A 12th c. village in Tuscany submerged under the artificial Lago di Vagli since the construction of a dam in 1946. Occasionally seen when the lake is drained during maintenance work, it could resurface again in 2020.
This is definitely the location of some kind of necropolis or portal to another dimension.
It's not a huge trend, I can honestly only find a handful of them on the internet, but Ghibli "What ifs" might be my favorite genre of fanart.
Basically, you just take a cool IP, any will do, and you reimagine it as if it were a film by Miyazaki.
Here you go:
Ghibli Star Wars by Lap Pun Cheung
Ghibli Dinotopia by DoonDraws
Ghibli Dragonball by ErisDraw3D
Ghibli Legend of Zelda by Matt Vince
And Ghibli Breath of the Wild by Miavern
-Jake
From the Archive Unit:
I have only been working on NDA stuff the past couple weeks which means I haven't had a lot of time to do anything in my sketchbooks or any personal work. I haven't posted on IG for 14 days. Which is a LONG time for me. Then I thought, why not just go through the archives and post older stuff. I don't think many of my newer fans have seen the older stuff, and the old fans might like seeing things from a years and years ago again. I had my son go through my folders and start putting together a bunch of art from the archives to start posting online from time to time.
One of my favorites he found was this Chompbot drawing from 2012:
I used to draw in pencil ALL the time. I loved it. Then I got into brush pens. But seeing this again I'm thinking I want to pick up the pencil again from time to time.
This was for box art from the CHOMPBOT resin kit I did with @industriamechanika. Everything turned out so great with that project was a lot of fun to see it all come together.
-Jake
This is insane. One the one hand it's like something you'd see in a cartoon, on the other hand it's one of the most metal things I've seen a bird do. And I used to raise chickens.
My chickens LOVED mice. Seeing them fight over one was like watching a bunch of t-rexes tearing apart a goat. It wasn't pretty, but I couldn't avert my eyes from the carnage.
I'm a huge fan of birds, both modern and prehistoric. And a bird's gotta do what a birds gotta do to fill it's belly. With that, here's the video of a Gull swallowing a rabbit whole. How he doesn't choke on it is a mystery to me.
The past couple of weeks has been a time of self-evaluation. Taking time to learn from the experiences of others and confront my own understandings and views. I’ve been having a lot of conversations with my family, my kids, my spouse, friends, and people I do business with about how we can be better and do better.
As the protests eventually subside and public attention moves to other matters, I will not forget my commitment to understanding and overcoming racism.
In the middle of all of this I keep coming back to this quote:
“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.“
Martin Luther King Jr wrote those words while in a jail cell in Birmingham Alabama.
I endorse King's message and in that spirit and without ambiguity:
Beyond what you see online from me, I am striving to promote equality and decency in every interaction I have. I am doing this in every corner of my life, not simply what you see posted online. I believe that what I do and say in person, when I step away from the computer, is much more important and has more influence than what I do and say here.
My hope is that if each of us does this our generation's legacy isn’t racism, prejudice, discrimination and hate but loving one another.
-Jake
I’ve been chipping away at all the rewards for my Kickstarter project and am happy to announce that the books have been printed, paid for,m and are being shipped to my home! They should arrive in about 40 days.
Check out these advanced copies the printer sent out to me:
Front and back covers designs
Skull Chaser comic pages
Character design spread
Spaceships!
From the Friendship Unit:
My oldest friend, Tim Boyle, has launched a kickstarter for his quirky, fun, and beautiful book about a baby being raised by a great white shark. LINK
Tim is one of the most creative people I know and is also incredibly prolific. He's always creating things. One time he had a few weeks off work, and bought a bunch of lumber and made a life sized allosaurus sculpture in his mom's yard. He's always drawing something or building something and has been a huge inspiration to me my entire life. (We met in kindergarten). On top of it all, he's incredibly kind and generous.
Follow him on IG: LINK
And go back his Kickstarter: LINK
From the Office of Wheels
I've been thinking a lot about the cannonball run lately. It's an unsanctioned race to see who can get from a garage in New York to a hotel in Los Angeles. LINK
It’s on my mind because the record has been beat 6 times since the US lockdown. The fastest being 26 hours and 38 minutes. LINK
I've always had a proclivity toward cars and odd races like Dakar and Peking to Paris. I love that the enterprising spirit behind them. The logistics, the car mods, the personalities that take these things on are all so fun, and makes me want to do a racing comic some day.
-Jake
From the Department of Interestingness
Saw a tweet about what "could be this year's biggest discovery" an almost entirely intact Roman mosaic villa floor:
My wife and I were wondering how that gets covered with so much dirt over the years. I dug down into this. Apparently, the soil in any given place absent of human activity grows about an inch a century.
But where does soil come from? Organic matter that does erode away is some of it, but here's something I didn't know: Rain exist because of dust particles in the atmosphere. The particles give something for the atoms in water to latch onto. Every time it rains a small layer of dirt is deposited on the ground. (I wonder if that's why my car is so dirty after it rains?)
I assumed all this dust just comes from the earth itself; kicked up in dust storms and what not. But here's possibly the most interesting thing you'll learn today: As much as 40,000 tons of space dust arrives on Earth every year.
That means that even planets made entirely of water would still have rain fall...though not as much as you think. The earth weighs 13,170,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 pounds and 40,000 tons is only something like 0.001% of the earth's mass. Our planet isn't really gaining mass at a significant rate, and a water planet probably isn't absorbing enough dust to make rain storms a common occurrence.
What is really cool about water planets is at their core is naturally occurring ice VII. Ice VII is, as I understand it, ice that has become crystalized so that it's indistinguishable from rocks. The only place scientist have found it naturally on earth is inside diamonds.
So...back to this Roman floor they found. How cool is that?
-Jake
Little Alien Dudes, or L.A.D.s as I like to call them. I drew these guys several years ago, but I never stopped thinking about them. Something about them keeps them in the back of my head. Maybe they’re a part of the Skull Chaser universe? I’ve got some ideas.
-Jake
I know there's a lot of painful and turbulent things going on in the world right now. Specifically in the U.S., it is a time for much needed reflection and change. Each one of us has a different part we can play, and there are many lanes in a revolution. Some protest publicly, others donate privately, while many more are having tough conversations with friends and families. All are helpful.
All of this to say, it's a weird time to be drawing and honestly, I haven't felt very creative lately. However, I'm reminding myself art shouldn't be abandoned, but embraced in times of trouble. So I'm going to continue drawing, because I think putting good, creative things into the world is important work. Outside of all things art, I am endeavoring to make the world in my personal circle of influence a better place and hope that you are doing the same.
On the Black Lives Matter movement:
My policy since joining social media, running this website, writing a weekly newsletter, and just being somewhat public with my artwork was to never share politics or get political online. I'm politically agnostic and see good on both sides and crazy on both sides of the spectrum. I also feel like I, a guy who draws mostly silly robots, should not be your go-to source for hot takes on current events and guidance on political/moral/religious matters. But this last week I struggled with the performative aspect of social media; like how do I share ideas and information because I think it's crucial, and not because I want to score points with people?
I see people being criticized for sharing the right message in the wrong way, sharing the wrong things in the right way, being silent, being too loud, being told now is the time for whites to speak up, but also now is the time for whites to listen.
Yet I feel like I need to share something. And I feel like this revolution transcends politics. So know that while I'm not perfect, I'm doing my best, I'm learning, and I'm changing.
Here's some things that have helped me, a white guy, put things into perspective:
First, this simple question asked in this tweet: LINK
Second, this overview of racial violence in the United States throughout our history: LINK
Third, this empathetic perspective on looting and rioting: LINK
Lastly, this Christian explaining Black Lives Matter to someone who keeps saying All Lives Matter: LINK
-Jake
