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An interview with Khalid Abdulla Al Muharraqi about "Durrat Al-Bahrain"
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3DTotal - Hi Khalid can you tell us a bit about yourself?
Khalid
- My name is Khalid Abdulla Al Muharraqi, son of the well known Bahraini artist, Abdulla Al-Muharraqi. Through out my childhood, I have always been exposed to the environment of art and colours. As you know artists like to read books, and my father had tons of them, so I had a lot of different artists and many different worlds to learn from. Additionally, my father showed me the traditional ways of painting, the anatomy of the human and how it works, how sketches are thought through and the best way to execute them. He was my best teacher, not only because he was a father that wanted his son to learn, but he was the best artist in the area. He has illustrations on the walls of palaces all over the Arabian countries, and the rulers of this part of the world knew him very well for his unique movement in art, in addition to his cartoons which depicted daily life and spoke with the voice of the people.
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Well at one point of time I was very much interested in becoming a pilot and that has nothing to do with art, but I didn't get accepted into aviation school. My father & younger brother encouraged me to apply to an art school in Texas, The Art Institute of Houston, which I was eventually accepted in. When I first started, I was in Interior Decorating but I then shifted to Visual Communication (VC). I became a member of the Society of Illustrators in Houston (the youngest and the only one that came from the middle east) and was accepted for my work not for my race. I also worked for a TV studio
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called Bill Young productions where my boss was an award winner from Nickelodeon Cartoon Network. I then started my first digital classes with Photoshop 2.0 and I hated the fact that everything was digital, it took me 6 to 8 months to agree that this was an upgrade for me, now I just can’t live without it. When I came back to Bahrain I worked with several advertising agencies like FP7 then Satchi and Satchi. Soon after, I got interested in developing my own company, worked there for the next 7 years. Eventually that business was not satisfying my needs and expectations. I then decided to get out , then to do what ever it takes to show the world what I believe in |
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3DTotal - How did you get started with the whole 3d thing? |
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Khalid -Well it was back in early 2002, I was going through some 3D illustrations on the net and stumbled upon a few stunning images and when I checked on what software these artists had used it was…Lightwave!! I managed to get a hold of a demo version of Lightwave 7.0 and I started to like the modeler. I had a few comments on the layout, but when version 7.5 was released and I saw the problems had been updated and the potential and flexibility of the package I went wow!! That’s when I bought the package. I can admit that I have been struggling over the last few years to find a solution for my needs and I was very happy to get the solution all in one Box. Lightwave has been my best friend. It has proven to me that it is the tool that best fits my Painting skills. I only started using it in my work after I got comfortable with the package. Many artists expect to be good at something in a short time, just because they are talented but I disagree… I think, as with all things, you need to respect the amount of information that this package possesses. There are tons of things to do and tons of ways to do them in, so there is a respectable learning curve that needs to be achieved before I can say that I am a Lightwaver!! My first nice result was on a few packaging projects when I was working in the Advertising Business, and It only moved forward from there
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3DTotal - And which area of 3d do your really enjoy doing?
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Khalid - It's strange but I love it all, from the concepts to modeling, then texturing, then rigging, then animating, you see I love all the details about it, some people like to put together a detailed Ship, and they might take months to complete, I guess you can say my work is my ship, I love it all!! |
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3DTotal - Can you tell us how did you get involved with the Durrat Al-Bahrain project? |
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Khalid - Durrat Al Bahrain is one of the biggest projects in the history of the country. It is worth over $1.3 billion and will add 13 islands on the southern coast of Bahrain. It is another in along line of terra-forming projects in the Arabian Gulf and it is a land mark that will be clearly seen from planes traveling overhead. I had done another architectural walk-thru in Bahrain which had been seen by the owners of the project who approached me directly. There were other local and international bidders for the work, but they chose me.
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