Meet Ari Zaritsky

We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Ari Zaritsky. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Ari below.

Hi Ari, thanks for sharing your insights with our community today. Part of your success, no doubt, is due to your work ethic and so we’d love if you could open up about where you got your work ethic from?

Since I was a child, persistence was something that had developed very early. It was when I began playing video games, one of the first ones I ever played was called “Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of The Were-Rabbit”. There was a mini game section where I kept failing, I don’t recall the specifics of the game as it was over 10 years ago but all I remember was that I kept trying and trying and trying until eventually I completed it. This obsession of succeeding became stronger as I grew older. It started with video games then it began to spill over into multiple areas of my life. From difficult homework or curriculum material, juggling between school and the varsity swim team along with my growing passion for art, my work ethic was forged.

Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?

I am a freelance concept artist and illustrator. I build worlds. I am absolutely intoxicated by the process of building functional and believable universes. In the art industry, story is king. We as the audience rely on stories, whether its fictional, non-fictional, personal anecdotes, or cautionary tales, stories make us who we are. Humans have always been story tellers through the cave paintings in the beginning of mankind. Being able to communicate a story through art is the most vital part of any media. As a concept artist, it is my job to create that story through visuals. Between characters, props, and environments, it’s essential to understand what your message is so you can show and not tell. A great exercise is, if we have a character who is lazy, disorganized, and sloppy, ask yourself, “how can I show the audience through this character’s set of clothes, posture, expressions, etc that they are lazy?” or a stronger exercise you can ask yourself “what should their room look like?” The room exercise is my favorite, because it forces you to think like the character. Their room is their personal space, so it’s not meant for everyone’s eyes, which means you have to think about all sorts of nuisances for the character. The more you can iron out the details while also maintaining the theme creates that stronger illusion of believability.

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?

There is so much I’ve learned since I started my art journey that I feel like 3 can’t cover everything. But if I were to boil it down, the 3 most important are: integrity, a continuous thirst to learn new skills, and finally understanding that it is you and your journey.

Having integrity in this industry is incredibly important, especially in these times with AI “artwork”. Stay true to your craft!

As I went through my first years of college, I developed this unquenchable thirst for learning. In the beginning I was pretty stubborn with my art mediums. I was traditional in high school and was interested but intimidated by digital art. After I was gifted a drawing tablet I went ham on my digital artwork. I would research professionals in the field and always be star struck as to how impressive their work was. It was after a contest in California, where the grand prize winner told me “Ari you have to learn 3D” that pushed me to learn Blender. That summer I learned the basics of Blender and began using 3D in my artwork. My dream is to be a AAA concept artist in the game industry, after doing research on those people who are living my dream, 99% of those artists use 3D for their artwork. This energized me to learn the 3D program. Even now, I’m learning how to hard surface model and digitally sculpt. Although those skills aren’t necessarily required as a concept artist, because concept artists’ main job is to draw the ideas, having those skills in my back pocket allow me to create visually stronger concepts with a stronger vision. Some may say “3D is cheating when you’re drawing” but I have to disagree heavily. I remember a specific moment in one of my classes where I utilized 3D for my illustration assignment. I was ridiculed and told that my work can’t be critiqued because I used 3D. I sat that with a big smirk on my face because at that time I just accepted an offer as a concept art intern at a AAA game studio, but besides that my biggest argument was that, no, it’s not cheating because 3D is a tool. 3D allows me to worry about the design and creating something amazing, I don’t have to stress getting things to look correct in perspective. If I’m not actively practicing what the professionals are doing, then I am shooting myself in the foot. Always be willing to learn new skills even if it doesn’t directly correlate with your desired job.

One of my mentors Larry Elmore, one of the first DnD artists, told me that “you will always chase that perfect painting, but you will never get there” This gave me such a unique perspective because Larry, despite making amazing artwork, always found his imperfections. He stated that us artists will never see our work the way the audience views it, we know every little paint stroke, every line, our blood, sweat and tears that went into the art. The audience only sees the final outcome. As someone who continuously battles imposter syndrome, it was relieving to understand that no one sees what I see. That being said, Larry emphasized that as an artist it is you and your journey alone. You shouldn’t allow comparison to be a thief of joy. I come from a pretty competitive background. I swam for 11 years at the elite level, it strengthened many aspects of my personality such as time management and perseverance, however the cost was my skewed sense of competition. Swimming is an individual sport; it is very easy to say, “Oh well I’m not as good because I’m slower than X” or the opposite “I’m better because I’m faster than Y”. Especially in high school season, I was always comparing myself to my other teammates. It was especially important to be “the fastest” in your stroke because that dictated whether or not you were on the state team to swim against the fastest in the entire state. This constant pressure to perform at your highest was exhausting but that comparison was the largest hurdle. However, this toxic mindset won’t allow you to grow, it forces you to think about the your shortcomings rather than the positives. You shouldn’t bank on other people’s success or failures; their life doesn’t define yours. For the case of swimming, I wish I was able to shift my perspective and force myself to think that it was just about me vs my time. The other swimmers didn’t matter, the most important aspect of anything you can do is to do your utmost best. Whether I made the state team or not isn’t up to me, what was up to me was how hard I tried.
Swimming is a more objective matter because you look at numbers on which is higher vs lower, art is the very opposite which should strengthen the message more.
Stay in your lane and be the best you can be!
Climb that mountain not so that the world can see you, but so that you can see the world.

Any advice for folks feeling overwhelmed?

Feeling overwhelmed is an important thing to recognize. The feeling of being overwhelmed comes from the feeling of being intimidated by the size of the situation. When you start thinking of how many things you need to accomplish, it can be very paralyzing to begin.
However, the solution is breaking it down by steps and immediately starting. A checklist is pretty important for stuff like this. Breaking it down little by little is how you overcome that paralysis. The biggest hurdle is beginning, my biggest piece of advice is JUST START.
I also found that understanding you are not alone can free you from stress. Asking for help, even with just moral support can help you say, “Oh that’s not so bad.”
Confidence is key, if you can say “I can do this” then you can kiss the feeling of being overwhelmed goodbye.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://zarart.myportfolio.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/zarart.blend/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ari-zaritsky/

Image Credits

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