James was born in Bristol, England in May, 1967 and moved to Bishop's Stortford six months later. He started experimenting on little animation tests with an 8mm camera at age 16.
After a one year art foundation course at Cambridge College of Arts & Technology, James attended the West Surrey College of Arts & Design. He studied animation for one year before leaving to work on "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" with Richard Williams in London. James started as an inbetweener and finished as an animator.
In 1988, James moved to Burbank, California to work at the Walt Disney Company. He worked on three pictures and a short. James took a two year break to work in London at Passion Pictures and in San Francisco at Colossal Pictures, working on commercials for both.
In 1992 James returned to the Walt Disney Company and was a Supervising Animator on two more pictures. James made the move from Disney to Dreamworks SKG in 1996 and animated and supervised animation on six feature films.
At the beginning of 2005, James left Dreamworks Animation to start his own studio - James Baxter Animation.
In addition to animating and supervising, Mr.Baxter lectures frequently on the subject of animation at colleges and animation studios.