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There's something really great about Fateme Kashfi' art. She has those smooth flowing Disney-esque lines. Looking at some of her pieces reminded me even a little of Barbucci. I also really like the fact that she has a recurring character that's full of personality. Read our short Q&A with Fatemeh:

How did you get into illustration?
I started drawing about 5 years ago. Because I love animation I focused on disney animator's drawing and understood that I should know Human anatomy and draw every thing with line of action and basic forms and shapes (like circle ,cube ,cylinder..). So I draw every thing with this method. Most of the time I draw from books, pdfs and real life and I don't have many teachers.

Who are some of your favorite artists who have influenced or inspired you?
Glen Keane (Disney), Rodolph Guenoden (Dreamworks), Sylvain chomet (the French director of The Triplets of belleville), John Lasseter (Director of Toy Story)...

We really like your Clown character. I think it's really interesting and very unique. What can you tell us about this character?
Thanks for your love. My clown was born 1 year ago on a terrible day! Before that I'd designed another clown which was more cartoony. The reason for using a clown is related to my personality and opinions. I love clowns. They always wear colorful and funny clothes and make us smile but I think they have sadness inside! I like this contradiction.

How do you describe being an illustrator in Iran? What sort of opportunities are there for an Iranian illustrator?
I think Iranians haven't gotten professional in the entertainment industry (remember that I love animation). Currently the industry is dependent on government . Also we don't have a good educational system to train students for getting their suitable job. So how do you think it's like?

Check out more of Fatemeh's great work on her Deviant Art profile.

We're trying a new thing here at Project 300. From now on, we're going to have mini-interviews (conducted via email unless otherwise stated) with the artists that we feature.

The first artist we're interviewing is Saeed Jalabi. I first stumbled upon his art through the website cgarts.ir, and I was very impressed by the amount of detail in some of his works. Here's his answers to our questions:

How did you get into illustration?
Like a lot of my friends and other illustrators I loved to draw as a kid, and my school books were always filled with drawings. I've never received any formal training and since the beginning I wasn't interested in going to art classes because I think these classes kill your creativity. I didn't study arts in high school either, but I always practiced my drawings on the side. It's been about 2 years - since I started going to University - that I have been illustrating professionally.

Who are some of your favorite artists who have influenced or inspired you?
I've always liked collecting illustrations of foreign artists. Works of Boris Vallejo and Frank Frazetta really expanded my perception of the field. I worship artists like Dale Keown, Ashly wood, Carlos huante, Joe Madureira, and Mike Mignola.

How do you describe being an illustrator in Iran? What sort of opportunities are there for an Iranian illustrator?
Iran has some really talented illustrators, but due to lack of government or corporate support, not having proper learning centers, and a lot of other factors their numbers are small. Right now there is an emerging gaming industry in Iran. Graphic and concept artists play a big role in this industry. Comic art is also slowly becoming more common among artists and only needs more support and investment. Sadly our animation industry - despite numerous talents and a lot of potential - is always under-funded and has nothing to say.
Despite all these restrictions, I can say that all these guys who are working for private animation studios or for the press or other places, have always followed their passion and have tried to raise their work quality up to international levels.

What's your favorite personal piece of work?
It's really hard for an artist to say which of his works he likes the most, or say he's completely satisfied with one of them. I personally like the feel of "I'm not done yet", this also got published in the April issue of 2D Artist.

check out some of Saeed's other work on his Deviantart gallery.

I couldn't find a whole lot of info on Ahmad Mir. But this 24-year old artist from Tehran is pretty talented. I like his confident thick brush style. Check out more of his stuff on cgart.ir.

24 year old Aria Saffarzadegan is one of those artists who is equally great at doing characters as he is doing environments. I love the light hues he uses in his colors, and his attention to detail when it comes to incorporating actual historical elements in his characters.

Ehsan is a 26-year-old illustrator and comic artist from Tehran. His disney-esque illustrators have a clear manga influence. The Rostam illustration, pictured here, is a good example of his clean lines. We'll definitely be keeping an eye for Ehsan. Check out his Deviant Art portfolio here.

I have been meaning to feature Golrokh's artwork here for a while now. Born in Tehran, Golrokh's illustration often combine her unique style with strong social commentary. She is more productive than her blog suggests, but you can still check out some of her stuff on her blog.

Here's even more illustrated goodness, this time from 21-year-old artist Reza Riahi. This Tehran-based illustrator does a lot of caricature and character design. His blog is filled with a whole lot of sketches, as well as some finished work, all of which are a pleasure to look at. He also did a whole bit of Zoorkhaaneh-themed illustrations which are absolutely hilarious.

Mehdi Shiri is a 20-year-old illustrator, character designer, and a background artist from Hamedan, Iran.
He is one of the many talented emerging artists in Iran who are all part of a great generation that is reviving the art scene there. His blog features some of his great work, so definitely check it out.

Hadi Tabasi is a 25-year-old illustrator/animator/character designer/cartoonist from Qom, Iran. He is the type of artist whose work is so good it makes you want to cry. His blog is a wonderland filled with delicious characters and illustrarions, as well as a few short animation samples.

I was absolutely delighted to stumble upon Mahmood Mokhtari's blog. I simply love his whimsical yet modern illustrations of some of the most traditional Persian characters; especially his "ZoorKhaane" series. (ZoorKhaane is a traditional Iranian gym, for some real-life pictures check out this link).
Artists like Mahmood Mokhtari deserve far more recognition for their work, and it is a great shame that various other limitations imposed on them by the environment they have to live/work in prevents that.

I would love to buy that whole Zoorkhaneh set in a book or as post-cards ...

Maryam Tabatabaei is a self-proclaimed "newbie", who wants to be a "be a freelance illustrator someday ...". With a consistent style that defines all her pieces, right down to her usage of color tones, I don't see any reason why that "someday" can't be today!

I usually avoid self-promotion by not talking about any of my personal art projects here. But it wouldn't be fair if I extend this self-imposed ban onto my friends (or in this case, my girlfriend) when their good work deserves to be acknowledged.
Atee is a painter/illustrator based here in Toronto. She has recently launched her portfolio website which showcases her versatile yet unique style. Her artwork is richly infused with emotion, and the mood of her pieces range from uplifting to melancholy. She has also forayed into graphic design, and has a growing section showcasing her talents in that field. Check out her site, and don't forget to play the funny little flash game in the Misc section :)

Sahar Ajami is a Tehran-based cartoonist/illustrator. She graduated from the Tehran Art University in Theatre stage design, and started drawing illustrations from 1999. I really like the simplicity and pureness of her work. Of particular interest to me is her fashion and post-card illustrations. I have seen a lot of illustrators using this style, but somehow Sahar's usage of this style is still fresh and inviting. You can also check out her blogs in blogspot, and blogfa.

I have been extremely lazy in publishing this. Hassan Nozadian, an original contributor to the project 300 gallery told me about his ambitious graphic novel project a few months ago. He also sent me these cool samples to share with you.

Hassan has an MA in industrial design and is currently the art director in a newly established animation company Zagros Film, in Shiraz, Iran.

Here is a bit more about the comic project from Hassan himself:

It is a legendary epic based on a short story we (me and my frien Mojtaba Nik-akhlagh, himself a screenplay writer) wrote together some years ago. last year we decided to make a persian comic-book based on that old short story written by ourselves because we really did believe in it

The legend (so we called it "Hargezian" in farsi or "Neverians" in English) is about grey heroes (if I can say so, that means who weren't so bad or so good) in such a long times ago and so far that no myths and history can remember it. It sounds like never such these things happened and never such those men existed and no one like those people and heroes lived ever after. Or even maybe this title indicates in ever-lasting (eternal) existence of our characters during the time. That's why we called it Hargezian (Neverians), and that's why we applied some Persian motifs or themes into drawings and characters and locations names but didn't mention a specific historical age.

Hassan goes on to say that as classic comic book fans, he and his friends always wondered why there aren't any comics in Iran. That's why they decided to create this very cinematic graphic novel.

The story is now written and the preliminary sketches and character designs have been finished. Hassan is now working on the pencils and the inking. He is also going to do the colouring himself. It looks like they have also found a publisher and if everything goes well the graphic novel should be complete by the end of next summer. It is going to be about 90 pages.

I'm really glad that Hassan and Mojtaba are doing this. Doing all artwork (Pencil, Inking, Colouring) by one person is an extremely daunting task and I admire Hassan for tackling this. I certainly look forward to seeing the finished result. If this graphic novel is published, it's certainly going to be the first graphic novel of its kind published in Iran.

I just came across this news yesterday, while looking for inspiration on combining Persian calligraphy with animal shapes. The news itself is a couple of years old: back in 2006, an illustrated book of 10 Hafez poems had won the British Book Design & Production Awards in the literary category, thanks to the beautiful work of a talented British-Iranian artist Jila Peacock.

I can't wait to see the book for myself (I couldn't find it on amazon.ca), but judging from the snapshots I saw online and on Peacock's website the design is pretty stunning. Peacock has used the words in each poem (written in curvy and organic calligraphic style) to create outlines of shapes that symbolize the poem itself ; a deer, a lion, a peacock. This is no doubt a laborious task, but the results are beautiful and I'm glad that Peacock's efforts were recognized and rewarded.

You can see more of these shapes, as well as other artwork by Jila Peacock by visiting her website.

Incidentally, the same calligraphic series have been a subject of an animated film called "Tonge of the Hidden". I could only find this short clip of it online. Imagine peacock's creatures come to life on screen, a fantasia-esque series of moving pictures. I wish we could see more of this online, it seems to be very interesting. The director by the way is David Anderson.

If you are in Rhode Island, you can catch the film this Saturday at the Rhode Islan Film Festival.

You haven't lived until you've seen Ramin Rahimi's flash doodles. Many of us in the Persian webosphere have seen his cute 7-sin animation at one point or the other, usually through other websites that link to it. What most of us probably haven't seen is his other delicious doodles like the beautifully retro 7-sin 2 trailer, stylishly grotesque sensitivity, and the amazingly cinematic demo clips (one and two) for "the horrible story of a painter's death".

Seriously, check them out.

It's a huge shame that none of the image galleries on his website work. I would love to see more of his art.

Amin Fara(marzian) comes from an artistic family in Tehran. He is, as his website says, a "storyboard man, character designer, and animator". But he also has lots of illustrations and photography work on his site. His style is breathy and minimalistic, and is empowered by good composition. His website was frustratingly slow when I visited, but it's worth the wait. Check it out here.

I can't believe I hadn't profiled Asghar before. I remember seeing his work somewhere and being amazed by it. When I saw his work again today I checked in the archives to see his profile on Project 300 and when I couldn't find it I realized I must have forgotten to add him the first time.
Anyway, this talented artist from Hamedan uses the cg medium to create realistic and more traditional paintings. His art is soft and graceful, his lighting and form is at times quite extraordinary. The thumbnail I have chosen is taken from his work titled "Persian Girl". Check out his gallery to see more of his beautiful work.

23 year old Ghassem Farhany's self-taught cg paintings show some great quality and good command of the medium. Surprisingly, he doesn't use any real-life reference for his fantasy-themed works and solely relies on his imagination. Check out this Abadan native's works on his cgsociety and deviant art profiles.

I don't know anything about Touraj Khosravi, but if his personality is as colorful as his art he must be quite a character. For some reason his work reminds me of Dali, a sort of grotesque Dali from hell. His detailed paintings are extremely surreal and at times somewhat morbid and disturbing. One thing is for sure, they certainly have a great impact and there's an air of magnificence around them. Check out his stuff on his cgsociety profile.

Lately I'm coming across more and more young Persian photographers with real talent. My latest discovery is Toranj Kayvan , an 18-year-old talented photographer from Vancouver who seems to have a passion for fashion photography. I'm simply loving her gallery .

When you mentioned "Illustration" in Iran, more often than not people associate it with Childrens Books. Many of the
illustrators there are active in this area, perhaps because it's easier for them to express themselves through Childrens stories, considering the fact that public art shows are severely restricted by content in Iran.

One illustrator that seems to follow the same trend is Arghavan Khosravi. I came across her profile on DeviantArt the other day and enjoyed her fun and whimsical illustrations. Most of her art seems to be hand-painted in the traditional way, which is more of a rarity these days considering all the digital art out there. Check out her gallery.

I just came across the website of the award winning artist Mohammad Aghaei. This native of Isfahan's style is strongly representative of the prevalent theme among Persian illustrators: A lot of substance, an almost philosophical approach to illustration, and strong Eastern European influences. I must admit that my personal taste is more inclined towards the North American, more 'comicy' styles, as well as Japanese influences. Nevertheless, there are some outstanding pieces in Aghaei's portfolio and I'm sure the fans of this style will appreciate his art greatly.

Sorry for the delay in updating here, I was on vacation. But now I'm back and the updates will resume.

I'm spotlighting Shervin Bahri. This 22-year old is clearly into fantasy art. There aren't many pieces in his portfolio yet but the ones he have there show his great form. I'm certainly putting him on my watchlist. While you're in DeviantArt, check out Hamed Talebani's updated gallery as well, he has added some nice new art.

32-year-old Ali Khalkhali seems to have a nack for working with clay. I really wish there were more pieces in his portfolio, especially the wonderfully funny Rostam and Esfandiar comic done completely in clay (there are only two pages of that in his gallery). Also don't miss his clay depiction of the Irano-Russian wars.

Rostam is an epic heroic character in Persian literature and mythology. He is basically a 10th century super-hero and there's no wonder that Persian illustrators and cartoonists often draw upong his stories when they approach comics. (incidentally, the only real comic book available worldwide that has Persian characters is the Rostam comic book, which you can check out here.)

I stumbled upon Hanif Bahari's art a few weeks ago and had bookmarked his portfolio so I could write about him later. I didn't have time to update here for a couple of weeks, but I figured featuring his work is as good an excuse as any to update the site after a while.
I really like his style and the quirkiness of his cartoons. He also has a distinct sense of humor that makes his colorful cartoons more fun.

His work can be found on several places on the web. Some of his stuff is at this KolahStudio page, while some others can be found on this page here. He also has a profile on Kargah.com, where interestingly enough some of his cartoons have been censored! Finally, Iranian.com also featured some of his art back in 2005.

Hamid Bahrami is one of the most respected artists in Iran and It is certainly a privillege to have him on board Project 300 with his work in the gallery.

The multi-talented 35-year-old veteran has an amazingly diverse body of work ranging from regular sketches, to cartoons and illustrations, to animation and game-related art.

His cartoons are full of quirky humor and sarcasm, and he has an ability to command whatever style of drawing he wishes to use.

Visit his portfolio at your own risk, since you can easily find yourself browsing through his art for a long time (the site's navigation is at times fidgety, but moving the mouse away from the nav-bar and then back should do the trick).

I've always thought of Fashion Photography as the absolute best job in the world. If I had another chance, that was the career I would have pursued. But Iran-born Max Abadian doesn't need another chance, as he is already living the dream.

I just stumbled upon his website by luck, and I was awed by the beautiful pictures in his portfolio. There's little about him other than this short blurb : "Born in Iran and raised in Germany, Max Abadian studied at Dawson’s Institute of Photography. A prestigious fashion and advertising photographer, he raises interest on an international scale. Max has an irresistible way of creating a captivating atmosphere. He seduces the eye with the unequivocal beauty of his work. "

He has photographed celebrities Gwen Steffani, Avril Lavigne, Elisha Cuthbert, and Nelly Furtado, to name a few. But don't take my word for it, head over and check out his portfolio.

While cg painting and illustration have only recently become popular among Persian artists, their involvement with 3D modeling and design goes back far earlier. With the release of the first versions of 3DStudio, many persian artists became interested in 3D art and numerous 3D animation studios were launched, mainly producing TV commercials. Unfortunately, not being involved in 3D, I don't know much about the community and the 3D big shots, but the other day I came across the website and portfolio of Ali Rahimi, and I was impressed with the depth of his work. While his 3D images and animation projects look incredible, he has an interesting twisted style with his "sketches" as well. I strongly recommend browsing his portfolio.

Another incredible 3D artist I came across a while ago is 42-year-old Adel Adili, who I believe is a veteran of 3D art in Iran. His versatile body of work varries from architectural landscapes to disney-style character modelling. Don't miss out on his 2D gallery either, where he clearly shows his skills as a CG painter. Finally, he's also has an active presence on cgsociety, taking part in numerous challenges (and winning quite a few!)

Finally, I like to introduce the portfolio of our very own Ali Jalali. His Project 300 contribution was one of the most viewed pieces in the gallery and was circulating in the Persian blogosphere for some time after it was featured here. In his submission, he had combined traditional Persian Miniature paintings (see this too) with 3D art, and had created a breath-taking image of a woman with her harp. Miniature Paintings are a corner-stone of Persian arts, and you can't grow up in Iran without seeing this artform everywhere. Interestingly, before this piece, I had only seen one other instance of trying something new with this type of art (I'll get to that in another post). Anyway, Ali Jalali has a few other pieces in his portfolio at cgsociety which deserve a look.

There are many other accomplished 3D artists to mention. If you know some of them feel free to leave a comment.

Among the first artists to submit their work for Project 300, was Hassan Nozadian. He sent me an email containing 16 pieces with little description other than wishing me luck for the project.
I was impressed with his sketches. They reminded me of old Iranian comic strips I used to read and had a retro feel to them. Since the submitted pieces were so many, I only selected a few to put up on the gallery page. I definitely feel that the other pieces deserve to be seen as well, especially since I couldn't find any online portfolio or gallery belonging to Hassan Nozadian. These sketches appear to be part of a comic strip about the Persian "Epic of Kings", in the same style as the old Persian comic strips I remember reading, with the text written in boxes below each image, instead of appearing in speech bubbles. Maybe Hassan can update us on the status of his project, if he's reading this =) .

I'm sorry for the delay in updating here, been a little busy. Anyway, let's get back right in it with another artist spotlight. This time, it's the work of 20-year-old Ehsan Dabbaghi from Tehran. His portfolio over at cgsociety has a nice mix of original CG paintings, environment drawings, 3D models, and a lot of matte paintings. There is a strong sense of fantasy that dominates most of his work. He's certainly an artist to watch out for, and I expect to see more original cg drawings from him in the future.

Cyrus Swire - who was one of the first artists to submit his work for the Project 300 gallery - is a master of modern achaemenid art. He has created vibrant vector illustrations based on some of the most well-known and beautiful achaemenid insigna. He has recently sent in some new work, which I already added to the gallery. But I'm sure you will appreciate seeing all of this submitted work together here as well.

There may not be a lot of pieces in Shahin Kazemi's portfolio, but what is there shows an artist with great capabilities. While his design/collage work is nicely detailed, using a lot of texture, it's his simple and roomy illustration style that caught my eye the most. I really hope he uploads more of his illustrations there.

I recently discovered the great art of 22-year-old Soheil Danesh (thank to Reveal), and I'm in love with his atmospheric cg illustrations. Among his work is this poster for "Jamshid & Khorshid", a full-length animated feature with ancient Persian themes (the first of its kind in Iran) that has been in the works for a few years and despite being completed, its release has been held up by unknown reasons. Also check out his storyboards. I was told that Soheil will soon be working on his submission for the Project 300 gallery as well.

p.s. Soheil has a deviant art gallery and a personal website as well that I think he's still working on.

Farshid seems to specialize in drawing evil monsters, even though his monsters are more cute than evil. His gallery is full of drawings of his monster character in different poses, and some of them are simply hilarious.

26-year-old Hamed Talebany's gallery shows great flexibility in style, but his underlying comic inspirations are evident in most of his work. His great body of work shows amazing range and includes everything from fantastically devious portraits to fun disney-esque character designs. While there are no comic stores in Iran and finding comic books can be very difficult (specially in his native Shiraz, I assume), Hamed's command of the comic-book genre is nothing short of amazing.

Faraz Shanyar is the essence of what Project 300 is all about. He is one of those great artists that I have gotten to know through Project 300. His phenomenal CG paintings can make anyone green with envy. His speedpaintings have an aura of effortless quality to them that are a joy to watch and he has a perfect sense of form and lighting.
Check out his gallery on Deviant Art. It's definitely one of the galleries that I'm going to check frequently. You can also check out his Project 300 submissions in the gallery.

22-year old Pendar Nabipour hasn't updated his website for a couple of years, but if his portfolio is anything to go by he must have produced a lot of great art since then. His pencil sketches have a flowing raw quality that are quite pleasing to the eye, and his unique 'zazzima' creations are a fun mix of tribal and modern elements. He has also made a poster for the 300 Project which I will put in the gallery in the next upgrade. p.s. we share the same first name and he's in fact the only other Pendar I have met in real life.