Meet Arius Ziaee

Today we’d like to introduce you to Arius Ziaee.

Arius, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
I’ve been creative my whole life, from making mounds of illegible comics as a kid to nailing garbage to my bedroom walls. I’ve always had a deep connection with the expression of art and music and have incorporated those activities into my daily life, which has combined into my interest in animation. I am currently attending CalArts as a second-year studying experimental animation.

Within the last couple of years, I have done handfuls of performances, tabled and sold art at a bunch of events, had two solo art shows and have had my animated shorts shown at multiple film festivals and events. I Have a handful of projects I’m currently working on including my second year short, three music projects and some big secret projects that I’m excited to keep working on and extremely jazzed to share with the public.

Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
Things haven’t always been easy, I grew up with a mother who was diagnosed with cancer when I was at a very young age and would then pass when I was in my early teens. Being creative has always been a coping mechanism for me to get through the hardest of times, and it still is a very important hobby in my life to decompress the world that is moving around me.

We’d love to hear more about your art.
I am a freelance Animator/Illustrator who specializes in music videos, animated visualizers, T-shirt designs, album covers, band tour posters and so on. My artistic specialty is creating detailed scenes with variations of wonky organic-looking characters. I am very interested in abstraction in cartoonism and building interesting compositions with distorted elements. Currently, I like my work to be fun and playful, focusing on silly humanoid and naturalistic characters. But I am very able to make grotesque and intense work, such as extreme music visuals such as bleeding fonts and over the top intense characters. I specialize in anything that is expressive.

What is “success” or “successful” for you?
I would consider myself successful If I am able to make my creative lifestyle a sustainable full-time job and have a community of friends, piers and collaborators who are as excited about creative projects as much as I am.

Pricing:

• Drawn Commissions (15-30$ for line art) (30$-60$ water color)
• Animation Commissions (1000$ per minute of animation)

Contact Info:

• Website: https://vimeo.com/themarooned
• Phone: 8053343955
• Email: [email protected]
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/the.marooned/?hl=en
• Other: https://butterbean.bandcamp.com/music

Image Credit:
The Second image with The flower people and the house is partially a collage from a MAD magazine from the 50’s, which I cut up rearranged and drew on top of and colored.

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