Jinja, named after a town in Uganda, is a hand-crafted soapstone toy based on the image of a (loving) lion. Led by Jake Manion of Aardman Animations and being carved out of stone in Kenya by Geoffrey (picture shown below), the project will feature customs from a number of well-known artists. Eight customs have been created by artists in the UK, using resin figures they made.
Those artists are: Peter Lord (Aardman founder), Rich Webber (Purple & Brown / DC Funnest), Merlin Crossingham (Wallace & Gromit), Gav Strange (Aardman / JamFactory), Sarah Matthews (Aardman / BernysPlace), Sam Hadley (Slumberbean), Danny Capozzi (Aardman / Hero73*) and Peskimo.
Starting this Thursday (October 30th 2014) evening, they’ll start an eBay auction to sell each of the 8 customs. They're also making 30 Jinja toys, handcarved out of soapstone in Kenya, available as fixed price eBay listings. All proceeds from the auctions go directly to the Kenyan Orphan Project.
We'll provide more detailed information of the auctions closer to Thursday.
