Artist journey: 3D character artist Milad Bahari

Hey guys! My name is Milad Bahari. I'm currently working in the game industry as a 3D character artist at Streamline Studios, I'm living in Kuala Lampur, Malaysia. My favorite childhood memory is when my mom used to doodle and drawing has been my passion ever since!

Back in Elementary school I bought a Maya learning book and started to learn, then in 2010 while I was studying Animation I had an internship in a local animation studio back in Tehran, Iran, After that I started working professionally in Animation and the game industry as a 3D artist.

Back in 2019, I moved to Malaysia and in 2020 I shifted into the game industry as a full-time job, and it's been a very challenging and interesting journey for me to work and learn from many awesome projects.

This is one of the earliest characters I ever made. I remember when the first "How to Train Your Dragon" animation came out it had a huge impact on me, and after I watched it for the first time, I decided to design my own dragon. This was one of the most exciting projects and I can never forget the amazing feelings I had while I was doing this! I was so proud of it at the time because I didn't use any alpha or special treatments for the details and it took almost two weeks to finish the high-poly!

I started learning Maya when I was 13 years old in 2009 ‑­ it was so complicated at the time for me to understand such a complex software. After a while I started learning it as a beginner with Digital Tutors courses, then I focused more on the modeling and enrolled in an Animation school. I spent most of my time learning Maya and practicing modeling; after a while I got interested in lookdev, lighting, and compositing as well.

Over the years I’ve had the chance to work on various animations and games as a 3D artist, to try many different styles from realistic to highly stylized. Sometimes I worked as a modeler, texture artist, both for characters and environments, and sometimes I did lookdev, lighting, and comp. I really enjoyed being responsible for different positions, and I learned a lot by doing those, but in 2018 I made a decision to become a 3D character artist and to focus on the character art, and I think I'm improving much faster by limiting my scope of work.

I spent a long time trying different styles and projects and I'm mostly happy with them. I tried my best to work as a freelancer, to have control over what I'm working on and to make sure that I'm going to like them, but I guess we have all done some projects we are not proud of!

When I moved to Malaysia, it was the first time I experienced living alone and working for a medium-sized international company and it was a turning point for me, both career wise and personal.

I would have to say my favorite one is "Killer Queen" which is based on Max Grecke's concept art. I started doing it after a long time of not doing anything personal. Being able to come through the challenges it had for me was not only a good indicator of what I was able to accomplish as a 3D character artist, it also gave me more confidence for the future to work on more and more complex characters. You can read my tutorial here.

I'm trying to focus on anatomy and realistic sculptures while I'm creating stylized characters to improve my understanding of forms. I try to be smart about the concepts I choose so I can challenge myself, for example recently I worked on "Sleepyhead" which is based on Deema Egorov's concept. In this case I had to study a lot about the fatty tissues on top of the muscles and bones with references I found on the internet, and a book called "Fat and skin folds" by Michel Lauricella. I'm trying my best to make the best out of my time especially during this pandemic and quarantine life!

I think the most important thing is to spend enough time to learn the basics and then start working digitally. I think internships are a great way of starting a career so you can work on actual projects and to get familiar with the deadlines, and it also helps to be disciplined, and finally having a good mentor can help and save a lot of time.

I'm trying my best to update my portfolio regularly. I post new artworks on 3dtotal and Zbrushcentral and mainly on my personal Instagram page. My focus is on stylized 3D character design and I occasionally post some of my anatomy studies, it's always good to go back to basics!