Issue 159

Hello!

Sorry there was no newsletter last week. I was in the Los Angeles area last week to see friends and go to LIGHTBOX EXPO. I really wanted to get a newsletter shipped out every single week this year, but a guy can only handle so much, right?

Lightbox was incredible. It had a positive atmosphere of inspiration, creativity, and friendship. I decided I definitely want to have a table there next year. I posted more photos and insights from the trip on the Patreon, so if you missed that, check it out here: LINK​

Alright, here's 5 things I thought you'd find interesting this weekend.

Enjoy!

1) Drawings Round Up

From the Art Department

Here's a few drawings from this last week or so. Top one was for Day 10 of Inktober: Crabby.

Bottom three were done at Lightbox Expo for friends.

I posted process images on Patreon this week, as well as gifting all my patrons a digital copy of SPACESHIPS.

SPACESHIPS is finished and at the printers right now, so books will be shipping out sooooon. So excited!

PATREON: You can see all the behind the scenes stuff and more on the creation of SPACESHIPS and other art, including secret stuff I can't share publicly. Sign up here: LINK​

2) Wayne Barlowe's Aliens

From the Concept Art Division

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Those first two images are of the first art book I ever owned. My dad was always on the look out for interesting books to get my young imagination fired up. He found Wayne Barlowe's Guide to Extraterrestrials at a used book store and gave it to me when I was about 10. It was an instant treasure. I flipped through that book so much it fell apart. My solution was to punch holes in it and put it in a 3 ring binder. Even then, the book was loved to near death. (I have no idea what happened to the cover).

A few years later I discovered a second alien book called Expedition which blew my teenage mind away again and altered the way I think about creative projects. If you were to sequence and map my creative genome you'd find a strand of Barlow in my DNA.

Recently I discovered Barlowe worked on one of my favorite films: Avatar.​

I'm not sure how 12 years went by without me knowing this. I guess I never checked out the Art of Avatar book, which is a terrible oversight on my part. Won't happen again, I promise you that.

All of this to say, Barlowe is one of the greats, he's a bottomless well of inspiration, and you should familiarize yourself with his trippy, beautiful/ugly, and otherworldly art if you haven't already.

More on his website: LINK​

(Also, he helped design the Kaiju in Pacific Rim!)

3) The Haunting Industrial Landscapes of Edward Burtynsky

From the Photography Desk

Canadian photographer Edward Burtynsky's photos pop up in my feed from time to time and I always think they're from sets of dystopian sci-fi films, only to discover that nope, it's just the world we live in right now. :(

That said, they're great reference for locations in my comics. Faire feu de tout bois, right?

Check out a heap of photos on his website here: LINK​

(Though I think his photos are truly meant to be seen as large format prints in person in a gallery, which I hope to be able to do some day)

4) Peter Foti's Scratch Built Masterpieces

From the Office of Scale Models

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I've got a soft spot in my heart for scratch built models. Seeing stuff like this in person at model shops, cons, and galleries always stops me in my tracks.

Boston based model builder, Peter Foti has some amazing skill when it comes to cutting plastic and slingin' glue.

More photos and projects here: LINK​

His blog: LINK​

Twitter: LINK​

5) On acting your age

From the Inspirational Thought Unit

I don't know if it's good or bad, (it's probably bad) but I'm slightly obsessed with what people are able to accomplish at what age. Every time I have a birthday I look up stuff like "how old was Patrick Stewart in season 1 of TNG?" He was 46. Or "how old was Miyazaki when he started his comic Nausicaa?" He was 41. Or "How old was was my dad when he had me?" He was 32.

Then I start measuring my success in relation to other's success, that's the bad part, there is this pressure that in order to fit in I should be doing things by a certain age: should I have a kid by now? Should I have X amount saved for retirement by now? Is it too late to learn the piano? Am I too old for animated shows?

What I'm trying to remind myself is that every person has their own strengths and liabilities that they have to deal with, and the only person you should measure yourself against is the one in the mirror.

This advice from expert advice giver Light Watkins resonates with me:

Act your spirit, not your age.

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

-Jake

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