Interview With Sorin Bechira

bechira_world_collabs[4] Sorin Bechira is a talented and inspiring graphic designer who works as Art Director for X3 Studio. He has several awards and features up his sleeve and is also the Creative Director for slashTHREE. Sorin is known for his mastery of digital matte painting and for the range of techniques he is exploring to produce incredible visual imagery. In this interview we'll get to know more about his techniques and the broad range of work he is exploring.

Thank you so much for letting us have this opportunity to interview you. It really is an honor to have you. Can you tell us more about yourself? What were your influences, growing up?

I am a graphic/ multimedia designer with a bachelor in fine arts and one in multimedia techniques. I'm always looking to experiment and searching for challenges on every field of visual communication: digital matte painting, graphic design, experimental illustration, typography, interactive and new media, combining traditional techniques with digital ones in order to obtain something unique, something unexpected and spectacular.

With more than 10 years of experience, I'm currently Gallery Director at slashTHREE artgroup, Creative Director at X3 and proud member of The KDU

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Have you always been into graphic arts? How did you train for it?

I started to work on computers in high school and back in 1995 discovered Truespace, a 3D program. That discovery changed my life and I realized that I'm not going to be a programmer, but a digital artist..And after college I took drawing lessons for two years and got into Arts Faculty. There I refined my taste for visual communication and also discovered how much I like graphics and after a few years of freelancing, I took my chances as a designer in a small graphic studio in my home town. Since then I'm working at X3, and now I'm Managing Partner and Creative Director.

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You're known for using digital matte painting, can you tell us more about it?

It started as a hobby. I love to enhance landscapes. Every time I'm looking at a landscape I can imagine how I want it to be...so it's something that it's stuck in my mind and I can't help it. And sometimes these imaginary landscapes are going to be done in Photoshop. I rarely work in a 3D program for my personal illustrations and mattepaintings. Everything is made in Photoshop with image manipulation and digital painting because it's faster than 3D and I rarely do moving mattepaintings. Only then I use 2.5D and projection mapping techniques to get the work done.

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Do you experiment on using other mediums or techniques?

I love to experiment because it's the only way to discover new methods of visual expression. So I'm always using mixed media techniques to get the result I want. And since it's an experimental process, it's almost never the same. Sometimes I start sketching and doodling, scan and mix them in Photoshop with other photo manipulations, sometimes I start with photo manipulations and start brushing later. So I'm using charcoal, photos, films, different engraving techniques and various digital techniques to get the work done.

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I found your entry, "Puppeteers New Bride" very interesting. What's the story behind this?

It is a collaboration with artist Roy Bourkel for slashTHREEs Steampunk Artpack. Initially Roy had a sketch of a man with many hands facing down in a plain sky environment and he was stuck. I had this idea to make him look as a puppeteer with steampunk related elements, like a master of his craft playing with his latest creation, his bride. The story is enhanced by the contrast and tension between the two characters in term of position, color, shape, style and feeling. It is one of my favorite pieces.

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Achievement your most proud of so far?

Hmmm.. it must be that after 18 years of smoking, I quit almost two years ago. :) And professional related, it must be the smile of the people I'm helping with what I know better: visual communication. This gets me going on and on.

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You created a (starting) image for World Collabs. What was this experience like for you? And what was your inspiration for your entry?

The world collabs was my biggest collaboration so far. It was fun and I was happy that I could inspire some many new artists to continue my idea and make great artworks and also learn a bit how I work. I love to share because this is how I leared too. Behind my piece it really wasn't a planned idea, I just continued to develop the abstract shapes that I started and at the end I felt like I must add feeling to it and added the crying woman head. It's touching and interesting, at least for me and I hope that the viewers see it the same. :)

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What other projects are you planning to work on in the future?

Now I'm focusing on more projects, at X3 we are going to launch the second website version for our VisualFreaks project which is also a project we hope will be helpful to other artists and designers, and in personal projects, I'm focusing more on experimetnal type as the last one you've seen also in OFFF 2011 identity.

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