He began drawing as a boy, inspired by the artwork in such comic strips as Flash Gordon and Tarzan. After WW II, he joined the prestigious Charles E. Cooper Studios. During that time he worked for Ford, General Electric, Coca-Cola, The Saturday Evening Post, Argosy and Reader's Digest. He created hundreds of book covers, including 62 in the popular Doc Savage series. He's had commissions from the Baseball and Football Hall of Fame and was official artist for the New York Giants football team.
In 1966, he spent a vacation in Wyoming at the guest ranch of a fellow illustrator and got an idea of how different his life might be. Jim and his wife, Lynne, went back to Wyoming and he started painting Western culture, and his third and most famous art career began.
In 1978 the Bamas moved into their present home on a sagebrush-covered hillside some 20 miles west of Cody, Wyoming, in the village of Wapiti on the highway to Yellowstone National Park.