Studio/Artist Exploration: Ramomar Buckley

Egyptian Pharaoh Tutankhamun and Queen Ankhesenamun

Link to "Ramomart" Website

Ramomar (or Omar) Buckley is an artist of Jamaican-American heritage who developed his lifelong passion at the High School of Art and Design in Manhattan, the Fashion Institute of Technology, and the National Academy School of Fine Arts in New York City. Although his studies have covered canonical European masters like Rembrandt, Leonardo da Vinci, and Monet, he prefers to apply his skills to more "exotic" or non-Western subject matter such as characters from Asian, Middle Eastern, Mesoamerican, and most of all Nile Valley African history (his current moniker evokes the Egyptian sun deity Ra).

Nubian royalty from ancient Sudan

By far Ramomar's favorite genre of artwork to produce, or at least the best represented on his site's gallery, are painted and sketched portraits of royalty and gods from native Egyptian and Nubian culture. Personalities he has portrayed include the Egyptian Amenhotep III, Ramses II, Tiye, Akhenaten, and the Nubian Piye (or Pianki) and Taharqa. I admire how Ramomar's portraits so faithfully match those of authentic ancient statuary from those cultures, yet he renders them as they may have looked as flesh-and-blood people. And he certainly portraits the indigenous, pre-Islamic Egyptians' appearance much more accurately than most other artists (take notes, Ridley Scott).

Egyptian Pharaoh Amenhotep III

An example of Ramomar's grayscale drawings

As far as Flash software is concerned, Ramomar's website uses it mostly for simple navigation. There are pull-down menus at the top that provide links you to his various galleries (which include not only Egyptian and Nubian portraits but also those from Greco-Roman and Middle Eastern history, commissioned portraits, and photography), and clicking on each gallery image's thumbnail will blow it up to full size. It isn't the most elaborate use of Flash or similar software, but I believe it is serviceable for the artist's showcasing purpose. My only real complaint is that some of the non-Egyptian/Nubian galleries are a little too small (including several with only one image in them), so I think he could stand to merge them together into a larger, more inclusive section.

But overall I believe it is worth your time if you're into ancient Egyptian and Nubian history and want to see a non-Eurocentric representation of its people.

Orisinal : an Uber cute Flash Game site

http://www.ferryhalim.com/orisinal/


Orisinal has been one of my favorite pastime online. It is the brain child of Ferry Halim, a professional flash artist based out of Clovis, CA. He started this site for fun in 2000, and kept adding new games to it ever since.

His graphic style is clean, refreshing and whimsical. The game play is simple yet addictive, though wonderfully well rounded when it comes to user experience (he thought of all the conditions of game interactions).

My favorite games are "A Daily cup of tea", in which a team of 2 tiny mice tries to steal a whole cupboard full of sugar cubes, evading bouncing balls, falling books and bees. Another one of my favorites is "Cats", in which the player "herds" cats, its quite ingenious how he (presumably?) used the invisible buttons as cats.

He has since started developing/converting some of the popular games into iOS games. I have a couple of these games, and he has not only incorporated simple game play from Flash but also user experiences unique to iOS such as the accelerometer. I highly recommend these games (online and on iOS).

by Angela X. Wang

Artist Exploration

Philip received his formal education at Paier College of Art where he earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Illustration and received advanced training in computer illustration in the period of 1991 – 1995. His work career started in 1994. Philip is currently employed with Warner Brothers Games, in Seattle since 2009 as their Art Director and has worked in multiple other places; among them are Big Fish Games, Unity Entertainment, NcSoft, and Electronic Arts Tiburon. He has held many titles from Studio Art Director to his current title of Art Director. In the process of his employment so far, he has worked on Madden, NCAA, NASCAR 06: Total Team Control (PS2, Xbox, Xbox 360), NFL Street (PS2, Xbox, GC), Tiger Woods ( PS3, Xbox360) NFL Head Coach (PS2, Xbox, PC), Superman Returns: The Videogame (PS2, Xbox360, GC, PC), Guild Wars 2, Tabula Rasa, Lineage (PC), 3 Unannounced Original IP (PC, Wii) for NcSoft, currently he is working on Lord of the Rings: War in the North, 1 Unanounced Title (XBOX 360, PS3, PC). 2008 through Feb. of 2009 Philip took the time to work exclusively on the Utherworlds and Secret Places interactive properties (PC) both game and interactive book. Utherworlds is currently being made into a feature film. The interactive book can be found on line at http://www.utherworlds.com it is amazing.

Philip has done lectures and workshops and classes since 2001 some of the titles have included Environment Concept Art, Creating Concept Art in the Entertainment Industry, Corel Painter Promotional Event, Siggraph "D'artiste, Fundamental Illustration Using Digital Tools; From Student to Successful Illustrator, and The Illustration Process. He has done multiple interviews with various different Web sites and magazines.

Philip Straub is also a traditional artist as well as an Illustrator. He focuses on invoking an emotional response from his images through composition, color, light and subject matter. He has achieved international acclaim among a variety of artistic circles through his use of traditional media with 3D and 2D software to create his illustrations. Philip Straub has entered in at least 47 art competitions and won at least 5 times. Those wins include the “The Society of Illustrators” 37th annual student competition scholarship, Silver Medal in the "Society of Illustrators Los Angeles" 44th annual competion, 2006; Bronze Medal in the "Society of Illustrators Los Angeles" 47th annual competion, 2009; Award of Excellence from Web Awards for Utherworlds.com, 2010; Grand Prize for Design in the 2010 Indie Book Awards for Utherworlds, 2010. He has also been awarded with eight Kota Awards, two 3D Total Image Awards, and Twelve CG Talk Choice Awards. Straub has acted as Judge in competitions for The Society of Illustrators, CG Networks and Corel Painter 10. As well as serving as Advisory Board Member for Expose 3 years running and as CG Society Advisory Board Founding Member five years running. He has shown his work in at least seventeen different Gallery and Trade Shows including Los Vegas Art Expo 2007 and Art of Digital 2006.

His work has been published in Spectrum for their “Best in Contemporary Fantastic Art 4,5,8,11,12,13,14,15,16, and 17”; also in “ The New Masters of Fantasy” Vol. II and III. Over 30 children’s books contain his art work under the license of Mercer Mayer’s Critters of the Night series, Little Critter Series, Little Monster book and Nickelodeon’s Rugrats license. He and his wife continue with their own line of children’s books in the Imaginaries series. Some of the illustrations from the Imaginaries have been used on children’s back packs. And, of course, Utherworlds book, website and in the future feature film.

Straub has marketed his licensed designs on a wide variety of products: textiles, stationary. Scrapbooking. Wall Murals, lenticular prints, puzzles, games, books, and children’s backpacks. Among his clients are Mattel, Fisher Price, Disney, Universal studios, Warner Brothers, DC Comics, and Knowledge Adventure. His freelance clients include many big names such as: Nickolodeon, Toyota, National Geographic, Golden books, Random House, TSR, McGraw-Hill, Mercer Mayer, Big Tuna Trading, Softmotion, RJ Reynolds, Fisher Price, Matttel, Universal Studios, Zoo Publishing, Harper Collins, 3D Total, Electronic Arts, Ballistic Media, Corel, Harper Collins, Sci Fi Channel, Sunsout Puzzles, and Scholastic. His lessor known freelance clients include Stylorouge, Popcap Games, The Canadian Group, Gander Mountain, Martin Design, American Traditional, Harper Festival, Magic the Gathering, Simon and Schuster, Utne Reader, John Wiley and Sons, Synthelabo Global, Wizards of the Coast, CR Gibson, David Textiles, Satchi and Satchi, Brewster Wallcoverings, Future Publishing, Draft Worldwide, Bonner and Co., and Cendant. Throughthese clients his work has appeared on broadcast media, book jackets, CD Covers, Magazine covers, trading cards, in feature films and in advertizing.