Jamie Washington

Jamie Washington is a SCAD alumni who displays his talents through cartoon. But is fluent in many aspects in art.

Explain the character in your cartoons with the bag over his face? And what the bag/character signifies to you?

I call him Dime but his full name is Dime Bag.  Dime started out as a character I created in college for an assignment back in 2014.  The goal was to simply create a character with an interesting silhouette, but I desired to challenge myself.  I wanted to design a faceless character that would become iconic. I drew inspiration from a mix of old school and current cartoons like Tom & Jerry, The Tex Avery Show, and Kids Next Door. Growing up I've always loved how expressive the characters were and I wanted to capture that vibe again. When it comes to the bag, I gained inspired from pop culture, for example Shia Labeouf showing up to the red carpet wearing a bag on his head. Something clicked I wanted people to see the bag as a statement, a mood, a call to act, a representation of the minority.  Being a black creative, I wanted to create a character that you could put yourself in their shoes or should I say bag.

Digital Inner-View Questions

Question: Tell us about your educational background as an artist? College? Internships?

Answer: I've always been interested in art, but I didn't take it seriously as a career path until my last two years of high school. In 2012 graduated and I was accepted into Savannah College of Art & Design. I attended school at the Atlanta location for 5 years and graduated in 2017. While there I majored in sequential art and minored in animation. My sequential arts major mainly focused on comics/graphic novels and storyboarding. Sequential art gave me a crash course on a multitude of things in the industry from brand building, screenwriting to directing so it only seemed natural to do animation as a minor to put everything together.

Question: Where do you see your career in 5 years?

Answer: In 5 years, I see myself establishing my animation studio. Think black Disney to put it short, I want to create content for the minority. As a kid didn't see representation, I didn't know what I could do with my art, I didn't know what I could do as a black man in this world. So, in five years I see myself showing the next generation that they can reach new heights that they can achieve their dreams. I see myself being a part of the next way of inspiration for the future.

BONUS Question: If you had to pick a cartoon character to relate your life to who would it be? Fred Flintstone Or Homer Simpson? And why?

Answer: One character that I can relate myself to is Steve Universe. The character really resonated with me, I love the fact that the character was more of a lover than a fighter who chose to solve situations with peace and only chose to fight when needed. He also dealt with creating his own identity in the world and with my current position in life I'm defining my own identity. Steven is probably one character that I can say has a character arc with realistic/relatable growth