JaMiE BaKeR: fallout

It is a winter’s Christmas Eve where I am as I write this, but it is already a summer’s Christmas Day in my home town, which is where this picture was taken during a break in play at LAST year’s Happy Christmas Day Cricket match played behind my Dad’s house. Shown here, taking a well earned rest from fielding in the summer sun, are Batman and Santa Claus hanging out with my Nephew Tyler.

It’s a magical time of year to be sure…

2005: the year in review
The Bad
JOE RANFT and DAN LEE, Two powerhouse animation talents, died this year.

The many shocking Natural disasters that rocked the world.

The Good
In response to the tragedies, Maverix Studios raise $47,000 for charities in several Art-Auctions, including one for the Asian Tsunami and one for the Pakistan Earthquakes

After a self-publishing hiatus, I completed a new comic that I was very happy with.

I discovered a new literary obsession; the Aubrey Maturin Novels.

It was just announced on the Maverix Studios Blog that the money raised during the fierce bidding-battles at their Holiday-party/art-auction a few weeks ago totalled a mighty $12,000!

Not bad considering that the benefit was arranged in under 3 weeks. This means that the Maverix guys have raised a grand total of $47,000 dollars for charities during their three fund-raisers in 2005.

I competed for some paintings by Patrick Awa, Steve Purcell and Jennifer Chang but was defeated in each of those arenas…But I didn’t go home empty handed or dissatisfied, as I managed to win this neat little Lady matador painting by Bosco Ng.

Some of my pals have been been cranking out some inspiring animation I want to tell you about. What I like about each of these spots is that they are all boldly stylized, proudly 2D and show that “limited” animation doesn’t have to be limited at all…

Chris Hauge and Halo Pictures in Sydney recently produced a nifty MTV ASIA station ID for Passion-Pictures Australia. It has some beautifully timed animation that matches well the stylings of Nathan Jurevicius who designed and oversaw the production. The spot is called MONKEY KING.

Robert Valley, the enigmatic founder of Maverix Studios, produced this personal project a year or two ago, some of you may have seen it before, perhaps when it was screened at the Maverix booth at Comic-con. but in celebration of both the fact that Rob’s website is finally back online and the coolness of the piece itself, ladies and gentlemen, I present MASSIVE SWERVE.

A few months ago I plugged Charlie Canfield’s political AD which featured an animated Arnold Shwarzenegger done in a digitally produced, cut-out animation technique. See that same technique in a much more wholesome vein; a personal project animated to Mozart’s One Minute Waltz. The piece is called HIDE AND SEEK.

The Ghostbot guys have now added a gallery of animation on their website. So rather than mention one of the spots I’ll just tell you to go look at ALL of them. If you live in the USA you’ll recognize the stylish and snappy ESURANCE commercials. Interestingly they also have a spot animated in the style of Nathan Jurevicius but be sure to have a look at everything there.

My good buddy PATRICK Awa emailed me this preview of his submission to the Maverix Art-party that I have been hyping the last few days. Yet another beautiful piece by Pat, which is no surprise: his artwork has prompted some furious bidding battles at the Maverix Fund-raiser parties in the past and I’m sure that this will be the object of fierce check-book battling as well…

If you’ve read my news page before then you’ve realized that Denis BODART is one of my favourite artists. I visit Bodart’s blog daily (sometimes TWICE daily) to see the inspiring artwork there, with the bonus that he is posting work on his new book INDEH as he does it. Recently my good pal HERVAL (who I’ve only met so far through the internet and email) sent me a issue of a magazine called “L’inedit” that devotes half its pages to Mr. Bodart. Lots of sketches and page breakdowns, character research and other tasty goodies.

But even if you don’t own a copy of that issue of L’Inedit you can see some of it’s contents online now at the The Character Design Blog which has just posted an interview with Bodart. I recommend that you go read it and also look at the artwork posted below the interview. In some cases his page pencils and the finished inked and coloured pages can be seen side by side. What are you waiting for? Go look!

This week I had a visit from my brother Jo who was in town for a conference. When not spending quality time with the bro, I have been messing about with some gouache, watercolour and acrylic paints in an effort to make some artwork for the MAVERIX holiday party fundraiser next Week. I will have 9 pieces in the show, ranging in size from a tiny 3.5×5 inch doodle (the Rocket and Professor pic at top left) to a couple of 8×10 inch paintings, and all are framed. I made 6 pieces from scratch this week and the rest were some oldies that I framed for this show.

I had a lot of fun throwing the colours around as it is not something I have been doing much of lately. Even when I do use colour I am very much from the “draw and then colour it in” school, which is to say, that I don’t really know how to paint, to build a picture from slabs of light and colour rather than lines and edges. I need to do this more often.

When I went into Maverix Studios today to drop off my submissions, I saw a stash of great artwork submitted by artists from all over the Bay Area. The likes of Ronnie del Carmen, Jennifer Chang, Ed Bell, Steve Purcell, Ralph Eggleston, Scott Morse, Enrico Casarosa… and on and on… I was feeling pretty good about my artwork until I saw the submissions from those art-masters, sheesh!

You can see just SOME of the pieces submited so far in an online gallery on the Maverix site. check their BLOG throughout the next few days for updates.