He’s a 3D and 2D illustrator, a musician, a storyboard artist with a background in the television animation industry for many years – he’s even contributed to the storyboards of Pixar’s newest furry flick Hoppers and the Cartoon Network show We Bare Bears. What can Louie Zong not do? Even when faced with the pandemic, the illustrator found a way to reinvent his whimsical style, learning Blender and using the program to exercise ideas within tightly controlled compositions, lighting conditions and countless polygons. The result is some of the coolest illustrations around, prompting some to hope that Pixar’s next movies look more like Louie’s signature style.
Louie believes that having a diverse range of influences in art, books, music and general life is key to a fulfilling and interesting art practice – you must live with one foot in the present and the other in the past, always drawing references and creating visual cookie-crumb trails throughout his work. Inspired by surrealist painters such as Rene Magritte, 90s editorial illustrators such as Lane Smith, ancient folk art from Mesoamerica and video game art of all times, Louie impressively synthesises all of this into somewhere that sits between them all; both deeply textured yet early-digital art works that look like 90s edutainment visuals, clay models and illustrations all at the same time. The more you look, the more you find nuggets of inspiration – especially when you figure out that Louie loves The Muppets, and so gives a puppet-esque tactility to everything.
“Something I read about on Wikipedia or see on my street will often be the catalyst that starts an illustration in my mind, and I love it when a piece has a narrative pull, some kind of storytelling element,” says Louie. “I’m sure this comes from my storyboarding days, where every panel needs to convey some information to move the story forward.” It seems that all Louie needs is one shot to tell a whole story, whether it’s the dread of a dog losing his ball or pigs ominously standing at the door of someone about to dig into a meal, Louie’s gorgeously illustrated worlds show why he’s tapped by the biggest animation studio in the world.