Meet Walker DuBois

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

Hi Walker, what role has risk played in your life or career?
Pursuing a career in the visual arts has ALWAYS been considered a safe and easy way to financial success and stability in one’s life, and is exactly why I chose this career path. Not to mention: have you heard how time‑efficient and easy hand‑drawn animation is, and just how sane and levelheaded the people of the art world are. Right? …Right? Well, luckily a little bit of tongue‑in‑cheek is a nice consolation prize if literally none of the things I mentioned above are inherent or even common in my chosen career path.

From the get‑go I knew that choosing to pursue a career in visual art would be a huge risk, with incredibly competitive markets, questionable (AT BEST) job security, and plenty of “work‑for‑exposure” to get through before I could ‘make it’; however, at the same time, from the beginning I saw a niche that I could fill that few others seemed to be attempting — the intersection between music and visual storytelling. My college did not have any career track for this field that did not really exist, and Indeed does not have any positions corresponding to the specifics of what I wanted to do, but I knew that this path could be forged because I have always seen visualizations of songs and I have always heard the soundtrack to the images I create. I was incredibly fortunate that the first job I got after graduating was exactly what I envisioned – creating an animated music video for one of my favorite bands, and then also creating a tie‑in comic book to their upcoming album. Neat! I didn’t fill out an application; I simply added the singer on Facebook and messaged him, ‘Hey, I would love to do an animated music video for you. Please please please please. Please?’

While my career started on that high note of working with one of my favorite bands and a record label I had always dreamed of working with, it wasn’t overnight success. What followed was years of working for smaller bands that simply did not have very much money to pay, projects few and far between, and grooming dogs to pay the bills (stinky).

But every project I did I saw as an opportunity to grow my portfolio and skills. Finally, after years of intermittent jobs, I got an email from The Offspring (give it to me baby!) asking me to do an 8‑bit pixel‑art music video for them. They asked if I could do pixel‑art animations, and I told them, “Of course! When do I start?” As soon as I got confirmation of the project, I set to work immediately, googling “how do you create pixel‑art animations.” Before I continue, let me emphasize I was not being disingenuous – I did think that I could do it, I knew I could do it, I just needed the fire under my butt to motivate me to learn that skill, and I did. The video came out great, I learned a new process that I now love, and a much larger audience than ever before could see my work, and I was working with a band that I grew up with and loved! Well, what’s next?

What was next was one of the scariest parts of being a freelancer – when reaching a plateau, there is almost a void that appears immediately after that makes you ask yourself, “Well, what now?” Luckily, instead of free‑falling about it, I received another email from The Offspring’s tour crew asking if I had ever done tour visuals before (these are the video content that plays on LED screens behind the band as they play live). The answer was a truthful no, but I would love to! I knew I could figure out how to make that work. Originally they asked me to do the visualizations for four songs in six weeks (easy!) . Eventually they asked me to do fourteen songs in about eight weeks (AHH). This was the most daunting artistic undertaking I had ever attempted – I sketched and planned and SWEATED at the scale of the project. Could I do it? I didn’t know; I had to. I could not let this opportunity slip away from me. Eight weeks, many tears of exhaustion, and 100‑hour workweeks later, I proudly shipped everything asked and got it all done just in time for the tour to begin. Just weeks later I got a phone call from the drummer of another huge band: “Hey man, we loved your visuals for the tour – could you make some for us?” And back to the grindstone I go.

In short, risk and uncertainty have been a part of this path from day one, and I have accepted it as a feature of my career as much as my drawing ability or time management. Having to advocate and sell yourself teaches you to know when to throw yourself into the fire and when to play it safe and bide your time; however, all of the major touchstones of my career have been the result of leaping into the unknown and having faith in my skills, work ethic, and the ability to learn something new REALLY fast.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
Well, I think what makes any and all artists work unique is how the visually minded spend their entire lives looking at images, watching movies, enigmatically peering over cloud‑capped vistas, essentially forming a sort of visual‑language soup of their collective memory of things that influence them and drive them to make art. For me, some of these images are burned so deeply into the backs of my eyelids that I had no other choice than to try and create something like them.

I have a diverse set of interests in things that inform my art in a way that I hope is unique. I love punk music, I love comic books, I love 1980s anime, I love Art Nouveau, I love pulp covers, I love national park posters. I like a lot of things and try to make work that kind of covers all of those boxes but does not fit squarely in any single one.

The same applies to my process. I am not a specialist but a jack‑of‑way‑way‑way‑too‑many‑trades. I love to paint, I love to animate, I love to build sets, I love to play bass, I love doing visual effects, I love audio engineering, I love collage, I love found footage. I simply have too many interests and love exploring creating, and I cannot and will not specialize in any certain thing. Is that a weakness? Sort of. It certainly hasn’t helped my career when applying for very specific entry‑level positions that focus on just one thing. Not focusing on a single thing but instead developing a large repertoire of various things that interest me is not necessarily good for my career, but it is who I am.

On a less cerebral level, my work is mostly science fiction, cartoons, pulp, comic books, and that ilk. I really spend most of my time drawing stuff that is interesting to me, exploring alien worlds, designing a T‑shirt I would want to wear, and that sort of thing. I love storytelling and use both animation and comics as a vessel and a medium for that process, different tools for different jobs. My work tends to be bright and feature a lot of primary colors (I LOVE red and yellow). Sometimes I draw stuff blowing up; sometimes I draw stuff blowing up 12 times in a row to make it move. I think people who are fans of some of the great visual artists in a funky Venn diagram between punk rock and bande dessinée will appreciate my work. I love Coop, Moebius, Miyazaki, Katsuhiro Otomo, Raymond Pettibon, and too many others to name. I don’t really have a name or taxonomy for what I do; I really just try to make stuff that I like, and I hope others will too.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
Oh wow, this is a dream‑come‑true question for me. I LOVE showing people stuff that I find fun haha. Well, if we aren’t in Japan or Europe, we would obviously have to be in California in order to have a good time. Although there are just too many wonderful things to do here, I’ll try my best to consolidate and distill. First and foremost, there has to be something done on the coast and preferably in the water. Either hanging out on Mission Beach in SD, taking a boat to Catalina, or marvelling at the swells of Santa Barbara, you literally can’t go wrong on the left coast. Then we have to go to a Tiki bar: Tiki‑Ti, Tonga Room, Lucky Tiki, take your pick; Los Angeles has a fine selection. After that, we would have to make the incredibly tough decision of which world‑class burger joint located on Pico between Beverly Glen and Westwood to go to: Marty’s or Apple Pan. Personally I am a Marty’s guy, but you can’t choose wrong. Next up is going to see a movie at the New Beverly Cinema, as it’s the only place in the world you can see a movie in 2026 and know for a fact that if a single person takes their phone out once or blabs thoughtlessly throughout the movie, they will be quickly and permanently removed from the premises and the sanctity of shutting up and paying attention to a single screen for two hours is upheld. After seeing some blood‑drenched B‑movie at the Bev, a bit of class and pomp is needed, so you have your pick of amazing museums to explore afterwards. I am partial to the Academy Museum close by (more kino! More kino!) and LACMA right next door, but a trip to the Getty is always worth it, especially if it’s a first time.

For dinner, my first choice has to be Night + Market WeHo because they have a fish dish that I have woken up thinking about and that has consumed my mind until I get it in my mouth. Their menu is fun and fresh and changes frequently, and I cannot recommend that establishment enough. If Thai isn’t the mood, then Paco’s Tacos on Centinela is the place; no more needs to be said about that. But if we are on Sunset with bellies full of Thai fish, the next important thing to do in Los Angeles is to see a show; trust me, there will be multiple things happening. You can walk right over to the Comedy Store or see what’s at Largo that night (more on that later), or if you want to see a band, take your pick of which iconic venue to go to. Personally, if I had one to show someone, it would either be the Palladium or the Hollywood Bowl for their convenience and simplicity (ha), or someone’s backyard or an empty parking structure for an authentic LA punk show experience. Finally, because I cannot relax, we have one last stop, and that would be the Roger Room. If you haven’t been there, I can say from the bottom of my heart that if you want one of the coolest places with the best cocktails in LA, that’s your place.

Obviously I have 5 billion other things I love to do here (swap meets, John O’Groats, Bigfoot, etc.), but I think this sounds like a pretty jam‑packed and memorable day. Oh, and I forgot! Go to the Last Bookstore and then see a Dodger game!

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
To be both incredibly predictable and sincere at the same time, I have to thank my parents and my girlfriend for being my support system and constant sounding boards for my insanity as well as being infinite sources of guidance and reassurance. My parents have always supported my artistic expression and were thrilled to send me to a college that was essentially an art bootcamp (if any RISD freshmen are reading this… hang in there! It gets very slightly easier!) and have beamed at my moderate success ever since. My girlfriend constantly inspires me, fills my life with joy, and provides much‑needed sojourns from work by dragging me kicking and screaming from my drawing tablet. I would not be where I am without these amazing people, and I most certainly would not be who I am.

Website: www.walkerdubois.com

Instagram: @gnarcoticcs

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/walker-dubois-353081135/

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZRM62OBxF0M

Other: Here is my band on spotify! https://open.spotify.com/artist/7FNP92gXavPdEdtvpLF9Tl