Meet Louie Zong, Pixar storyboard artist and Blender illustrator who can tell a story about anything

Louie Zong works across 2D and 3D illustration, music, and storyboarding, with experience in television animation and contributions to major animated projects. During the pandemic, he reinvented his whimsical style by learning Blender and using it to develop ideas under controlled compositions, lighting, and complex polygon detail. His art draws from a wide range of influences, including surrealist painters, 90s editorial illustration, Mesoamerican folk art, and video game art. He synthesizes these sources into visuals that feel textured and early-digital while also resembling clay models and illustrations. He emphasizes narrative pull, often starting from everyday observations and aiming for each panel to convey information that moves a story forward.

"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"

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