Momani Omar. Pencil on football

Many fans of football animation believe that Omar Momani is one of the most popular and objective masters of the football caricature today. His fame Jordanian animator is obliged to regular publications on the site Goal.com. How did the hobby come about - joke about football with a pencil? How difficult is it to create okussoristic humorous masterpieces? What are the artist's football preferences?

Momani Omar: "I feel quite happy!"

The football theme brought the young artist worldwide fame. On the Internet you can read his interviews with some publications. We will find out what the Jordanian cartoonist told himself about the journalists.

He liked to paint football players from childhood. Particularly fond of the team of Milan, which at that time was the best. Since then, she remains faithful to her. The players of Milan were his idols, the dream with which he grew up.

His football cartoons are funny and slightly critical. Creates their artist - on the topic of whether Milan or any other club - just for fun and laughter.

Momani Omar jokingly calls herself "a lonely 37-year-old man from Jordan": a passion for creativity and a busy schedule of work still did not allow him to seriously engage in building stable relations. But, as the artist confessed to journalists of the blog "Football pencil", secretly dreams of a family. Although: "In fact, I feel quite happy!" - says Momani Omar.

The artist was born in 1981 in Amman (Jordan), and lives here. His father was a doctor, his mother was a teacher, a psychologist from Cherkessia. The first major football tournament he saw, thanks to which the hobby for football was born - the 1990 World Cup.

How it all began?

Omar Momani seriously began to engage in football cartoons several years ago.

As a child, his notebooks did not have a living place from a wide variety of drawings. Most of all, he liked to redraw the characters from his favorite cartoons.

Then someone gave the future artist comics, to which he applied the paper and outlined the outlines. So he had a collection of Mickey Mouse and other cartoon characters.

At the football world championship, which was held in Italy in 1990, Omar admired the spectacle that staged "cool football players" and "shocking people": the artist still enthusiastically recalls Diego Maradona, Ruda Gullit, Salvatore Skilacchi, Lothar Matthaus, and others. The boy immediately created portraits of Gullit and Valderrama, struck by their crazy hairstyles. Meeting with them, Momani Omar considers a sign from his caricature future.

Football - a source of inspiration and earnings

The artist happened to test himself in various fields before the football caricatures became his profession: he graduated from the university, programming courses, worked as an artist and animator in Jordanian companies. But success did not find it.

In 2010, he tried himself in the genre of cartoons. Friends really liked it, hf, jns sent to the Jordanian editions.

Was promoted profile in Facebook, Momani Omar turned to the editorial offices of foreign websites. Soon, Goal.com offered cooperation. On the image of Mourinho in the image of a jester based on the press conference of Ferguson (the debut of a cartoonist in big football), the public's reaction was stormy. The whole world turned away from him, he wanted to quit everything.

But the call of the editor-in-chief put everything in order. The chief advised to pay attention to Ronaldo and Messi, who achieved great glory , millions of people worship and hate, but in spite of everything, they conquer new heights. "Be like them," said the chief, "and you will have success."

And then the young artist, rolling up his sleeves, continued to work.

Omar Momani enjoys the opportunity to professionally engage in what he likes from childhood - to draw football. He hopes to continue this occupation in the future. In addition, he is engaged in several other projects: draws politicians or just something humorous, is the producer of his first animated short film, plans to publish an autobiographical comic on the network.

Football stars refer to his "jokes" approvingly and with humor.

The artist positions himself as a regular fan of the Milan team. His favorite footballer of his childhood is Roberto Baggio. Today he considers Messi the best. He also admires Valderrama, Gullit, Socrates and Igita.

It's disappointing how Momani himself admits that in modern football there are fewer techniques than before. Although now football is faster, which requires athletes to keep fit. In addition, the team spirit is lost, it was killed by the self-interest of some players ...

Omar Momani: cartoons

Work on one picture, depending on the complexity, lasts 2-3 hours. The idea is being considered, the sketch is drawn with the pencil and discussed with the editor. Then the ink is used, then the image needs to be scanned, then it is colored using the photo editor.

His style of work was formed under the influence of a classic caricature of the 1930s and 1940s. In addition, a great impression is produced on the artist cartoon Peter Bagge.

Goal.com mainly orders to draw events that take place in the championships of England and Spain: the first is considered one of the most popular in Europe, the second is Barcelona and Real, in which the players of the highest demand are involved: Messi, Pepe and Ronaldo. The second is "Serie A" and "Bundesliga".

According to the artist, a static image has fewer possibilities in conveying meaning than animation. Recently, he had a channel on "Youtube", containing cartoons on the theme of football. In the artist's plans to develop this direction.

Now Omar Momani is looking for sponsors to create a series of full-fledged cartoons, where everything in motion and fantasy is not limited.