Robert Richter Parks
(5.11.1950 - 15.12.1996)

Today is the birthday of Robert Richter Parks, better known as Rick Parks.
He would be 65 had he not succumbed to cancer in 1996.

I've never known the man. All I have is the memory of his images that touched me when I was a kid.
They had some magic to them, something that made them different, better than others. It was kind
of hard to put one's finger on exactly why. They just "looked better" or "prettier."

Back then it was hard to explain why Eye of the Beholder II graphics were great and EOB3 and Dungeon
Hack's sucked. Now I can tell - the difference was the Artist behind them.

Now that I'm older, I see his artwork with a different eye and it simply blows my mind how great of a caliber
of an artist Rick Parks was. He could SEE THE LIGHT and transfer it onto his images despite the technological limitations
of 256 colors (or less on Amiga) and VGA resolution of the era.

The amount of detail is amazing: photo realistic main light, shadows, added accent lighting to separate the subject
from darker backgrounds, great choice of color for skin tones, angles and perspective. Once known, his style is so
distinctive and easily recognizable no matter how small or pixelated the pictures are. I think, I could even guess which EOB
character portraits were drawn by him or someone else.

I have just recently felt the yearning in me to discover who was the man behind my beloved games and their art.
Only a short time ago I've learnt for myself it was Rick Parks. Very little info is available about him on the Web.

I'll list the sparse links I've found that mention or talk about Rick Parks.
If you have more info, links or images, feel free to share.

Amiga Graphics Archive - collection of a few images
MobyGames - Rick Parks game credits
Ode to Rick Parks - from fellow Westwood artist Joseph Hewitt
Rick Parks @ The Mount Charleston Lodge- from Joseph Hewitt's blog
Reddit AMA with Joseph Hewitt - has a few mentions of Rick Parks
Reddit AMA with Frank Clepacki - Westwood Sound designer/composer
A blogpost mention and comments - Page seems broken - Select/highlight text to see it
Another blogpost and comments
Rick Parks' paintings on Ebay

PS I hope I'm not the only one here who appreciates Rick Parks' work and others won't mind this post.
PPS I'm not that great of a wordsmith to write a complete coherent article, so, please forgive me.
(I really should get back to work instead of reminiscing)