We were lucky to catch up with Charlie Faulks recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Charlie, thanks for joining us today. Do you wish you had started sooner?

It’s impossible to say. I’m 19 yrs old and so exceptionally lucky to have started (almost unconsciously) working in this industry at a young age. I have a tremendous passion for art, animation and telling stories and being able to do that for a job? It’s surreal and bizarre.

Although I work in the industry, I am still a very small creator. I haven’t worked on anything, or with anyone you’ve heard of. I hope that changes as I get older and I catch the eye of someone significant (touch wood). The truth is, young creators really inspire me. Bo Burnham, Donald Glover, the countless extraordinary artists I follow on Instagram. Everything I need to create is right in front of me. That leaves no excuse to not IMMEDIATELY get to work on a project.

Going back to the question, I’m sure when I’m an old silver fox, I’ll look back on myself and be thankful that I started early. I feel like I’ve been swept up by this ‘creativity’ thing and I’m constantly thinking about whether I will ever ‘make it’. At this point, I have no clue whatsoever and I’m worried about my ego being wrapped up and fused with everything. As long as I’m proud of the things I create, I guess that’s what matters? Ugh, who knows.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

Hi, I’m Charlie Faulks, a freelance character designer from New Zealand. At this point I’ve amassed a significant following on social media from posting my stuff. I work in a wide range of cartoon styles (heavily inspired by styles seen on Cartoon Network, Nickelodeon, Adult Swim etc.) and am very interested in story telling. It’s always hard to tell people how I got into this industry because for the most part it was a completely unconscious decision. You could say I was blinded by my love for art (gross). Honestly, everyone drew when they were little, I just never stopped.
At this point in my life, I am still at University studying Screen Arts. But my priorities lie mostly in the freelance work I do on the side. I have been lucky enough to work on a ton of smaller things like character designs for television pitches, books, animations, board games and websites.
My end goal is not to service other people’s ideas but work on my own. I want to start building something to not only display my art but also my ability and love of telling stories. Recently, I began a large personal project that is heavily based on the people in my life and the environment I grew up in. The project in question is an animated web series titled Bloke of the Apocalypse. It centres around a father and son in rural New Zealand as they combat the zombie apocalypse. It’s silly in nature but it’s also interesting to explore a more thoughtful and realistic relationship between a father and son. The father and son within the series is HEAVILY based off of me and my dad (maybe too so). I am so excited to see where this will go and (as you can see) I can’t really stop talking about it.
I think that about sums it up. Oh, also I’m 19 yrs old so beware of my inevitably naive views on the world.

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

I have always held goals for my creative life. I see them as one of the most important aspects of being creative. Without them, I would be out to sea, spinning my wheels with no end in sight. Most of the time, my goals are the driving force behind what I create or the amount of time I spend creating. They reside in my mind incessantly.

“Create something significant, with significant people, that a significant amount will see.” This is the primary goal that lingers in my head. I’m aware, by nature, that this goal is somewhat self indulgent and self centred but right now, I can’t let it go. I want to share my stories; and for the people watching to be affected and/or inspired by them.
This goal seems to have a ‘best before’ date attached to it. What I mean by that is I want to achieve this goal before I hit a certain age. It lights a fire beneath my butt (sorry for the phrasing) to make things. It’s not the most healthy mindset having goals with expiry dates set to them but it helps me keep pushing within my creative life.

At the end of the day, whenever I revert back to this ‘mission’ of mine, I am almost immediately inspired to create. So until I inevitably burn out, become irrelevant and outdated, I hope to look back on my creative life and that I’ve been able to achieve a couple of things.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

Being able to package up something from the real world and present it in a different way. I’m from New Zealand, a fairly unknown part of the world, with cultures that are unfamiliar to everyone outside of them. I’m able to take things I see in my everyday life and present it to the rest of the world – displaying stories from inherently unique points of views. I’m from a farming background and grew up in mostly rural areas – even that in itself is somewhat unique as an artist.

The environment in which I was raised has majorly inspired some of my projects. Being able to seize personalities, locations and other uncommon elements from my life and fuse them into my works is such a joy.

Contact Info:

• Website: charliefaulks.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/faulksie/?hl=en
• Linkedin: https://nz.linkedin.com/in/charlie-faulks-b1a1aa209
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@Faulksie

Image Credits
Jack Marlin.