Digital artist.

I’m Ian Potash, a digital artist from Syracuse, New York. I studied Digital Media and Animation at Alfred State College with a minor in Information Technology, and I’ve been working across animation, design and drawing since.

I don’t think of those as separate skills. The principles are the same wherever you apply them — a storyboard needs the same sense of weight and motion as a finished shot, and a record sleeve needs the same eye as a drawing does. That’s why my work moves between 3D and 2D animation, graphic design, traditional media and photo colorization instead of staying in one place.

I work in the programs the industry uses, plus a few more specialized ones, but the software is the last decision I make. What matters is the composition, and whether the idea is clear before I start rendering it.

Some of the work here was made with other people. I’ve included those pieces deliberately: collaboration is its own skill, and a short film or a commissioned design only works when everyone involved is solving the same problem.

Outside of art I’m a musician. I played first chair tuba in the West Genesee Wind Ensemble, was a section leader for the Wildcat Marching Band, and went on to play in the Alfred State Instrumental Band and Jazz Band. I was also inducted into the Phi Kappa Phi National Honor Society.

My work has been shown at NYSATA/NYSSBA, Feats of Clay, Scholastic Art & Writing, and the Bret Llewellyn Art Gallery, and published in Ergo Magazine and Rolling Stone.