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Entertainment of Tuesday, 16 March 2021

Source: Mark Muhammed Iyodo, Contributor

Nigeria's Umaimah Damaka becoming a sought after illustrator in America

Nigeria's Umaimah Damaka Nigeria's Umaimah Damaka

The holder of Bachelor of Arts (BA) in Animation from the prestigious Savannah College of Arts and Design. A visual development artist and animation designer from Nigeria blazing the trail and has become a sought-after Artist in America as she currently works as a color designer with Disney on a reboot for the award-winning show, THE PROUD FAMILY.

According to (UNICEF/2013/Esiebo), "Gender like geography and poverty is an important factor in the pattern of Education marginalization. The states in the North-East and North-West have a female primary net attendance rate of 47.7 percent and 47.3 percent respectively, meaning that more than half of the girls child are not in school, this Education deprivation in Northern Nigeria is driven by various factors such as Economic, Social Cultural norms and practices which discourages attendance in formal Education for girls".

However, irrespective of the above factors amongst many, Miss UMAIMAH DAMAKKA with an Hausa/Fulani parentage from Sokoto and Kano rose against all odds breaking barriers to become a greatly sought out Visual Development Artist and Animation Designer from Northern Nigeria in America and beyond.

While growing up in Northern Nigeria, the young Arts genius, loved to watch Cartoons from studios like Disney, Cartoon Network, and Nickelodeon. She also spent part of her time reading the Archie Comics often supplied to her Mum's store, it was the beginning of her love for the arts.

Seeing these imaginary characters come live on screen was magical to UMAIMAH, it was good to note that she had always wanted to be part of creating a whole fictional world that viewers could relate to and fall in love with.

The burden Artist love for Cartoons reflect the consciousness that many of the animated shows she watches does not reflect her kind of world. She then uses the style we see in animation to design Characters, paint Worlds and stories based on Nigeria or draw girls like her.

The hard-working young UMAIMAH is a Digital Artist, which means she creates her work using hardware like iPads, or Wacom Tablets with software like procreate or Adobe Photoshop. These are industry standard tools in the animation world. Whiles in college, her work was noticed by award-winning director and actor Jordan Peele, and it was featured in a Universal studio Gallery show.

Furthermore, in her final year, she co-directed and was the art director of the short film HARVEST, which is currently making its way through film festivals with awards and official selections. She is a fresh graduate with BA in Animation from the prestigious Savannah College of Arts and Design. After, she had worked with studios like Cartoon Network, Sesame studio, and Disney TV animation with offers from other places like Warner Brothers and Harper Collins which has made her among other things one of the most sought-after Visual Development Artist and Animation Artist. She also freelances for published authors under Harper Collins. She currently works as a Colour Designer with Disney TV Animation on a reboot for the award-winning TV show THE PROUD FAMILY.

Finally, when she is not drawing and falling in love with Cartoons, she spent those times reading love novels, perfecting her cooking skills and talking with her families back home.