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Hello!

It's October 1, and you know what that means...It's Over the garden Wall season! Here in the Parker house, we watch it every year a few times between now November 1. If you haven't seen it...you're in for a treat.

Got some fun stuff for you today that came in from the departments here at JP Creative International. Enjoy!

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1) Inktober 2021 begins!

From the Drawings Unit

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It's day 1 of Inktober and I'm kicking it off with this piece. My plan is to do all of my characters from the Skull Chaser universe. I'm working on a comic book proposal for SKull Chaser, so doing all this art will be helpful for that, Plus I'll be able to repurpose it into a Skull Chaser visual dictionary/comic I've been wanting to make.

The halftone pattern on this drawing was done with zipatone I picked up at a comic con years ago and I figured I'd finally use it for Inktober this year.

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2) Recent Podcast Interview

From the Office of Podcasting

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I was interviewed by Jeff and Sheldon of the IDEA GYM podcast. This was a little different than my normal interviews in that we talked a lot about the business/entrepreneurial side of being an indie artist. I think there's a lot of insight that can apply to whatever it is you're trying to do with your life.

IDEAS FROM THIS EPISODE:

• How it all started (0:54)
• Helping to provide the next step (9:50)
• Create as the end goal (12:40)
• The not so straight line to success (16:50)
• Living in your Zone of Genius (18:35)
• Find and leverage your pivotal moments (24:10)
• Build your financial table (30:20)
• Assess, prove, and then follow opportunity (33:05)
• Creating structure - Jake's habits (39:43)
• Daily action step (53:18)

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Listen here: LINK​

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3) Read along adventures

From the Cultural Archives Concern a unit of the Department of Interestingness

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This really brings me back to my childhood! Not sure who to credit for this project, but it's a worthy pursuit. These books and casette tapes were what you handed a kid instead of an iPad in 1981.

I had all of the Star Wars Read Along books and wore those things out. Here's a couple I wish I had, but I think came out after I had outgrown this.

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom: LINK​

The Dark Crystal: LINK​

There's more still to be scanned, processed and uploaded. Let's hope whoever is doing this hasn't abandoned the project!

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4) Teeny tiny floating islands

From the Office of Small Things

Amsterdam based artist Rosa de Jong hand crafts these minuscule floating dwellings and sticks them in class tubes.

I can imagine she's discovered some tiny abandoned world and is archiving specimens she's found to study and appreciate them.

You can see A LOT more of her work here: LINK

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5) On Opportunity

From the Inspirational Thought Unit

Speaking of opportunity and passion overlapping, this quote from Seth Godin came across my desk this week:

Say you've got passion and ability to do something, but are just waiting around for an opportunity to come your way, it might do you some good to instead search for a problem that your unique abilities can solve.

And when I say problem, and I think Godin is thinking this too, it doesn't necessarily mean that it's an earth shattering, cancer curing, fly humans to mars kind of problem you need to try and solve.

It might be that something isn't operating at full capacity, or that there's a leak that needs to be plugged, or there's a kind of person that's overlooked and you know how best to serve them.

Looking at it this way, I think I've found one perfectly matched to my abilities, and I'm excited to get out and solve it!

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

-Jake

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