JaMiE BaKeR: fallout

Here is another bit of professional work done on a project that went into hibernation. It is an exploration for an easy-to-draw futuristic flight suit. Although the colours I had in mind were black, grey and purple, I hoped that it might look a bit skeletal when worn.

A few years ago I was given the chance to design my version of a certain martial arts bear that is currently entertaining audiences in movie theatres across the land. The job was only for two or three days, just until the creative team came to their senses and used the supernaturally talented designer who was already working at that studio (there is a certain sense of satisfaction in knowing that my lameness was instrumental in pushing them in the right direction). In the short time available, I only got as far as a few pages of scribbles, but this Big Baby version is one of my favourites of the several variations I came up with.

If you haven’t seen this movie yet, by all means hurry out and see it soon. I think that it is one of the best animated movies in years. It is gorgeous to look at and beautifully animated with some of the best action sequences I’ve seen in any movie lately; fast paced, kinetic and cutty without ever being confusing… The story is funny without being flippant or snide, or drenched in pop-culture wise-ass-ery. Plus, it really delivers some pure, sweet moments that aren’t saccharine, which is one of the hardest things to do in any movie.

Here is my take on “the baddie” in a project I worked on recently. The job died almost as soon as I delivered the artwork… which was a bunch of character studies; both B/W sketches and a few colour pics like this one. 90% of such jobs tend to die on the operating table.

I have been doing a lot of travelling around lately; I was working in Portland for a few weeks and then flew to the East Coast to spend a week with my brother and his family at their new home in Virginia. Then, before coming back to Portland, I made a quick trip to San Francisco to attend the wrap party for Pixar’s latest movie, WALL-E.

This is definitely one of the most ambitious pictures that Pixar has ever made. Seeing Pixar’s version of sci-fi is a lot of fun (I have always had a soft spot for cartoon science fiction, such as DUCK DODGERS). A lot of people are going to fall in love with the main character of this film. Thanks to some great design and some superb animation, that rusty robot is a very, very appealing little guy on screen. I worked on WALL-E a few years ago, doing a little work in the art department, followed by a short stint in the story team. And yet, it has been so long since I had seen any of the story reels that there had been quite a few changes to the story, so I had some surprises in watching the film. Being able to watch a movie that you’ve worked on with more-or-less fresh eyes is a treat.

The big surprise for me was seeing PRESTO, the new Pixar short directed by Doug Sweetland. I had heard nothing at all about what this project was about, although I knew that it was being made, and that some great talents (such as Doug Sweetland, Teddy Newton and the mighty Ted Mathot) were working on it. Because I knew nothing at all about it, it was a real joy to watch. It has a great premise that is beautifully designed, full of clever ideas, involving some really funny, broad physical comedy… all brought to life with whip-crack animation timing and great posing. It is probably my favourite Pixar short, so far. I wont say anything more, lest I spoil the fun for the rest of you.

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…

After a long hiatus, there has been an update in the ARTWORK section of the site. Frequent readers of this here blog may have seen most of the 72 new images already, as I mostly post my artwork here first. There are even more pics uploaded onto the site that haven’t yet been integrated into the artwork galleries, but if you visit the FOLIO section and click ALL GALLERIES you can see everything that I have organised so far.

With great relief, I delivered yesterday some artwork on a job that I have been working on off-and-on for quite a while. One of the aspects of working at home is the lack of structure and, for me, that sometimes can be a drawback in that it results in a lack of focus… There are those days where a good drawing doesn’t seem to flow out of the pencil…

On days such as those, while working at a 9-to-5 job in a company, surrounded by producers brandishing schedules, I’m obliged to stick at it until a good drawing does appear or submit whatever comes out of the pencil, no matter what it looks like.

But when working at home, it is tempting to walk away from the desk and wait until the muse magically appears… That tendency was compounded by the fact that this particular job had no firm deadline, which allowed me to procrastinate, spin my wheels and meander to my heart’s content.

Until last week anyway, when the hammer finally came down and I was told to wrap it up this week, which required a desperate push to tidy up all the scribbles I had been doing over the past few weeks and arrange them into some kind of a presentable package…

Maybe I need to work in a shared studio again… I am getting a little weary of working at home and stewing in my own juices

Here’s the last batch of scribbles from my cheesecake job, showing quite a few variations on similar poses. I’ll post the final character when I have inked her.

Here is another page of sketches from my super-fun cheesecake logo-character design job.

OK, that’s enough fun for one day, I have to get back to all the OTHER stuff I have to do…

I was lazy in drawing the hands and feet on these (my bad habit). I’ll tidy them up later.