JaMiE BaKeR: fallout

I have been busy lately, but creative output on my personal projects has been slow… Which sounds like a good excuse to post about interesting things my friends have been doing.

Sanjay Patel has completed a new book, called RAMAYANA: DIVINE LOOPHOLE, this time published by CHRONICLE BOOKS. It is another of his explorations of, and introductions to, the stories told about Indian gods, done in his super elegant graphic style (the real Indian deity is Sanjay himself, in my opinion). I’ve seen this beautiful book but arrived too late to secure my own copy at his recent book signing at SUPER 7. You can order your copy now from AMAZON.

Brian McDonald also has recently published a new book, called INVISIBLE INK, all about the secrets of telling a good story. Some of the ideas have been mentioned on his always interesting INVISIBLE INK blog, but the book contains all of his wisdom and many years of experience as a screenwriter and teacher of story-telling, bound in one tidy package. I have already read the manuscript and fully intend to pick up a copy of this great book. It is available now on AMAZON.

Rhode Montijo has been up to more of his street-art hijinks… Spreading good-vibes and creativity for no other reason than he enjoys doing so; a philosophy that I greatly admire. I already posted about his CRAYON PORTRAITS caper and now you can read about OPERATION SNOWMAN on his own blog HERE. After years of enjoying such Rhode shenanigans as this, I am beginning to suspect that he is actually an elf, or hobbit or some other such magical creature, and not human at all.

Working at LAIKA Studios in Beautiful Portland has allowed me to meet some wonderful artists. None of whom I had met before, but some who’s work I was already familiar with.

VERA BROSGOL is incapable of doing an un-appealing drawing. Beautiful storyboard drawings simply SQUIRT from her fingertips (personally, I have to GRUNT mine out). Not only a bad-ass storyboarder, (one of the tiny story-team on CORALINE) Vera is also a comics artist extraordinaire (a founding member of FLIGHT). I saw a book she is working on now and it is just super; the writing, the drawing, the works. More about Vera on her site and not-very-often-updated blog.

GRAHAM ANNABLE‘s brilliant work was familiar to me long before I ever met him. He is one of the founders of the HICKEE comics anthology and his YOUTUBE animation has given me chuckles for ages now. Graham’s sense of animation timing is truly hilarious. He too is a super storyboard artist (another CORALINE alumnus) and this master of all things also finds time to keep a regularly updated Blog

CHRIS TURNHAM‘s lovely designs for CORALINE can be seen on his Blog. His beautiful artwork also graces the walls of one of the project development rooms at Laika (I sneak in there to check out his paintings for inspiration every so often). Chris is part of a book collaboration with his friend Kevin Dart, and more info about Chris’ very own art prints can be found at at his folio website.

Rather than post my own Christmas card, here’s a link to a Christmas post by Rhode Montijo. Both he and his writer pal Jason Jaworski recently set up on Broadway in New York city to make hand-drawn crayon portraits and type-written short stories for the passer-by Christmas shoppers. In return, the recipients were encouraged to donate to a Salvation Army bell-ringer standing nearby. I am no longer surprised when Rhode surprises me; he has so often inspired me in the past. But this new idea of his is something EXTRA special.

Derek Thompson’s website is called DerekMonster because of his love of drawing monsters but the moniker also fits the man himself, because he is an ART MONSTER. Derek will share his hyperactive and hyper-talented style of magic in his forthcoming lecture in the Gnomon Workshop series of DVDs, where artists from the film, comics and illustration industries each show their working processes. (I wish something like these DVDs had been available when I was a teenager- all I had was mail-in, learn-to-draw classes). Derek’s instructional DVD will be ready in time for Comic Con but a fore-taste of the Derek flava can be had by reading DEREK’s GNOMON INTERVIEW.

Years ago, I worked at a studio where a lot of extra-curricular funny drawings were done by the crew. We drew caricatures of eachother, or of people seen on the streets at lunch hour, and we traded goofy doodles about funny things that happened around the studio, in-jokes and other silly stuff, and I joined in all these shenanigans as best as I was able.

One of the drawing battles I was happy to watch from the side lines was the ongoing airplane drawing contest between Simon O’Leary and Arthur Filloy. Both of them were, and still are, incredible cartoonists and mad-keen airplane enthusiasts. They would outdo eachother in drawing great caricatures of fantastic aircraft; both real and imagined.

Now, all these many years later, Arthur has a blog showing those great old drawings. Please visit DRAWN PATROL to see doodles of real planes (such as this cute little ME 262 drawn by Arthur) or drawings of made-up Soviet fighter planes, experimental aircraft of the Luftwaffe, or failed aircraft of the RAF and Japanese air force (complete with bogus engine specifications and made-up aircraft histories). With any luck Arthur will set up other blogs for his hilarious Star Wars sketches and very funny fake Japanese toy designs…

This picture shows the partnership between one of my all-time favourite human beings, Mr John Stevenson, and PO, a character designed by one of my all-time favourite artists, Nicolas Marlet. As I write this, John is currently wowing them in Cannes with his new movie, KUNG FU PANDA, which he directed (alongside John Osborne).

The look of the movie is based on the ever-elegant animal designs of Nicolas Marlet. Although he is very highly regarded by all who have ever worked with him and seen his drawings in person, it can be very hard to find samples of his work. The ART OF KUNG FU PANDA book will be a pretty good consolation prize for all of Nico’s many fans, who have been waiting in vain for him to start a blog or website, and it will certainly be on the must-have list of many artists in the animation community.

Kung Fu Panda is one of the movies that I am most looking forward to seeing this year, and that is really saying something, because 2008 is shaping up to be one of the best cinematic years to be a nerd. The last time I went to the movies (to see Ironman) there were an almost overwhelming number of trailers (or coming-soon posters in the lobby) for movies coming out this year, all of which built-in have nerd-appeal. Starting with Ironman, the nerd-friendly film roster continues with Speed Racer, Narnia, Indiana Jones, Kung Fu Panda, The Happening, The Incredible Hulk, Get Smart, Wall-E, Wanted, Hancock, Hellboy, The Dark Knight, The X-Files, The Mummy and Tropic Thunder. I am not interested in ALL of those films but I am certainly looking forward to quite a few of them.

And even if most of them suck then we movie-nerds will have even MORE stuff to complain about (which is almost more fun than actually liking stuff). Verily we live in the Golden Age of being a nerd.

I want to share with you some of the great artwork that I have come by in the past few weeks. My grimy little dump of an apartment is not worthy of these pieces, or the other great stuff I have bought recently. I don’t even have enough wall space to hang it all… and yet it makes me feel so good to own a growing collection of artwork by my pals…

First up is a great picture that my pal Rhode gave me as a Christmas present before I went home to Australia. It was wrapped in Christmas paper but I didn’t want to carry it on the plane and I didn’t want to wait till the new year to open it, so I sneaked a peek at this AWESOME pic just before leaving on my trip… only to behold the power of YODA and RHODE combined on the one piece of paper! TWO masters for the price of one… it was a powerful omen that this would be the best Christmas ever (and it sure was!) Getting a scan of this pic was pretty tricky because this piece BURNED MY FINGERS when I took it out of the frame. Get me an oven-mitt cuz this pic is HAWT!!

Next up are two magnificent pieces that I won at the last Maverix charity art Auction, that raised $9,500 for the Children’s Creative Media Arts Center of Glide Community Church.

This beautiful piece by Patrick Awa is called DRUM THUNDER GIRL. No scan can do this painting justice. Finished in Gold paint, it dazzles the human eye. I wanted this picture from the first moment I saw some early sketches on Pat’s blog and I battled fiercely at the live auction to win it.

At this particular auction I resolved to spend the money that I had budgeted for TWO auctions, because I had gone home empty-handed the last time, and so I was empowered to be an aggressive bidder at the live-auction…

Behold this whimsically beautiful pic of Rhode’s. I had bid on his artwork at each auction before, and had always been denied when others pushed the prices beyond my budget, but not this time my friends, Oh no! I was determined to possess one of his artworks (not knowing that I would get another for Christmas) and verily, this time it was I who prevailed, winning this great Rhode pic in yet ANOTHER live-auction battle.

I normally write a detailed account of the Maverix Auctions but this time I was on a plane to Australia within a few days and didn’t have the time to post about it until now. For more about the latest Maverix art auction, read Patrick’s Awa’s account, check out Carlos Baena’s photos and some more photos by Bosco Ng.

Randall Sly has put up a small ONLINE TRIBUTE to the late, great DAN LEE at the always interesting Character Design Blog. Many people here in the Bay Area animation community knew and loved Dan, but for those of you who may not have heard of him, he was one of the main character designers at Pixar, doing some GREAT work on FINDING NEMO and most recently RATATOUILLE. Dan died of cancer in 2005, at the age of 35.