Hello!

Thank you for reading this newsletter this year. This has been one of the most satisfying parts of my week: to just sit down and pull together a bunch of things that I've been working on, thinking about, and enjoying for the week and share it with you.

I get several email responses each week from these emails and I try to respond to all of them. Sometimes it takes a few weeks to get back to people, and sometimes I never get back to them...but I read them all and I appreciate it.

This is the newsletter where I'm supposed to list my favorite things from the year, or present my accomplishments of 2021. I didn't do any of that. Instead you're getting the same thing you get every week: five (or more) things I thought you'd like to know about this weekend.

Enjoy!

1) Rise of the Christmas Bots

From the Drawings Unit

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Here's the full line up of Christmas Bots I did this year. I love this mech-bot template I came up with because I think it allows for so much variation. The legs and arms and lower torso are a great base to build almost anything on.

I've made about 25 of them this year. They take about an hour each. They're a great warm up exercise, a palette cleanser when I'm burned out, and a nice little design puzzle to solve.
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I think I'm just going to keep cranking out bots from time to time in 2022 so expect to see more.

2) Random round up

From the Desk of Jake Parker

Plastic Dinosaurs:

I got the PSNO Tyrannosaurus rex for Christmas and it's just a delightfully chunky little guy. Here he is compared to the Papo t-rex:

The PSNO is going for as-scientifically-accurate-as-possible while Papo is going for MoViE MoNsTeR! Both are great approaches to dinosaurs, but it is so refreshing to see a well fed t-rex that doesn't look like it's trying to fit into a new swimsuit for spring break.

One of the newsletter readers also ordered a sweet Ichthyosaurosaur and had it delivered to me. Which was completely unexpected and made my day. Thank you!

Resurrecting My Old Website:

I found my old website from 2004 on a hard drive and wondered if it would still work if I uploaded it to my server. It mostly did! Aside from a few images not loading in the artwork section it is almost completely functioning. What a trip to go through this stuff again!

This was before any sort of social media. It was just as blogs were gaining steam, but I hadn't adopted blogging technology yet. I just built the site on my own in dreamweaver and updated it manually every week or so.

You can check it out here: LINK​

3D printed Mech Bots

Also! My buddy Eden Sanders started making these as 3d printed models based on my Mech-Bots and they are so rad. You can check them out here: LINK​

Eden's website: LINK​

3) Nissan's Experimental EVs from the 70's

From the Office of Wheels

I'm always on the look out for quirky cars and these two caught my eye.

Back in the 70s Nissan made a couple experimental electric vehicles that are too cool to have just faded into the static noise of history.

I love the colors, the odd proportions, and the chunky-clunkyness of these designs. I'd drive one.

You can see the 6 page pamphlet this image came from here: LINK​

4) The Robot Art of Mark Simmons

From the Illustrators Division

Some illustrators can just do it all, and make it look effortless.

Mark Simmons is a freelance illustrator based in San Fransisco who falls under this category. I just love his style. He combines chunky, almost deadline inking with the technical knowledge of a Japanese mech designer. This gives his work the enviable yet paradoxical position of being both approachable and edgy at the same time.

Check out his MACHINA-X project to see more of his great robot designs: LINK​

I really like his educational art too: LINK​

Check out his website here: LINK (so much art!)

Twitter: LINK​

Instagram: LINK (looks like he stopped posting to IG over a year ago)

5) On uncertainty

From the Inspirational Thought Unit

In 2021 I let some fear and uncertainty guide my decisions. I pulled creative punches. I took the safe route. By no means did I have an unproductive year, I just look at what I worked on and it was a bunch of things that had low risk low reward, or low-risk medium reward. They were all things that leaned on lessons I've already learned. While it was a safe year, there wasn't a ton of growth.

Maybe I just needed a year to regroup and huddle?

The thing is, there's an amount of uncertainty that is needed to be an independent creator.

The book Art and Fear puts it nicely:

I have no idea what 2022 will bring. I'm optimistic for this year, but even though I've made plans it's the wild card draw that gets you. That said, 2022 is going to be an exercise in embracing uncertainty for me. I have a little post it note in front of my desk reminding me to have a bias towards action. To remind me to step out of the comfort of researching, developing, planning, and wade into the cold uncertain waters of MAKING.

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

-Jake

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