Hello!

Today finds me wrapping up work for the summer and shutting down the studio for the next 3 weeks. I'll be heading out to Long Island to spend some time off with the family.

Which means there may or may not be a newsletter for the next 3 weeks. If there is it might be truncated.

Alright, here's 5 things I thought you'd appreciate this weekend:

1) A Drawing For Karl

From the Art Department and the Video Works

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Been a fan of @karlkerschl’s comic for ages, so I had to do some fan art.⁣
⁣
Karl’s running a Kickstarter:

​The Abominable Charles Christopher Books 1-3​

A dim-witted sasquatch bumbles his way into a series of woodland adventures in this award-winning comic series.

And you can actually get this drawing as a print in one of the tiers. Pretty cool.⁣

Also, I made a YouTube video of the process: LINK​

And now...my thoughts on running a youtube channel:

I've uploaded two videos in the last week to my youtube channel, after it laying dormant for over a year. How about that, huh?

I'm realizing the best social media conduit for my art career is YouTube because it pays you for good content, I enjoy making videos, and people get really invested in the people they follow on youtube. (At least I do anyway.)

The plan is to drop a video every Wednesday. I think I can keep this up for the rest of the year and still make that Missile Mouse comic I've been talking about. I'm really taking a backseat on Inktober this year so, I should be able to pull this off. I've got three more videos finished and scheduled, and an exclusive one for Patreon.

At the end of the "A Drawing for Karl" video I meant what I said: what is the point of having a YouTube channel if you can't really mix it up when you want? I know that people subscribe to my channel for process stuff and advice on a creative career, and that an audience likes to get what they're expecting...but what if you train your audience to like being surprised?

I think we have reached a saturation point in #artyoutube with a thousand channels telling you how to draw something, or giving you a photoshop tip, or starting a drawing challenge, or telling you the secret to "breaking in" to the industry. I don't want to do very much of that.

I'd rather my channel be a window into my universe and show people what get's me excited, what I find interesting, what I'm working on, lessons I've learned in art AND life, and and hopefully have people walk away wanting to create their own stuff from their heart. Essential, a video version of this newsletter.

Just trying to stick to my goal of being an artist who makes youtube videos, and not a youtuber who makes art.

I'll leave the "How to" videos to the other good people of #artyoutube.

2) Anime Dinosaurs!

From the Film and Animation Division

Jurassic! Is an upcoming anime that is a personal project (I think, my Japanese isn't very good) by a young staff member of Toei Animation. It's inspired by Ken Tsuchiya's Real Size Ancient Creature Picture Book. Not sure if it is a series or an animated short. I'd like to watch the finished project, but as far as I can tell it is not out yet. So the trailer posted on youtube will have to do.

Watch the trailer here: LINK​

3) The Greatest Online Collection of Star Wars Images and Ephemera

From the Film and Animation Division

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You guys, I just stumbled on this Flickr Album put together by Tom Simpson. It's a massive collection of Star Wars printed material, behind the scenes photos, and concept art. What a flippin treasure trove. Son of a gun this is great.

Check it out here: LINK​

4) Wearable Techpunk

From the Office of Arts and Crafts

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Japanese artist IKEUCHI Hiroto makes these magnificent techpunk masterpieces that you can wear. These leave me speechless at their intricacies and beauty. Clearly the dude is inspired by Otomo Katsuhiro (Akira) And Shiro Masamune (Ghost in the Shell), but what they could only do with pen and ink, he does with metal and plastic. Lots more on his IG account here: LINK​

5) Do you have a career or do you have a life?

From the Inspirational Thought Unit

Celebrated film maker Werner Herzog on his career:

I keep reading versions of this from successful creative people, like Maurice Sendak and Mads Mikkelson. It's a good reminder that the career is just an appendage to your life, and that all the other things you do in life shouldn't be in service of your career. Live a good, fulfilling life, try to make the place better than you left it, and bring your career along for the ride.

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

-Jake

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