My newsletter gives people a 5 minute infusion of inspiration to help them stay motivated to create.
Russian Space Junk Scavengers
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Issue 188 Hello, First thing, I gotta tell you about what I've been working on for months: 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 down to it...here's 5 things I thought you'd find interesting this weekend. Enjoy! STAYING IN THE LOOP:
1) Clifford the Big Red Mech and Others From the Drawings Unit
Chipping away at the ROBOTS book. Here's a handful of images made for the book I've recently finished coloring. Can't wait to get this thing put all together and sent off to the printers! ----- 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) Russian Space Junk Scavengers From the Department of Space Exploration There's this cluster of ten villages in remote northwest Russia where space debris falls from the sky. I just found out about this and thought it was so cool. They scavenge it for materials to either repurpose the material (like building a reindeer skin lined sled made out of titanium alloy sheets from rocket boosters) or cut it up and sell to buyers. This is so niche post-apocalyptic-core I thought these were AI images at first. But I found several articles from 6 or 7 years ago that tell the story of these people. You can read those here: LINK and LINK It isn't not all fun and games though. Apparently, with space debris you get fuel toxins in your soil and water and a lot of these communities suffer from strange medical conditions. The Russian gov denies it's from their spent rockets. *eye-roll* I think this is some solid inspiration for a cool sci-fi story. It practically writes itself. 3) The Designs of these Retro Racing helmets From the Industrial Design Desk I've been collecting these as reference for a project that may never see the light of day. Figured I'd share these with you. One of the aesthetics I love more than anything is utilitarian industrial design with a focus on just getting the job done, and that being a canvas for striking color and graphic design meant purely for cosmetic reasons. These helmets are all of that and I love them for it. 4) The Electric Colors of Valentino Lasso's Illustrations From the Illustrators Division Stumbled across Mexican artist Valentino Lasso's art on Instagram and became an instant fan. Love the color, compositions, just overall LIFE his art has. More here: Website: LINK Instagram: LINK Twitter/X: LINK 5) On Creating Connection, Not Content From the Inspirational Thought Unit My installment for the Inspirational thought Unit this week is A VIDEO! My thesis for this video is that if you want to break through the noise of social media you need to be making things people must experience off of social media to provide a more genuine connection. I have a lot more to say on this topic, so expect more videos. 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 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...
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 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...