Operation Night Watch

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?

Painting Practice Continues to Continue

From the Art Department's Craft Mastery Special Unit

Working on my painting skills some more. Trying to knock one out every week in my off time. You can see the original line art version of this at the bottom there. I wanted to take that art and see if I could make it look more rendered, like 3D.

-Jake

Big Fight

From the Art Department

Here's something that's been in the works for the last couple weeks. I've been going at it off an on in between other projects. Patrons have been watching this thing's progress. I thought I would share a section of the larger piece with you here. Hopefully, I'll get time to finish this next week!

-Jake

Inktober 2009

From the Art Department

Here's something that's been in the works for the last couple weeks. I've been going at it off an on in between other projects. Patrons have been watching this thing's progress. I thought I would share a section of the larger piece with you here. Hopefully, I'll get time to finish this next week!

This was back when I had 9 followers on twitter, and I didn't even know what an instagram was. lol.

When Inktober was all over with I made a book called Inktober 2009. I ordered 100 and was was so happy I sold over half of them. The rest would sell out, and I think I did a second print run of 100 and sold those too.

All of the original Inktober 2009 drawings are posted here on my Flickr Album. Check them out: LINK

The Inktober 2009 book is now for sale on my shop as a PDF download. If you want a copy, it's a part of my sketchbook archive of drawings made before 2010. I've got a discount code special for you folks that subscribe to my newsletter. Use "HALFOFFDIGITAL" to get them 50% off: LINK

(that code applies to all my digital books too)

-Jake

Witches, Vampires, and Jack-O-Lanterns

From the Art Department

I haven’t done a pencil rendering in a looong time. Thought it would be fun to add a witch to Jack and Drac this year. I originally did those two back in 2008 I think. I was a little rusty with the pencil at first, but got the hang of it pretty quick. Might do more of these when my schedule lightens up.⁣
I posted a step by step tutorial on how I make these over on Patreon.

If you're wanting to add a little spookiness to your home this season, these are available as a set in my shop: LINK

And for the record, I do not condone witchcraft, sucking blood, nor replacing your head with a pumpkin.

-Jake

The 29 Year Design History of Missile Mouse

Why do I keep coming back to this character after all these years?? I don’t know. Just when I think we’ve moved on from each other we get back to hanging out, going on adventures, fighting bad guys.⁣
⁣
I guess there’s a lesson in here on never giving up on your OC, or nurturing creativity in teens, or maybe dragging something on for way too long.⁣
⁣
Hope you got something out of it. ⁣
⁣
-Jake⁣

P.S. Let me know in the comments about any OCs you made as a kid. Would love to hear your stories!⁣

C.A.T.Bot

Using Cybernetic Action Tech or CAT for short. These security droids could be modified for a variety of purposes.⁣

C.A.T. Bot is another collaboration with my son Calvin who has all the good ideas around here.⁣ This the design evolution of the character from Calvin's initial drawing to the one I just finished last week.

Star Princess Aven

Here's a character design I did of Star Princess Aven recently.

Here's the original drawing I did back in 2012.

and she's in the BG her of the Skull Chaser Japanese Movie post I made a year later.

I've always wanted to put her in a Skull Chaser story, but since drawing comics is too hard, and I'm lazy she never went beyond those two drawings...until now. I'll have to incorporate her in the next comic I do.

Bunch o’ battle otters....er mice?

I was going through my archives and found these drawings from back in 2010. The first 50 people who bought my Spacecave drawing book got one of these original drawings in their package. Anyone out there still have one of these?⁣

Princess Mononoke

“You cannot alter your fate. However, you can rise to meet it.” - Princess Mononoke⁣

Happy birthday Miyazaki san, you grumpy old brilliant man!⁣
⁣
Princess Mononoke was the first Miyazaki film I saw. Back in 1998, shortly after it came out, my friend @monkeyfeather brought a VHS of it to work and we watched it without a dub and without subtitles. I was entranced by its beauty and audaciousness. I immediately became a fan and wanted to see more films by this studio. I don’t blame Miyazaki for wanting to retire all the time. These things are hard to make and it is an embarrassment of riches to have all the films of his we do have. That said, if he has it in him to make one or two more of these, I wouldn’t mind one bit.⁣

NEW CHALLENGER

My 12-year-old son (Calvin) and I have been collaborating on a character design for @t.m.wilson’s Character Arena!⁣
⁣
Below is my design, Calvin’s original design, and the bio he wrote for the character. Calvin is a fun art director to work with but accepts no compromises😅. Hope you like her!⁣

Robot Round Up

From the Art Department

I breathed new life in some old robot drawings of mine by adding color. I've been wanting to stay active on my IG account, but have little time to draw something new every day so I've been digging stuff out of my archive, tweaking them a little, and posting it up. Engagement is the highest it's been since Inktober. So there's your social media pro-tip for the day!

-Jake

RED BUNNY FORCE⁣!

Illustration I did for the latest episode of 3 Point Perspective, the illustration podcast I do with @leewhiteillo and @willterryart . This episode was all about building a team around you and I thought it would be fun to draw the @svslearn red bunny as a team of superheroes.

⁣Listen to it here: LINK
⁣

The North Polians

I've been kind of taking it easy this month. My family and I all got covid, so I've been down and just been evaluating the year, and calibrating my plans for 2021. 

We are all feeling a lot better now, except my wife and I can't smell anything.

Wish I had more to post this month, however, this week I've been inspired by all of the great Christmas classics the kids and I have been watching and I wanted to do a line up of a bunch of characters inspired by the movies we've seen recently.

Sharing them here with you, hope you like them!

Merry Christmas!

Jake

The Night Fish and the Star Catcher

From the Drawings Unit a division of the Art Department in cooperation with the Department of Partnerships and Collaborations

I had the unique privilege to design the cover art for this years Inktober Art Box sketchbook, and I'm REALLY happy with how it turned out. This is an excellent sketchbook to draw in and I’m honored to have my art on it.

Here's the original art that I made which was then put on the sketchbook.

The Star Catcher

I created this guy last year for the ArtSnacks print. Not sure who he is, or what he's about, but he's a lot of fun to draw:

And I drew him again for one of my Inktober52 drawings:

I already have several space characters I've created and drawn comics with (Space Skull, Missile Mouse, Lucy Nova) but each of those are grounded in traditional sci-fi tropes. I think with Star Catcher I'm subconsciously wanting to explore a space fantasy that can't exist in reality. I guess this means you can expect to see more of him in the future.

-Jake

Skull Chaser Arcade Machine

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

Mix Up At the Lab

From the Art Department

This is what happens when you put the Dino DNA lab right next to the Robotics/AI lab.⁣

It's tough raising baby dinosaurs

Hope you're doing good. There's so much amazing stuff in the world. Yes, we've got problems that need to be solved. Lots of them. But don't lose sight of all the good and cool around you. I try to follow Mary Oliver's advice:

Instructions for living life:

• Pay attention.

• Be astonished.

• Tell about it.

My goal is to remember what I've seen and pass that along to you. My hope is it inspires you to go make and do good and cool things as well, so that there's even more of it to share. In that spirit, here's a recent illustration I made for fun.

Started out as an Inktober52 prompt drawing for "Tail" and then I liked how it turned out so much I decided to color it.

You can see process stuff like this, including videos and hang outs all the time on my Patreon: LINK

Thanks,

Jake

Vacation Drawings and...burnout?

I just got home from a 10 day, much needed family vacation. It’s been GO GO GO here for months, because my work didn’t slow down when Covid hit, it kind of ratcheted up a couple notches. Plus having all the kids home ALL DAY made things a bit harder. Deadlines don’t care.

Every summer we go stay with my wife’s grandma in a sleepy little town on Long Island. It’s not a flashy vacation, there’s no itinerary, no zip lines, no dolphin swimming, no nice restaurants, and no helicopter rides over volcanoes.

We watch sail boats go by as the tide rolls in and out. We try to outdo each other’s crazy dives off the dock. There’s lots of reading, and napping. Going to town to get ice cream is an event. We play memory, rummicube, and farkle. The most exciting thing on this trip was that a dogfish washed ashore and we debated whether it was a shark or not.

It’s juuust right.

For most of the vacation I didn’t even crack open my sketchbook. I did some reading, I did a bunch of staring out the window. At night I watched movies with my kids. One of my favorite things to do on vacation is write postcards from wherever I’m at and mail them to unsuspecting friends. I did a bunch of those.

I think I really needed this vacation, because I just felt burned out.

Drew this box bird thing up there on my flight home.

This was one of those “just let the pencil guide your way” kind of a drawing. There’s no backstory here, no reason for it other than I hadn’t drawn much for 10 days and I felt like I should probably get warmed up for re-entry.

I did two other drawings towards the end of our stay at Grandma’s:

Now that I’m home I’m feeling better, feeling creative, and anxious to get to work on stuff.

It made me realize I’ve been exhaling for way too long and needed to inhale big time before I passed out.

Here’s a family photo we took Sunday. I love this gang! Just wanted to show you the reason I work so hard; its to support these guys in everything they’re wanting to do.

-Jake

Question: I’m curious, what do you do for vacation and how do you avoid, combat burnout?

Chomp Bot

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