Meet Nick Flook | Artist & Musician – Both proficient in traditional styles as well as digital

We had the good fortune of connecting with Nick Flook and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Nick, we’d love to hear more about how you thought about starting your own business?
I’m one of those artist’s that likes to see their vision all the way to the finish line. I spent a lot of my early 20’s working for various media companies, always being given a task and having the outcome be swayed in a million directions from producers, clients, and guidelines. The vision I would initially have for a project would almost never end up as cool as I had originally planned due to what I call “too many cooks in the kitchen.” I used to work tirelessly after hours, creating my own media and personal projects that I knew, if good enough, would hopefully persuade companies into giving me more creative freedom. Unfortunately I learned that’s not how most movie and TV companies work and they usually have strict guidelines they must adhere to, regardless of how artistic and creative I was. I knew my ultimate goal was to have people come to me for what I create, and not what I could create for them. I slowly made the move from a freelance artist, who’s job was to create clients ideas, to a more individual artist, where people wanted what I was making, and was solely interested in my own personal creations. At the time, there wasn’t many avenues to making money with personal digital art, so I honed in my passion for hand made artwork, knowing at least I could sell physical paintings. Skip ahead to now, and I’ve been making a living as a full time painter for the last 10 years as “Flooko”, my widely known artist name.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
Every single thing I make, once started as an idea that burned so bright in my mind that I knew I just HAD to bring it into the physical world. There are a lot of artists out there that just make things based on whatever the current trend is. I always tried to make things that were personal to me. Drawing from all my childhood inspirations and from other masters of the arts. My goal was to always make things I truly believed in and if others were into it, it was a total bonus. Luckily for me, people have a pretty good b.s detector and I think with my art, they can sense it comes from a real place, from a real artist, who genuinely cares about and obsesses over what they produce. Every piece conveys some sort of human emotion and I love how that comes through to the viewer. I must say though, keeping this level of enthusiasm and dedication is not easy. I often work all day and night, only stopping when my brain has finally had enough. Now that I’ve been doing this for some time, I’m starting to realize the importance of mental breaks. I use to just “go go go” 24/7.. but that will inevitably burn you out and your work will suffer. Now I take the time to step back once in a while and let the inspiration levels recharge.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
Well I live in Toronto, one of the craziest cities in the world. There is definitely no shortage of things to do and eat around here !! Honestly there are so many good restaurants, I’d need several months to show them all lol. I grew up in a small farm town called Chatham, Ontario, and I still remember the awe and excitement I felt when I first got to this this city when I was 18. I had never seen such huge buildings and infrastructure, it still wows me to this day. So I always make a point of bringing them downtown just to walk around and soak in this completely new environment. It almost never fails to blow their minds if they aren’t used to this sort of thing. Luckily we have a lot of cool arcades here as well which I’m a huge sucker for. The nostalgia hits hard 🙂

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
Firstly I have to give a shoutout to my awesome parents, who recognized my passion for the arts early in life. I was CONSTANTLY drawing, building, painting, and just about anything you can think of in the realm of creativity. I just could NOT turn my brain off, and still can’t, lol. We didn’t have much money growing up, but they always found a way to make sure I had a pad of paper, crayons, markers, and anything else I needed to keep creating. Once the movie “Toy Story” hit in 1995, I was so blown away by the marvel of 3d animation I knew I had to figure it out. My dad worked tirelessly to help me buy my first personal computer. I found some copies of early 3d software and absolutely obsessed over teaching myself how it all worked through trial and error and what little tutorials were online at the time. This eventually led me down the road to becoming a professional 3d animator in the film industry for roughly 15 years before I quit to paint full time. I really owe them a lot in achieving my goal as being a recognized professional artist. Its all I ever wanted to be and I’m lucky enough to say I got there 🙂

Website: www.flookart.com

Instagram: www.instagram.com/flooko

Twitter: https://twitter.com/FlookoTheArtist

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKDKtibZDMfbUaTIpwTG8nw

Image Credits
Nick “Flooko” Flook