Skull Chaser Arcade

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From the Special Projects Unit in association with the Division of Partnerships and Collaborations:

I had the fortunate opportunity to be a part of a unique show for Gallery Nucleus called PHANTASY ARCADE. From the website:

“Phantasy Arcade is a unique art exhibition concept born out of quarantine. Featuring a coupling of artist and musicians, each artist created work for an original, non-playable, 1/6th scale arcade cabinet. Musicians simultaneously created original music based on the artists' concepts. The collection is a miniature arcade that evokes nostalgia for things that never were.”

When I was asked to participate, I immediately knew I wanted to do something with Skull Chaser. Here’s what I came up with:

This was so fun to do as an art project, but all I want now is to actually PLAY Skull Chaser. I imagine it being a side scroller like Metal Slug. Each level is a different planet where he chases down a criminal and takes their head for a bounty. He’s then able to spend his credits on power ups and improvements to his ship.

This thing is actually available for purchase, and possibly the coolest part of it is it comes with its own THEME MUSIC, written and performed by George Shaw.

Check it out and ORDER ONE here: LINK

-Jake

On bothering

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From the Inspirational Thought Unit

I'm not a guy who reads poems for fun or leisure...but a good poem always seems to hit me hard just at the times I need them. Poet Sean Thomas Dougherty wrote the above poem. It's from his book The Second O of Sorrow.

I needed to see this. Here I am wondering why I should spend half my week working on a comic about a space mouse and a living skeleton. Who cares about that? Who needs it? Why bother?

"Because right now, there is someone out there with a wound in the exact shape of your words." - Sean Thomas Dougherty

You can switch out "words" with images, film, dances, scale models, comic pages, LEGO builds, and I think it still works just the same.

As I worked on my comic this week I also noticed I've been feeling high. I get that way when I make things, especially comics. I've been in such a good mood. Felt like nothing could bring me down.

Thinking about this poem today I realize that maybe the wounded person who needs my comic is...me.

And that's reason enough for me to bother.

-Jake

The Last Head Hunters

From the Cultural Archives Concern

Indian photographer Trupal Pandya "documents indigenous communities, explores their local practices, and shows through his pictures how people around the world live." (from his bio)

I love what he's doing. There's several photographers doing stuff like this, but the lighting, and subject matter Pandya does just connectable. I can see each of these people in myself...or in someone I know reminding me that we are all brothers and sisters.

It's also just good creative grist for the idea mill when you're trying to come up with characters, locations, and imagery for your stories.

His headhunters series is captivating (above) see the rest of the series here: LINK​

More of his photos on his website: LINK​

-Jake

Mike Mignola doing fanart

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From the Comics Division

Mignola doesn't have a lot of work right now or something, but that's good because he's filling time by doing fan art. An not the pencil sketches like he did during quarrantine. These are like comic covers or pin ups. I love seeing characters from DC and Marvel through his eyes.

Also he's posting process stuff which is cool:

I have no business doing this, but I couldn't help myself and colored the Joker one. You can see my take on it here: LINK​

He's posting them over on his facebook page if you want to stay up to date on these fan arts: LINK​

-Jake

The Minimalist Sci-fi Art of Hugo Moreno

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From the Illustrators Division

I was first made aware of Hugo Moreno's work when I saw his short film Eclipse (2012) made while a student at Goeblins.

You can watch it here. It's nice: LINK​

Since then I've seen his work pop up from time to time in my feed, but I never pieced it together that they were done by him. Then I found his website and was delighted to see all of his work in one spot.

Really digging it. He's like a minimalist Moebius. There's a retro-futuristic flair to it. Like it's a late 20th century view of the future if Piet Mondriaan and Patrick Nagel had a baby. Maybe? Can't put my finger on it.

Check out the rest of his stuff here: LINK​

-Jake

Making Comics!

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From the Making Comics Division

Been working on the comic this week. Laying down cauliflower panels one drip at a time. I've got the first chapter fleshed out. You can see here how loose and rough it is at the beginning. Next phase is pencils, then I'll ink it. I haven't thought about coloring yet: whether I'll hire a flatter and color the rest myself or just hire a colorist to do the whole thing remains to be seen.

I'm posting the whole process on my patreon. I've been sharing things step by step, and a lot of unpacking of thoughts around creating things and how I work.

Now would be a great time to join if you want to support the creation of my projects. I'll be rewarding patrons with the final PDF copy of this comic and issues 2 and 3 as well when they are finished.

Become a patron here: LINK

-Jake

Operation Night Watch

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From the Arts and Culture Unit of the Department of Interestingness

The Rijksmuseum in the Netherlands is undertaking the largest research and conservation project ever for Rembrandt's 'The Night Watch'. LINK

What they're doing is photographing and 3d scanning this 12x14 foot beast of a painting and at microscopic levels. They've released a 44.8 gigapixel image you can zoom all the way into here: LINK

Here's the painting:

Here's a close up of the Captain Frans Banninck Cocq's eye:

Here it is at the museum, where visitors can watch the restoration happening live:

Why all of this hubbub for this painting? This painting is famous and important because Rembrandt broke the rules with it. He was commissioned to paint a group portrait for a prominent military outfit. What he delivered was a painted story: a living scene, not a collection of stiff poses. Rembrandt was the first artist to paint figures in a group portrait actually doing something. The conventional rules of portrait painting at the time was to give each member of the group equal prominence. Instead, Rembrandt created the painter’s equivalent of a snapshot: a group of militiamen who have just moved into action and are about to march off. It was a controversial move, and the captain did not like it. Not one bit. But who's a household name today?

On cauliflower

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From the Inspirational Thought Unit

The first 15 minutes of this podcast was just great. It is an episode from Seth Godin's Akimbo podcast which I recommend listening to from the beginning if you do any sort of creative work. In this episode he breaks down the Beatles Get Back documentary and how it applies to "The Practice" which is what he calls doing the work to get good.

One part in here stuck out to me more then the rest (and it's ALL great). It starts right at 9:52 and I'll just share the transcript here in case you don't want to listen:

This time George is stuck, and he comes to Paul and John and asks for help. John gives him standard Paul advice, just say a word, whatever word pops into your head cuz you'll come up with a better word.

*he then tells him to say "attracts me like a cauliflower" see video above*

I think putting the word cauliflower on the wall of your cubicle, or your home office is a really good idea because every time you see that word cauliflower, it will remind you: just put in a word and then you can make it better.

But what happens here is George can't adopt the new. Practice because it doesn't come easily. He's fighting it. And we keep waiting for him to say the right words, because we know the right words are going to come, we've heard the song a million times before, and the right words, eventually came. But if he was a little lighter on his feet, if he wasn't looking in the moment for the kind of perfection and approval, he was seeking, it would have come more easily.

That's part of the practice.

This was great for me to hear right now because I started laying out pages for a comic this week. Laying out a comic is essentially writing through drawing and it's difficult. There's so many ways to visualize the story how do you find the one true way that best reflects the scenes in your mind? The infinity of the blank canvas can be paralyzing.

I needed to be reminded to just put down cauliflower on the page.

It removes some of the friction, and the wall of it needed to be good. It doesn't need to be good at this stage it just needs to exist. Molding it into something good comes next.

-Jake

Fluid Comic Pages

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From the Illustrators Division

I love these comic pages by Matt Rockefeller. They're like dreams with images of scenes and events dissolving into each other, telling a story and just giving an overall impression of something all at the same time. Cool comic work.

These were done for his solo show: Crossroads: Stories from Dragonfly Holiday.

From Matt: "My idea was to create these singular comic images that tell a tiny story from the world of Dragonfly Holiday"

They're cool. I poked around, but couldn't find out what Dragonfly Holiday is exactly. So we'll just have to enjoy these pages.

You can see the rest of the pages (8 total) here: LINK​

Matt's Website: LINK​

Instagram: LINK​

Store: LINK

-Jake

Alien Plants

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From the Flora and Fauna Unit

Ceramic artist Kaori KURIHARA makes these incredible other worldly fruit designs. They look like something you might find on Venus, if the planet could support life.

If you've ever worked with ceramics you'll know that to get your clay to do this without cracking or breaking is impossible. The craftsmanship on these is god-like. I don't know how she does it.

That aside, I just think they look so cool and makes me want to come up with better designs for the flora in my sci-fi comics.

Kaori KURIHARA's Instagram: LINK (TONS more images)

Website: LINK

-Jake

Kaneda's Bike Kit-Bash

From the Office of Scale Models

This is a kitbash by Japanese based modeler MAXI. Really like how he took the classic design from Akira and made it more utilitarian.
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I like MAXI's philosophy from his twitter bio: "Creation is MAXIMUM, lifestyle is minimal."

You can see more of his works on his tumblr: LINK​

and twitter: LINK​
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-Jake

Chess Bots

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From the Drawings Unit

I've been working on comic layouts this week and a book proposal, so nothing new to show.

I was going through my website last night and saw these Chess Bots I came up with half a decade ago. I still really like them. I think I'll dust them off and do something with them.

Just thought I'd share them here in case you never saw them.

-Jake

Carl Størmer's Spy Camera Street Photography, Circa 1893

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From the Department of Interestingness, in association with the Photography Desk in the Department of Creative Bank Accounting

In 1893 a mathematics student, 19 year old Carl Størmer, had a crush on a girl. Being the shy creeper that he was purchased a spy camera so he could get a photo of her without her consent.

He got that photo of her, but surprisingly the relationship never developed further than that. However, young Carl kept on taking candid photos of people on the streets of Oslo, and personally I'm grateful for these human snapshots.

Most photos from this time period are stuffy and posed making that time period seem distant and unrelatable. Størmer's photos peel back the formality and show us that these folks weren't so different from us. This kind of stuff is the closte to backwards time traveling I'll ever get, so I just bask in it from time to time.

Pteros

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From the Department of Interestingness, Prehistoric Studies Division

Found what might be the coolest website on the internet: Pteros.com, a website devoted entirely to pterosaurs: LINK

From the about page: Pteros took flight as a collaboration among software engineers, writers and artists to bring the general public the most comprehensive resource on our current knowledge of the world’s only flying reptiles, the pterosaurs.

It's organized so neatly, and makes the dizzying amount of pterosaurs that have been discovered something you can actually wrap your head around. Also, it's organized by artist, so that's cool too: LINK

-Jake

On Uncertainty

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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:

Uncertainty is the essential, inevitable and all-pervasive companion to your desire to make art. And tolerance for uncertainty is the pre-requisite to succeeding.

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

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)

-Jake

Nissan's Experimental EVs from the 70's

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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

-Jake