my cousin, painter/sculptor/character designer gary bialke, died on march 2nd, 2008. i'd never met him, but i had seen his work, and i was inspired by it. recently, my brother e-mailed me a link to sort of an in memoriam page for gary on animateclay.com. it contains links to some of his work at will vinton studios in portland, samples of which i've posted below.
gary also did a lot of work on the california raisins, and apparently did much of the design for the "speed demon" part of the michael jackson moonwalker video, in which michael jackson turns into a giant claymation rabbit to escape from the giant claymation paparazzi. the dance-off at the end is pretty awesome / adorable.
