SOCIAL media was raving over a series of colorful, animated illustrations inspired by the games of the University Athletics Association of the Philippines (UAAP). The masterpieces were made by Ran Carmona, an AB Animation major from De La Salle-College of St. Benilde (DLS-CSB).

Carmona started drawing at the age of 5, moving on to painting on canvass in high school, and creating digital art in 2009. Surprisingly, art was not his first course; he actually took up and finished nursing, but his passion for art was so strong, he flew to Qatar after college and worked as a graphic designer for two and a half years.

What made you decide to create UAAP fan art?

I’ve been wanting to make UAAP fan art as early as two seasons ago, but never really had the time to do it. I’m a big fan of the UAAP especially the Green Archers, of course.

A month ago, I decided to make Green Archers fan art using my style and posted it on my Facebook art page. I received a ton of messages from students from other UAAP universities requesting me to make artwork similar to what I did for their schools. Because of that, I decided to make fan art of all UAAP teams.

How long did it take you to make each school artwork?

It takes me a day or two to conceptualize a design, and four to five hours to make it from sketch to finish.

Describe your style. What are your inspirations?

Mostly mythical characters, anime, MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game) and things related to that. My Green Archers art was
inspired by the elves in “Lord of the Rings.”

My style of art is a mixture of East and West. I’m a big fan of Western animation like Disney’s “Treasure Planet.” I also grew up watching Japanese anime and dreamed of making something like it someday. To create my own identity as an artist, I mixed both and came up with my own style.

What’s next?

Carmona will be working on fan art for the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) member schools since he also got requests for them.

His ultimate dream, though, is to work for Disney or Dreamworks, and establish a local animation studio with the same high quality of storytelling and animation as international studios.