nice to have something big like that to sculpt and edit in the background. Other than Upchuck, I always have a couple of animated series pitches in my back pocket to whip out whenever necessary.
In the meantime though, I’m just concentrating on Bloke of the Apocalypse. October 2025, babyyy.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://charliefaulks.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/faulksie/?hl=en
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@Faulksie
Image Credits
Jack Marlin.