Issue 161

Hello!

First thing: the week got away from me and I did not get the art sale up and running in time. I'm going to push my Fall Original Art Sale to next Friday.

This is your chance to get an original for yourself or for someone special for the holidays. I'll have work available for a range of budgets. You can check the archive here to see what's sold in the past: LINK. I'll send you a secret link to the "back room" Thursday night, so you can snag something before the general public gets access to the sale.

Second: I do all kinds of stuff that never end up in the newsletter, so I thought I'd have an opening section here I'll call LATEST. It's just a quick run down of what I've done this week that I didn't want to devote an entire section to:

LATEST:

• Latest Live Stream: How to fix your art: Poses​
• Latest Podcast Episode: What If Freelance Isn't For Me?​
• Latest Youtube Video Essay: Join the Fight Against AI Art​

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

Enjoy!

1A) How to Exploit AI's Main Weakness

From the Department of Video Works

​I made a video! First on since January this year. Not my most productive video making year, because I was focused on comics instead of videos and I'm pretty happy with that. However! I HAD to do a video on AI art and how to fight against it.

I think the battle needs to happen on two fronts:

1) Big societal pressure against misuse of the technology, perhaps including class action lawsuits of some kind

and

2) Individual artists leaning into their humanity and creating work that connects with people

This video is about the latter. But perhaps I should make one about the former, too.

Watch it here: LINK​

​Patrons got to see and comment on this the night before. Trying to take good care of those folks who take good care of me. :)

1B) Dragon Parrot!

This was a fun one to do. I was getting some spaceship fatigue and just needed to draw something cute and character based. I was surfing my pinterest boards for inspiration, and the idea came to me to draw a parrot dragon hybrid with a little girl riding it.

PATREON: Join now and see how I made this illustration from start to finish. Every week I show patrons the process of at least one drawing. At the end of the month some patrons get all my working files to learn from and pick apart. Sign up here: LINK​

2) Völkerschlachtdenkmal

From the Architecture Desk

​The Völkerschlachtdenkmal is a German monument thanks! I’ll have to check that constructed in 1913 honoring the Battle of Nations in Leipzig.​

It caught my eye as I was surfing Flickr a few months ago, and I've been thinking about its style and grandeur since. I love the scale of this thing. It is massive.

If the design doesn't look explicitly European to you it's because of unlike many monuments and buildings of the era, the monument lacks classicist style elements, instead borrowing from the architecture of ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt.*​

I really love the aesthetic. And it's directly influencing an illustration I've got on the drawing board today.

More images and history about it here: LINK​

and LINK​

3) MOTORED CYBORG RUNNER

From the Office of Robots

Rad new toy from Japan designed by concept artist AF_QRO. Giving me strong Mortorball vibes and that's a good thing. Love this guy's take on it.

Details on how to get one here: LINK​

(Looks like there's a lottery since it's limited edition.)

Original color designs here: LINK and LINK​

4) Pinocccio by Andrea Rivola

From the Illustrators Division

In LOVE with these remarkable illustrations by Italian illustrator Andrea Rivola for an edition of Pinoccio.

Lots more to see from the book here: LINK​

Check out Rivola's blog here: LINK​

Instagram: LINK​

5) On courage

From the Inspirational Thought Unit

Been thinking a lot lately about the current state of creators and people's relationship with their creations. I think things have never been this good for an indie creator...yet I know there's still a lot of risk involved because it feels like the world has never been more volatile.

Looking at the creator landscape though love seeing who becomes successful at this path. And it has less to do with originality and ideas and more to do with consistency and connection.

Novelist and art theorist André Malraux puts it nicely:

Have the courage this week to bet on yourself for one thing. Keep repeating until you succeed.

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

-Jake

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