JaMiE BaKeR: fallout

One of the many things that amazes me about PIXAR is that the employees work at such a high level during the day, and yet somehow find time and energy to excel in their own projects and personal lives as well (I have never figured out how to do all three; If I work hard at one aspect of my life, the other two go all to hell). Many Pixar artists’ websites have already been listed in my LINKS and BLOGROLL, and the list grows daily. Check out a few MORE blogs by the over-achieving A-students at PIXAR:

SpudVision is Steve Purcell’s blog. Steve has been an inspiration to me since long before I had the good fortune to work with him. When I first came to America as a tourist in 1989, I stayed in an apartment where there was a big pile of indie and underground comics, including SAM & MAX, which is a hilarious book as anyone who has read it will surely agree.

Bill Cone was the production designer of Bug’s Life and Cars, who I first met when we both worked at Colossal Pictures many years ago. His new blog features his beautiful plein air pastel pictures and some of his observations of light and colour effects, which is a real treat for those of us who are chromatically challenged.

Shublog is the outpost of super-talent Jay Shuster, designer of cool machines in the STAR WARS prequel films. He is now at Pixar and designed many of the characters in CARS and WALL-E. His new blog displays his sketches (freehand drawn in ink) and photos of his furniture made from aircraft parts and other bits and pieces..

Caveat Productions is where Pixar story-artist Dan Scanlon posts about the live-action movie he has been making over the past few years. Anyone who not only works in animation during the day but makes a film in their spare time has my undivided admiration. Dan also posts lots of other funny gags and drawings, so please go visit his blog.

Cooley! is a place for funnyman Josh Cooley to ramble on about all manner of subjects. He posts essays on his Television obsessions, ideas for inappropriate Children’s books, and some funny sketches and paintings and other glimpses into the ID of a Pixar story-artist and pop-culture afficionado…

Leonardo is a blog where another Pixar storyman, Jim Capobianco, keeps us up to date on his personal film, an animated film this time. Jim also posts about other projects such as his work on the MY FRIEND THE RAT short. I don’t know how he finds the time to do all the stuff he manages to do.

I want to show you two sites that showcase sculptures made from scrap. STEPHANE HALLEUX is a Belgian sculptor who makes incredible things out of bits and pieces of leather and old machine parts. His work is very inspiring and I recommend that you all take a look-see at his site. Click on each of the menus on the left side from “Personnages” (characters) to “Croquis” (sketches) to see a wide selection of his fantastic and whimsical creations, that include people, animals, machines, and vehicles. (Thanks to Tony for telling me about this artist).

The second site has been on my LINKS page for a while now but it seems appropriate to mention it again here in this post, because it too features sculptures made from bits and pieces of old junk. BENNETT ROBOT WORKS, as you’d expect from the title of the site, focuses exclusively on sculptures of ROBOTS in all shapes and sizes. They all have a retro-tech quality and a ton of personality, each being made entirely from a unique configuration of found objects. If you fall in love with one, the good news is that each of them is for sale.

Frequent visitors to this blog will have noticed that I have Star Wars on the brain at the moment… Here’s a little doodle (3×4 inches) of Princess LEIA done while watching TV last night..

You’ve all no doubt heard of HAN SOLO, but what about his sister; TRUMPET SOLO? (That nugget of internet gold courtesy of CHRIS.)

Some fans of RED SQUADRON made a great, life-sized X-Wing rocket that actually takes off! Not to be outdone, GOLD SQUADRON fans staged their own Y-Wing rocket launch! (Thanks to MICHEAL MAY for these links.)

Behold this neato Darth Vader T-Shirt and also this collection of Star Wars Pixel art. (Sent to me by MR. BKON!)

UPDATE: Here is the FINAL INKED VERSION.

More STAR WARS characters HERE and HERE.

Since getting my copy of Ralph McQuarrie’s new book I’ve been geeking out hard on Star Wars. So skip this post unless you are prepared to trip down that nerd path with me.

A few nights back, I spent a few hours online trying to track down a few images I had seen years ago. After almost giving up the hunt, I stumbled upon a fantastic online catalogue of pulp magazine covers that contained the first thing I was looking for; a black and white sketch illustration and colour cover from July 1975 issue of ANALOG Magazine:

Both were drawn by John Schoenherr to illustrate a short science fiction story called And Seven Times Never Kill Man written by George R.R. Martin. These crossbow wielding furry alien warriors certainly remind me of one the characters from a blockbuster-hit science fantasy film that came out two years after this issue hit the news stands.

As a kid, Chewbacca was one of my favourite characters and was a rare case of my preferring what appeared in the film over any of Ralph McQuarrie’s early designs, which looked more like a big, bug-eyed lemur. You other Chewie fans out there might enjoy this theory that, when viewed as a whole, the Star Wars films reveal that R2D2 and Chewie are really in control (It’s a long read but interesting and fun).

Another fan has come up with a funny theory that Leia and Luke got busy after the Death Star was destroyed in the first Star Wars movie. Yes! Worth a read, eh? (short, funny read)

Speaking of Luke, fanboys and haters still debate Mark Hamill’s career and argue over his acting chops. Despite what many people say, I think that Mark Hamill is far from being a bad actor. In fact, compared to the relentlessly stiff acting by Samuel Jackson, Liam Neeson, Ewan McGregor and many of the other respected actors in the prequels, Hamill’s portrayal of Luke’s growth from whiny farm boy to Jedi Badass is actually one of the better performances in the Star Wars movies… (Bracing for a backlash in my comments section )

More can be found out about the original trilogy actors in the where are they now article including some sad pics showing how the aging process works on fresh young faces….

Look at this history of the screenplay drafts of the original movie, starting with the rough outline written in 1973. Most of these drafts are barely recognisable as the final film, and pretty terrible into the bargain… which I found inspiring in a way; Don’t give up on your idea if it seems shonky at first. Just keep plugging away at it until it works.

The next thing I found during my exhaustive “research” online is a great picture of the Prototype Darth Vader which more closely resembles the original Ralph McQuarrie design. I had never seen this picture or anything like it before. Isn’t the internet wonderful?

And, finally, here is the second image that I went online to search for in the first place; a painting by Syd Mead done way back in 1968 for the book “CONCEPTS” as a promotion for for US STEEL. Does this gizmo remind you of anything? A wicked cool walking vehicle from a 1980 smash-hit science-fantasy film perhaps? It’s even walking around in the snow!

I think it’s time; I need to watch the original three movies again…

This picture was drawn years ago for my friend JOY who used to have a retro clothing line called FROCK & ROLL. (These days she designs under the label of HOT COUTURE).

The recent discovery of an old, water-damaged portfolio has prompted me to sort through my sketchbooks and stacks of scribbles and make a digital back-up of my older drawings (the newer ones have already been scanned at some point). I really SHOULD be doing a mini comic for Comic-Con but I am having the worst mental-block about it, which is what inspired me to sift through old drawings in the first place, looking for some inspiration.

One bonus of this spate of scanning, is that I have been updating and resizing some of the scans in the ART section of this site (for example this, this, this and that). Many of the images in my galleries were scanned years ago (as long ago as 2000) and were consequently posted at the tiny size required in the pre-DSL internet days.

For the past few years I’ve been posting about the elusive comics/animation artist Tony Salmons, both in this here blog (see posts here and here) and also on forums devoted to drawing (such as the DRAWING BOARD threads here and here.

A lot of people I know feel that Tony should be a lot more famous than he is, but part of the reason that more people don’t know about him is that there hasn’t been any one place where you can track the guy down and see his work (or even send him work) as he moves around a lot from place to place, and from industry to industry.

However that may be about to change, as the man finally has a site of his own where you can get all the Salmons you need in one hit. And if you still want more you’ll be able to contact the mysterious man himself for some commisssions.

The site is still under construction, but the best part, the art galleries, are already there; a very tasty two of them hilariously labelled “babes” and “brutes.” If you are a fan of fearless pen and brush work then get your bad self over to the official Tony Salmons website right now and start clicking!

Due to my special inside-track relationship with Tony Stacchi’s webmaster I have the hot tip of the week: There has been a BIG upload of new artwork onto Mr Stacchi’s website. The FOLIO section at www.STACCHI.com now contains about twice as many pics as before.

Tony is one of the directors on the forthcoming CG cartoon called OPEN SEASON, which will be SONY’s first foray into the world of feature animation. If you want a laugh, and can’t wait (till september 2006) for the movie then check out this thread on a hunting forum where a bunch of hunters get upset about the “anti-hunting propaganda” that they thought they saw in the trailer for this cartoon.

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.

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!

Thanks to a tip-off from HERVAL I just heard the best news of the week; there is now a DENIS BODART blog.

I first became familiar with Bodart’s work when I lived in Paris (about 15 years ago) and I stumbled upon his books in one of those wonderful comics shops that they have in France. Since I no longer live over there, it has been hard for me to keep up with his output. It seems that he rarely comes out with a book these days…

(I have written about him in my blog before. You can read those posts here and here).

So, I am happy about the fact that he has a presence on the web where, hopefully, we can get a look at what he is doing as he does it.