About Me

I am Hamid Ahbedin, a concept artist, graphic designer and 3D modeler based in the UK.

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I have been drawing since a very young age, as many children do. However, I found comfort in drawing, although I didn't understand the phrase at the time, it was a form of escapism for me. When I drew, the world that was cooped up in my mind would spill on to the paper. This combined with the fact that many of my family members had an artistic side, especially my uncles, who I would hang around with a lot, sparked the artist in me to transcend my days as a child. I was (and am) an avid gamer (to say the least), which had major influences on my drawings, meaning I've done more master chief drawings than I can count!

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For a long time I was mainly self taught. I say mainly because I did have small art classes in primary and secondary school, as is custom before we start GCSEs. When I started GCSEs it was my time to take art seriously, however, at the time, taking art as an education among the Asian community was looked down upon by many. As a compromise I decided to do graphic design, which was art but was a lot more involved with business, rather than self expression. This is where I found that when it came to art, I could learn very fast. In my BTEC graphic design, I was the first to complete all my work and received a distinction without alterations being needed. This gave me a huge confidence boost, but I did not touch art after that until my Alevels. Though I really wanted to do art, I see it as a hidden wisdom, being unable to do it, as I was introduced to the graphic design world which interested me greatly and massively improved my drawings. However, when I didn't pick any art related subjects after that, I found my level of improvement lacking.

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My Alevels started in 2012 and, again because of expectations, I did not pick art but graphic design as my only art related subject and picked Mathematics, Business and Sociology as my other options. Graphic design in Alevel really boosted my drawing skills, as I started to open my eyes more towards research without it being spoon fed to me. I began to become open to the idea of finding artists who resonate with me and becoming inspired by their work.

In my final year at sixthform I found myself not doing so well in maths, and I was advised that maths wasn't for me and I should maybe look towards another subject. At this point, I had received support from my parents to do Alevel art to supplement what I had achieved in my graphic design so far. This was the first time I did Art in education for an actual qualification, the first time doing physical paintings holding a physical brush. I was nervous to say the least. While I struggled at first, I had learnt that I was a quick learner when it came to fine art as well. 

 

At this time, I had also unlocked a new skill I never knew I had, teaching. I have a special needs cousin who struggles to pronounce words. One day, in 2016, when I found him trying to read the Quran, I sat him down and started teaching him. After an hour, he had read an entire chapter of the Quran with full pronunciation to the shock of his parents. This is where a new path had opened up for me. As I grew, my teaching skills had been rapidly improving even to this day. I have taught a wide variety of subjects of different nature to a wide variety of age groups, ranging from 5 to 70!

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While in Alevel I was praised for the work I produced, there was something that was letting me down and holding my grades down. I was told it was my lack of research and development. At the time I did not understand what that meant, I thought that producing good work was all it took. Because of this I did not meet the requirements to go on to do a degree in University to carry on my education. So I looked towards a foundation art degree to bridge the gap so I could eventually do a full degree. I found that when I applied to colleges for foundation courses they were quick to accept me, after looking at my work. However, when I applied to my local college in Oldham, they recommended to try Games Art in Oldham University. After having my name put through, I met with the teachers and after looking at my work they gave me a conditional offer that I get a minimum amount of points on UCAS (you receive a certain amount of points depending on your grades). Unfortunately, as I mentioned before, my grades were held back and I did not receive the points I needed. As one final effort to go to attend the University, I invited the teachers to the student art exhibition held at my college and thankfully they accepted my invite. When they looked around I had noticed that when they looked at my scifi game related drawings and paintings they were not that impressed, they liked the detail, but for them its all things they had seen before. Finally they came across a book cover I did, based on the history of Islam, having two Arab soldiers from 600AD on the front. It was not the best of work I had ever done, but one of the teachers pointed at it and said "wow! now that's what we like to see!". They explained to me, that the drawing of the two Arab soldiers means I did research into history, culture and religion, which is just what they were looking for. They then gave me the good news that they had decided to change the conditional offer into an unconditional offer thus my final attempt to go University was a huge success.

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Entering into University in 2015, I grew in expectations. I was no longer wowed by my work and was very critical. Along with learning about 3D modelling, using software like 3ds Max, Mudbox and 3D coat, I learnt about anatomy and how light and material works. Again I had made huge leaps in my paintings but I was unable to feel satisfaction. I actually began to think that maybe I had finally out grew my artistic side. However, in my final year, I learnt from my teachers that it was not the case, I was going through a major artistic block. One of the main causes of this block was due to my inability to do proper research on artists. And so this was where I finally understood how to do it. I wasn't to just become inspired by the artist but also what inspired them. In my final year I was doing my project dragonfly (though at the time I didn't name it, it was simply a spaceship project) and my work had taken a massive spike in quality. I was mainly inspired by Chris Foss and Colin Cantwell, who used the shapes of natural things (such as fish) and man made things (such as darts) to create spaceships. The spark of becoming an artist had been ignited within me again, with some of my spaceship designs wowing even my teachers.

 

With my project complete, i had only my dissertation to complete. I had done it on the psychological affects games have on gamers. I had found out some very interesting things about how how games affect peoples minds, the influences it has, including a new teaching style known as gamification, which I employ to this day and have become well known as a teacher among the places I have worked. With the dissertation complete. I had graduated University with a Upper Second Classification.

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Leaving University, I was now equipped with the ability to do my own independent studies to improve my art work. To this day I am trying to improve with every piece that I have done and I am happy with how far I have come since my days in university (which you can compare as I graduated university in 2018 and there is work on here as far back as 2016).