Drawn to Gaming
Game Cooks’ Himzu Bavic puts a love of video games and a flair for invention to good use
It’s not often that people are able to combine their skills with their passions, but Himzu Bavic, art director at Game Cooks – Lebanon, has found the perfect use for his design and illustration background in the gaming world.
Responsible for illustration, concept and character design, Bavic always knew that he wanted to do what he loved the most: drawing and gaming. This led him to start a career in gaming, which later led him to Game Cooks, one of the region’s leading companies in the industry.
“I believe that being a gamer is essential when working in this domain,” Bavic tells Arabad. “It feeds your mind and boosts your creativity to always be avant-garde in your field.”
Bavic’s work has been described as mysterious and sharp – with some subliminal messages.
“Having a unique personal style in drawing is something important since it is what people will remember and recognise you by. For me, I thrived to master many different styles before I got to create my own,” he says.
“Of course, I can’t always use my style at work since the market follows trends most of the time, but my personal work is unique.”
While some illustrators and designers may have set creative processes by which they work, Bavic’s vary from one project to another. In fact, he says, each character he develops can be the product of very different processes.
This makes all of Bavic’s work personal to him, yet still he has two creations that remain especially significant.
“One of them is Floki from the series ‘Vikings,’ since the character appeals to me and intrigues me the most. I would say this piece, old as it is, has an emotional significance to me. Another one would be Dain Ironfoot From ‘The Hobbit: Battle of the Five Armies.’ This piece has a more technical side to it and I experimented with it to create a new look and feel. This also makes it a favorite of mine.”
Creating his characters and watching them come to life is clearly Bavic’s favourite part of the job, and as a Lebanese, he takes inspiration from the country around him, a place “buzzing with natural landscapes and an amazing countryside which constantly fuels my creativity.”
“Life in Lebanon is extremely eventful, which inevitably inspires an artist to create work inspired by the current events,” he says.
With a solid background in illustration, Bavic’s freehand black on white draftsman skill is perhaps his strongest and the one he enjoys the most. Recently, however, he’s been drawn to realistic portraits with surrealistic brush strokes – “An interesting trend with a beautiful technique.”
It’s clearly this hunger to experiment and test the limits of his knowledge that makes Bavic as successful as he is, and holds Game Cooks’ art director in good stead as the gaming industry tackles new technologies.
Indeed, for Bavic, the leap into the world of virtual reality has been an exciting step, and promises to hold much more for both him and the industry.
“It's been an amazing ride so far.”
Being a gamer feeds your mind and boosts your creativity to always be avant-garde in your field.”