My newsletter gives people a 5 minute infusion of inspiration to help them stay motivated to create.
Disneyland's new security robots aren't messing around
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Issue 190 Hello, The last month has been hard and good. I've been grinding away on the Robots book and Self Publishing Pro finishing both the art for Robots and the lectures for SPP. I'm soooo happy to get the bulk of these projects off my plate, because I just landed a deal and signed a contract for a secret graphic novel project that I can't speak about just yet. Hope you're enjoying spring. We've been getting some nice surprise rainy days here in AZ. And my son and his wife are coming to visit this weekend and I'm really excited to hang out with them. Trying to finish all my work from the week so I can slide into the weekend without any stress. Hope your weekend is easy! Okay, here's FIVE things I thought you'd love as we roll into the weekend! Enjoy! STAYING IN THE LOOP:
1) Robots, Robots, Robots From the Drawings Unit Last Friday I delivered the last 9 pages of the comic to my colorist, and wrapped up the art duties on the book! I'm So happy with how it's looking. I sent the pages off to a few friends of mine who make comics and the feedback I'm getting is that it's my best work yet. 🙏 To celebrate, here's a hot plate of new robots to feast your eyes on: Get a front row seat of the ROBOTS book creation on Patreon: LINK ----- PATREON: I'm posting my process for all my art on the patreon. If you'd love getting more behind the scenes content and learn a little more how I approach creativiy, project management, and business strategies I post over there at least one a week. Consider signing up!
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) Rarely Seen Unhinged Cover Illustrations by Noriyoshi Ohrai From the Comics Division I fell in love with Noryioshi Ohrai's art back in the 80's when I would see some of his movie poster art hanging up at the theater. Though I didn't know who the artist was, his art stuck with me. Then in the 2000s someone had found and posted a bunch of his Star Wars and Godzilla art online and I finally put the two together. Recently I stumbled on several comic covers he did of Demon Lord Dante for Weekly Bokura Magazine and they are exciting. I love the wild swings Japanese creators have taken over the years. You never know what's going to take off and I feel like most publishers these days take the safest bet by just publishing nostalgic remakes. The weekly manga anthologies published in Japan seems to be the solution. Print a bunch of different stories each week, see whatpeople like, and eliminate the ones people don't. Anyway, back to Ohrai's covers here...not much else to say other than I'm picking up what he's putting down here. More cover art from Weekly Borurka Magazine collected here: LINK I particularly like this one too: 3) Electric Porsche Dakar Racer Concept From the Office of Wheels Industrial designer Kamil Kozik's electric off-road Porsche looks rad. It's got all the right angles and curves to just barely convince your brain it's a Porsche, but then it infuses all the engineering aesthetics expected from an off-road rally racer. All of this packaged up in a nice render. Very cool. More of Kozik's work in Instagram here: LINK 4) Javier Senosiain Aguilar Casa Orgánica From the Architecture Desk Casa Orgánica, a concept house by Mexican architect Javier Senosiain somehow looks cozy, prehistoric, and futuristic all at the same time. For the homewner who's always saying, "Pshhhh, who needs straight lines?!" Senosiain says the house was inspired by the shape of a peanut shell: "two roomy oval spaces with a lot of light, connected by a low, narrow, dimly lit passageway." It doesn't just look super interesting, it actually is psychologically functional: "he idea for this proposal was based on the elemental functions required by man: a place to live and fellowship with others, which would include a living room, dining room, and kitchen, and another place for sleeping, with a dressing room and bath. The original concept is embodied in two large spaces: diurnal and nocturnal." More photos and info here: LINK 5) On quality coming from quantity From the Inspirational Thought Unit A couple weeks ago the New York Times Magazine published a long article about Matt Farley. Farley is a musician most notable for releasing over 24,000 songs. He's written a song about almost every situation (highlighting something interesting in a book), every notable thing in pop culture (Used to be a Pizza Hut), and stuff I'd never think of. (Poop in a Wormhole). Say what you will about the quality of most of those 24,000 songs, the man is unconventional yet dedicated to being prolific. The article is a fascinating read about one artist earning a living by cracking the algorithm through a relentless pursuit of quantity, challenging society on what exactly is artistic expression, and making a massive amount of work in the process. One thing he said in the article stuck out to me: “If you reject your own ideas, then the part of the brain that comes up with ideas is going to stop,” he said. “You just do it and do it and do it, and you sort it out later.” Maybe the thing holding a lot of us bck is we reject ideas we have before they even have a chance of succeeding? Maybe we could take a page out of Matt Farley's book and just create what our brains come up with, and sort out what's actually good and bad later. Read the full article here: LINK That's all for this week. Thank you for reading this newsletter and hope you have a great weekend! -Jake My sponsor for this newsletter is…me. It's me, because I'm not accepting sponsors for my email list, and don't plan to any time soon. Really, I'd just like people to buy stuff from my shop. If you like this newsletter, you can support it a few ways: Order something from the shop (Best) Back a kickstarter when I launch one (Also Best) Support me on Patreon (Second Best) Share the newsletter with a friend (Third best) Shop for art supplies using my affiliate links* (Fourth best) Mention it on social media (Fifth best) I'd appreciate any of these when you can. Thanks! *Any amazon link I post is an affiliate link Weekend Reading: |
Hi! I'm Jake
My newsletter gives people a 5 minute infusion of inspiration to help them stay motivated to create.
Issue 189 Hello, First, this is it: Self-Publishing Pro is Enrolling now! If you've ever wanted to make and sell your own book and decided 2024 is the year you're going to make it happen, then check out Self-Publishing Pro: LINK (Enrollment closes in 4 days) Second, super busy these last couple weeks. I think I've bitten off more than I can chew, which is frustrating because at this point in my career I feel like I should've figure out how to pace myself better. That said, I do love every...
Issue 188 Hello, First thing, I gotta tell you about what I've been working on for months: Self Publishing Pro I just launched a free 6 video mini course called Self Publishing Pro. If you ever wanted to self-publish anything, these videos are for you. Sign up here: LINK (There's 6 videos, and they're like 10-15 min each. You're going to get some actionable advice out of these.) My wife's out of town for the weekend which means I need to go pick up the kids and make dinner, so let's get right...
Issue 187 Hello, We made it through January! I've been dividing my time between two projects: The Robots book Self-Publishing Pro I'm excited about both of these. Self-publishing has been, hands down, the most satisfying thing I've done in my 20+ year career as an artist. I can't stop myself. I can't wait to get the Robots book out to people, and I can't wait to teach people how to make their own books themselves. The enrollment dates for Self-Publishing Pro are Feb 27-Mar 4, so set a...