Issue 186

Hello,

Not much new going on here except the normal day-to-day grind. However, I'm really pumped that people are downloading and using the planner I designed.

I think we are at 195 downloads, which means if everyone is actually using it that's 195 more people getting stuff done and staying focused this year.

Here's one of the comments I got about it:

Are you having trouble staying focused and really need help organizing your time?In case you missed it my Project-Focused planner is available to download here: LINK​

Here's a livestream I did that shows how this planner works so you can make the most of your time this year: LINK​

All right...here's 5 things I thought you'd find interesting this weekend.

Enjoy!

STAYING IN THE LOOP:

• 🔴 LIVE - How to Fix Your Art #16​
• Breaking in a new sketchbook: LINK​
• Podcast Episode 191: Is My Idea Worth Pursuing?​
• Podcast Episode 192: How Do I Grow My Email List?​

1) My Long History of Space Witches

From the Drawings Unit

I'm currently building out the Robots book and one section is about these personal assistant bots that I've been putting in my comics. They're like floating Alexas, but they have their own AI and personalities. I came up with the concept way back in 2004 when I drew a short story called "Lucy Nova" about a space biologist and her side kick who documented everything they were discovering:

In the robots book I'm highlighting the assistant bot for this space witch character I keep coming back to:

I started thinking about where the idea for this witch came from and I remembered it has it's roots in some concepts I came up with over 20 years ago.

In 2002 a guy reached out to me about drawing his sci-fi Wizard of Oz story. I was too busy at the time to draw a full comic*, but I told him I would do the character designs. He didn't have a lot of money to pay me, but he ran a t-shirt printing company and said he could pay me in shirts. So I made a deal to do the art for 100+ shirts. I gave him a Missile Mouse design to print on them, and then I sold those on my website (via paypal) and made a nice profit.

Here's one of the designs I made for him:

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I always loved this idea: jet pack monkeys and a leather clad witch with a rocket broom.

A few months later I did this design:

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And that just kind of stayed in my head until about 7 years ago when I designed this witch with a magic-punk broom.

I redrew her for my Traveler's print I made for Inktober 2017:

The idea of combining technology with a witch festered and grew in my imagination and then a few years ago I made this little drawing:

I thought that maybe this could be a fun character to fold into my Red Shift Renegades universe.

A year later I did this drawing, developing the character further:

Then I revisited the character again in 2021 with this drawing for Inktober:

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I'm not sure what her entire backstory is. I know she's well connected in the Red Shift underworld. Does she practice magic? Is she an interdimensional being like the Star Catcher? Or is her past more prosaic and she's thirsting for weird adventures?

Who knows!

-Jake

*The guy he ended up finding was a young, inexperienced Ryan Ottley who would go on to draw Invincible, Spider-Man, and Hulk!

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PATREON: This was originally posted to my Patreon in September. If you'd love getting more behind the scenes posts like these (at least one a week) consider signing up!

The amount of support on my Patreon ebbs and flows, but always hovers around 125-130 people. I'd like to get that up to 140 this month. If you sign up this month I'll give you any of my digital artbooks of your choice. Just DM after sign up and I'll send you a download link.

You also get a 15% discount in my shop, and at the end of the month some patrons get all my working files to learn from and pick apart. Sign up here: LINK​

2) Calum Alexander Watt's Quantumania Concept Art

From the Illustrators Division

Say what you will about the 3rd installment of the Antman Trilogy, but I thought the designs were a ton of fun. Found this nice treasure trove of character and environment designs for the movie by one of my face concept artists: Calum Alexander Watt.

More here: LINK​

Watt's artstation: LINK​

IG: LINK​

Twitter/X: LINK​

3) Recycled Cast Aluminum Wall Tiles

From the Architecture Desk

Want to add a sci-fi ancient alien twist to your interior design? These recycled cast aluminum wall tiles designed by sculptor/architect David Umemoto should do the trick.

David says "Sand-casted aluminum (after concrete) is definitely my favorite material. It has a great combination of elegant shininess and industrial roughness."

Pretty cool look if you ask me.

More here: LINK​

And here: LINK LINK​

4) Samantha Mash's Monsters and Horsewomen

From the Illustrators Division

These beautiful line and gray tone drawings are by Oregon based illustrator Samantha Mash. Normally she does serine yet striking color illustrations for editorial, but every October she shakes off the color and does these monsters. I really love her style and vibe.

More here:

Instagram: LINK​

Website: LINK​

Shop: LINK​

5) On Rolling the Dice

From the Inspirational Thought Unit

I was talking with my buddy Kohl about the role luck plays in your success in life.

I listen to this podcast from time to time about how successful businesses were built and at the end of each interview the host asks the same question:

“How much of your success is due to your skill and hard work and how much is due to luck?”

And EVERY SINGLE answer is “we worked hard yes, but we were also very lucky”

You'd have to be pretty clueless to think that luck has nothing to do with your success (or failure) in your creative pursuits. It's a factor just as much as skill and work.

I have another friend who put it succinctly:

It's not up to me if something I do is successful, but it is up to me to show up every day, create something, and share it. And guess what, a few times over these last several years I actually got lucky.

I hope you get lucky too. What dice are you going to roll today?

That's all for this week. Thank you for reading this newsletter and hope you have a great weekend!

-Jake

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