"No artist should work for free"

A conversation with Cody Schroder, a visionary art director who takes unpredictable twists and turns with his creativity.

Cody has worked as a professional artist for 18 years and counting with experience primarily working in mobile games. With the purpose of becoming an animator, Cody enrolled himself in an animation school who eventually fell out of love with 3D animation due to its repetitive nature. However, he later realized that illustrating and conceptualizing were his passions. Over this period he has also worked on console games, comics, animation shorts and pitches as well as art for merchandising. He began his career as an artist, which led him to become a lead artist before becoming an art director at Rouge Harbour Game Studio.

The Moment team had a chat with Cody about what he does as an art director. We also talked about his methods and experiences, how he keeps striving to improve himself every day and all the tips for our local artists who are just starting out. All the way from Kelowna BC, Cody joined us over Zoom in a well-organized setup with a drawing tablet on his side and a nice warm cup of coffee.

TM: Can you share a little bit about how you began your career?

Cody: I started out with the intention to be an animator. I joined animation school for a couple of years. Before graduation, I had lost interest in 3D animation, probably because it was too repetitive. I was losing interest until I realized I enjoyed what I had always done, which is illustrating and concepting. One of my teachers recommended me to new starting up studio. I graduated and I was already employed working as a concept artist. Naively, starting out, I thought it was OK to work for free. They didn't pay us but promised us a big bonus at the end of the year. That job came to an end and ended up laying half of the studio off and suddenly I was in the position where I wasn't allowed to show any of my work for the past two years I had been there. I was lost, I felt defeated.?

Four years later, thanks to a friend of mine, he said "Hey, I am moving to Shanghai, I talked to my boss, I showed him your work, would you like my job?". That was the weirdest situation but I was like yeah, I'll take it. So I got the job. It's in mobile games. One thing led to another I went from being a lead artist to an art director.

That studio closed down and I moved to another, and I have been an art director ever since, primarily in mobile games. On the side, I worked on some animation, some pitches for animation studios, a little bit of stuff for Marvel Comics. I took a little bit of a tour in Germany, working for the Good Games Studio. That studio was shutting down so I moved back to Canada. Now I am in Canada. Ended up starting our own little studio out in Vancouver. But I’m in Kelowna BC. And I have been working remotely for over a couple of years now.

TM: One thing that's cool about artists is that they can work from anywhere in the world and gather in one project. So, my question is how do you manage to work remotely?

Cody: When you are working remotely or when you are alone, the biggest thing for me was you need to be really disciplined as a worker and as an artist because it is really easy to get distracted. The hardest aspect is you don’t have your colleagues around you. The best thing I have ever got as an artist is the energy from other artists. Everybody is helping each other out. Everybody is checking out each other’s work. You are feeding off of each other. You get better because of it.?Working remotely on your own, that’s still possible but it's harder. You have to be pushing yourself.

The best thing I have ever got as an artist is the energy from other artists.

TM: Are there any projects that you could share with us today? What are you working on right now?

Cody: I am working on a game called Airport BillionAir. It's a mobile game. You can find it on the App Store and Google now. I am in charge of finding and developing styles. I was trying to find a combination of things that are somewhat popular people are enjoying these days and mashing it into what I thought would go well and thankfully it seems to be enjoyed by a lot of people. That’s kind of what I do now. It's like developing the style and I work on the production, on the title. So, we've got new titles that we're talking about working on coming up here.

TM: Speaking of developing a style, you've got a lot of things going on, on your profile. Usually, we could catch a vibe of an artist, they have their signature moves, but you don't seem to stick to one style. Why is that?

Cody: Thank you for asking that. As an artist, be prepared to work on a multitude of different things that might not be in your comfort zone. So I think for me, I recognized that early on. I kind of strived to try different styles and new approaches. By default, I have a comic book style. However, if all my stuff looked like comics, I don't think it would attract as many employers as it would be applicable to so many projects. But because I try to diversify myself I am adaptable and I think that’s something that new artists should really consider-to be adaptable. Every artist has a signature and you are able to see it. But if you are able to really distinguish yourself or develop another style that is so different, I think it’s a matter of pride that someone’s not necessarily able to recognize that it’s yours.?

TM: So, what are your artworks and creative process inspired by?

Cody: I have always got ideas. I just like to take an idea and bring it to life. Even scientifically, any sort of creative person or engineer or whatever just like being able to take a thought and suddenly translate it into this thing that now exists in our reality, it's really cool. I think constantly wanting to outdo myself is an inspiration. I am never personally satisfied with my work. I am always trying to find ways that I can improve. I like to set up challenges for myself.

As an artist, be prepared to work on a multitude of different things that might not be in your comfort zone.

TM: What would be those challenges?

Cody: If there is something that I am not particularly comfortable drawing, I will challenge myself to draw that thing and as best as I can. Not just a sketch or something like that. I will give you an example. I used to hate drawing cars. If somebody asks me to draw a car, I am dreading it. But then I was like no, I can draw a car. I can draw a truck. If I just focus and try to really understand it and make sure that it’s structured and balanced, I can do this. So I kind of made myself do it and I think now I am very comfortable with drawing vehicles to the point where I kind of enjoy it. That went from being really uncomfortable to being incredible and I was loving it.

TM: And that inspires you how?

Cody: I was inspired by the fact that I have this ability now where it has opened up the entire range of opportunities for me. Me trying to step out of my comfort zone is important and I am trying to constantly outdo myself. I just can’t get enough. I gotta do better. And I think that people can look at that as a self-destructive thing but I personally look at it as something very productive because that kind of helps you personally set a quality bar that is relatively high. So, if you are working for somebody, unless you have to rush your work, you are trying to impress them and impress yourself at the same time. You want to be satisfied with your work like this is the best I can do right now at this moment. I know I can do better but I am happy with this and I am ready to send it off and everything.?

TM: Because you just keep pushing yourself, do you ever have an art block? If there were any, how do you overcome them?

Cody: I am a huge video game player. My kids are very lucky for that. [chuckles]. Films and also comic books. I don’t collect them like I used to though. Artists like Greg Capullo (Gregory Capullo, American comic book artist and penciller, best known for his work on Quasar (1991–1992), X-Force (1992–1993), Angela (1994), Spawn (1993–2000, 2003–2004) and Batman (2011–2016)) who I have been a long time fan of. All those things can help me overcome my art block. Sometimes I’ll just step away and I will just start looking into some comics or something. Also, my colleagues. That's a big one.

TM: As an art director, are you more like a manager? Do you miss drawing being an artist?

Every studio will have different expectations of what an art director is. Typically in a much larger studio, so for example, when I worked at Good Games Studio, I managed a team of 21 people and we had 2 projects at the same time. So, I was overseeing both. That was very management heavy, with lots of meetings, lots of emails, lots of reviews, lots of one-on-one chats with each employee every day. I would cycle throughout the month. That was a very different experience to what I have right now and then everything in between. So, what I am doing right now, I am doing all the art. We do have an artist on the team, primarily doing the color work so I can just continue to draw stuffs and get stuff out but that’s it. We are a small studio and we are just building up. We actually put out an offer to an artist who he hoped to be getting here in the next couple of months. But very different situations. Sometimes, the art director is very management heavy, sometimes in smaller settings, the art director will be doing a lot of the work themselves as well. And that’s exactly my situation right now. I have that whole range of experiences.

TM: What was the most significant moment in your professional career?

?Honestly, I would think it was a transition between being an artist and then going to an art direction role. Because that was one of the scariest moments because your other teammates will judge you in terms of whether they think that you are worthy of the role or not but also suddenly you are thinking maybe I am not gonna be doing so much artwork and there are all these responsibilities on your shoulders now so that was a very scary thing for me and I don’t think I will ever forget that. But then again also getting the job offer to go to Good Games Studios and art direct there. That was another massive moment in my career. I guess working with Marvel as well. Ultimately I am just overall satisfied with my career because I am just happy being able to create stuff. The thing that drives me ultimately is just being a part of these projects where you are working with people who are all really excited to put something together, build something and you are a part of that. That’s the ultimate pleasure.

TM: So, in the beginning, you said you worked for free for a year. How did you stay consistent when you were not growing financially?

I had a little bit of graduation money leftover from when I had finished high school. That got me through school, that got me through one year, just barely. I had to borrow some money from my mom and so it was getting kind of bad. I talked to my employer that I had to leave or you started paying me. We agreed on a wage but I was in such a bad situation at that point I had to get a second job so I would start work there from 10 am to 6 pm and then I started another job at 7 pm and I would get off of that job at about 12 o'clock at night and then I would repeat that. It was a weird situation, a bad situation. It’s just that no artist should work for free, I should just say that. Unless you have signed an agreement.

TM: A very common problem that artists face here is that the client asks you to revise over and over again. Being creative, they get annoyed by repetitive revisions or some weird requests, you know? So do you have any advice on how to manage such a situation?

Cody: In that kind of situation, there is a fine line, right? Sometimes, you are not always able to be happy with what you have just sent because of how they are requesting it. Maybe you don’t like the idea and just the idea of what you are working on, you don’t care for so you are not able to put your heart and soul into it. Sometimes the art is good, you are happy with that, you send it off, but you just don’t like the topic, perhaps, right? So, when you are really into what you are doing and the project is cool, it’s a very different situation. So, yeah, there must be a fine line.

Currently, Cody is working as an Art Director and Artist on the new mobile game Airport BillionAir.?The game is available now on both App Store and Google Play.