On Rolling the Dice

From the Inspirational Thought Unit

I was talking with my buddy Kohl about the role luck plays in your success in life.

I listen to this podcast from time to time about how successful businesses were built and at the end of each interview the host asks the same question:

“How much of your success is due to your skill and hard work and how much is due to luck?”

And EVERY SINGLE answer is “we worked hard yes, but we were also very lucky”

You'd have to be pretty clueless to think that luck has nothing to do with your success (or failure) in your creative pursuits. It's a factor just as much as skill and work.

I have another friend who put it succinctly:

“Each time you create is a role of the dice. The only thing you can control is how many times you roll the dice.”

It's not up to me if something I do is successful, but it is up to me to show up every day, create something, and share it. And guess what, a few times over these last several years I actually got lucky.

I hope you get lucky too. What dice are you going to roll today?

-Jake

Recycled Cast Aluminum Wall Tiles

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From the Architecture Desk

Want to add a sci-fi ancient alien twist to your interior design? These recycled cast aluminum wall tiles designed by sculptor/architect David Umemoto should do the trick.

David says "Sand-casted aluminum (after concrete) is definitely my favorite material. It has a great combination of elegant shininess and industrial roughness."

Pretty cool look if you ask me.

More here: LINK​

And here: LINK LINK

-Jake

My Long History of Space Witches

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From the Drawings Unit

I'm currently building out the Robots book and one section is about these personal assistant bots that I've been putting in my comics. They're like floating Alexas, but they have their own AI and personalities. I came up with the concept way back in 2004 when I drew a short story called "Lucy Nova" about a space biologist and her side kick who documented everything they were discovering:

In the robots book I'm highlighting the assistant bot for this space witch character I keep coming back to:

I started thinking about where the idea for this witch came from and I remembered it has it's roots in some concepts I came up with over 20 years ago.

In 2002 a guy reached out to me about drawing his sci-fi Wizard of Oz story. I was too busy at the time to draw a full comic*, but I told him I would do the character designs. He didn't have a lot of money to pay me, but he ran a t-shirt printing company and said he could pay me in shirts. So I made a deal to do the art for 100+ shirts. I gave him a Missile Mouse design to print on them, and then I sold those on my website (via paypal) and made a nice profit.

Here's one of the designs I made for him:

I always loved this idea: jet pack monkeys and a leather clad witch with a rocket broom.

A few months later I did this design:

And that just kind of stayed in my head until about 7 years ago when I designed this witch with a magic-punk broom.

The idea of combining technology with a witch festered and grew in my imagination and then a few years ago I made this little drawing:

I thought that maybe this could be a fun character to fold into my Red Shift Renegades universe.

A year later I did this drawing, developing the character further:

Then I revisited the character again in 2021 with this drawing for Inktober:

I'm not sure what her entire backstory is. I know she's well connected in the Red Shift underworld. Does she practice magic? Is she an interdimensional being like the Star Catcher? Or is her past more prosaic and she's thirsting for weird adventures?

Who knows!

-Jake

*The guy he ended up finding was a young, inexperienced Ryan Ottley who would go on to draw Invincible, Spider-Man, and Hulk!

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PATREON: This was originally posted to my Patreon in September. If you'd love getting more behind the scenes posts like these (at least one a week) consider signing up!

Join the Patreon

The amount of support on my Patreon ebbs and flows, but always hovers around 125-130 people. I'd like to get that up to 140 this month. If you sign up this month I'll give you any of my digital artbooks of your choice. Just DM after sign up and I'll send you a download link.

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​

Brett Stenson's colorful shape of nature

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From the Department of Graphic Design

Brett Stenson, a Portland-based illustrator and graphic designer, has a keen eye for color and shape. His work is highly influenced by his home: the pacific north west.

I'm captivated by this artist's oeuvre. So captivated I just used a word I don't even know how to pronounce.

See more of his work here:

Website: LINK​

Dribble: LINK​

Instagram: LINK

-Jake​

On filling glasses

From the Inspirational Thought Unit

It's a new year, and with that comes a period of reflection followed by a sense of resolve welling up from within. I like that our culture takes a collective break for a week between Christmas and New Years where no one is expected to check email, and therefore feel no obligation to send them. It's a time to look back on the year, see what worked and what didn't, and look forward to what you want to accomplish this year.

One thing I'm think a lot about working on this year is what I emphasize.

I spent a lot of energy last year worrying about half empty glasses and a lot of advice given is to instead focus on how full the glass is.

But there's another thing to look at and it's distilled nicely here by economist Donald Kaberuka:

"I'm not interested in whether the glass is half empty or half full. I'm interested in figuring out how to fill the glass."

-Donald Kaberuka (via James Clear)

What can you do this year to fill the glass?

-Jake

The Wandering Wonder of Lee White

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From the Illustrators Division

Colorado based illustrator Lee White makes these wonder inspiring watercolor paintings that make me feel like a kid again.

What I love about his work is he's been able to straddle the fence that stands between decorative art and imaginative illustration. It's really a nice balance that works well for picture books and something like greeting cards or interior design.

Not only have I been a fan of Lee White for over a decade, but I've been lucky to call him a friend. We work together on SVS and the 3PP podcast so I get to talk to him almost every day.

You can find more of Lee's work here:

Website: LINK​

Instagram: LINK​

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Lee also has a new water color brush set he just released. If you're wondering how he gets this lovely watercolor textures and looks it's from these brushes he custom made.

I've started using them for some experiments I've been doing privately and these brushes are some of the best I've ever used.

Get the brushes here: LINK

-Jake

How to Fix Your Art

From the Office of Online Education

One of my biggest projects from 2023 was the "How to Fix Your Art" course I helped create for svslearn.com.

After running an art contest for 43 months (Critique Arena) my SVS co-teachers and I kept seeing the same art problems arise over and over and over again.

If only our students knew how to take their illustrations to a more professional level they'd be unstoppable! Yet we understood it can be so tricky to see what's off in your own work.

So we got to work and over the course of the year created How To Fix Your Art to give YOU the tools to see your work like the professionals do.

Our book and video lessons show you how to see the common mistakes illustrators make and how to fix them in your own work. Our secret weapon is a powerful checklist you use to identify what areas still need improvement as you critique your own illustrations.

How to Fix Your Art is available now as a 200+ page PDF, 9 hours of video lessons and demos, AND our comprehensive art checklist. Here's a sneak peek of one of the sections of the checklist: