Issue 180

Hello,

It's been a wild couple of weeks. The Robots kickstarter wrapped up just in time for me to prepare for, travel to, and table at the Tucson Comic Con. I had a great time seeing old friends, making new friends, and soaking in the charming southern Arizona vibe. Tucson is a cool town.

Now my focus is shifting to working on and finishing the robots book as well as ramping up for my Inktober project this year. Plus, as you can see below, something BIG just dropped. Never a dull moment!

Here's 5 things I thought you'd find interesting this weekend.

Enjoy!

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STAYING IN THE LOOP:

• I made a Disney Lorcan card! LINK​
• Podcast Episode 172: Am I In The Right Illustration Field?​
• Podcast Episode 173: Art and Comedy with Doogie Horner​
• New How to Fix Your Art VIDEO: DECORATIVE Art vs Narrative Art​
• I'll have a table at LIGHTBOX in October: LINK​

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1) Pictionary Sketchbook Edition!

From the Special Projects Unit

PICTIONARY SKETCHBOOK X INKTOBER EDITION! A new way to play Pictionary.
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When Pictionary first came out I was a 10-year-old who LOVED to draw, so when I played it for the first time it seemed like a board game designed specifically for me, a kid who was better at expressing myself through art than words.

Ironically, I always made my team lose because I spent too much time drawing overly detailed pictures! And...it's still true to this day, haha. My family always gets frustrated when it's my turn because I can't keep myself from add ing too much detail and running out the clock.
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Now I can’t believe there’s an official Pictionary game with my art all over it!
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It’s available TODAY at MattelCreations.com!
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It was such an honor to work with the skilled team at Mattel to make this thing a reality.

We put together a bunch of artwork I had made over the years for the Inktober challenge and collected them all in a kind of "greatest hits" sketchbook. I even made an entirely new drawing for it (above).

I hope you are able to pick up a copy. I played it with my family and we had a blast. Maybe even too much fun, haha.

Order here: LINK​

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2) The Fab Lab​
​From the Architecture Desk

The Fab Lab is a maker space and studio office for Roth Architecture located in the Yucatán peninsula. Designed to look like it organically grew out of the jungle, this place looks more like an alien home than an office space.

Tons more photos and info here: LINK​

Roth Architecture specializes in these kinds of buildings. Check out the rest of their projects here: LINK​

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3) The Coin Auctioneer

From the Department of Interesting Collections

I've always had a fascination with money design. I would examine all the coins and dollars I could get my hands on as a kid, checking the dates and seeing if a coin was on this earth longer than I had been (which was easier to find the first 20 years of my life as it is now). I loved the artistry on display of the secret symbols, solemn compositions, and ornate carving work. I even designed a few of my own dollar bills once for fun.

To this day I can't hold a coin in my hand without checking the date on it. So when I see coin collections like this I'm just captivated by the history, craftsmanship, and humanity of these little tokens. You can learn just about everything you need to know about a culture or institution by what they put on their coins. Each one of these is a time capsule, revealing a world on it's two sides.

These were all pulled from this one instagram account which is a nice follow if you're into this stuff. Curated by British coin expert Dominic Chorney, you'll get a nice nugget of history and wonder with each post.

See more here: LINK​

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4) The Primary Color World of Linzaoyu

From the Illustrators Division

I'm just so charmed by these colorful, dreamlike, and enchanting drawings by Japanese artist Linzaoyu.

I would love to see this in an oversized coffee table book, with some kind of narrative in the margins. Seems like there's way more going on in these images than what the pictures show us.

Very little info about the artist online. They're mostly active on instagram. Check out A LOT more of this kind of thing there: LINK​

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5) On the trajectory

From the Inspirational Thought Unit

I think the worst thing you can do as an artist is day trade in your creativity. You know, it's where you measure your success by how well you did each day.

Studies have shown that 95% of people who day trade stocks lose money in the long run. They're so focused on day-to-day fluctuations of the market that they lose sight of the bigger picture and don't notice whether their decisions are trending down or up.

The smartest investors are the ones who make consistent deposits in a portfolio of stocks, and then forget about it. Only checking once a quarter, every six months, or annually. If something didn't perform as well as they liked, they make adjustments.

Whether they are up or down on any given day doesn't concern them. It's the trajectory that matters.

It's the same for people who create. By only paying attention to whether you're having a bad day or a good day, a productive day, or a slacker day, you might lose sight of the bigger picture.

Instead, make consistent creative deposits and forget about it. Whether you made something amazing or forgettable today isn't important. What's really matters is that you showed up and did something.

Then, each quarter, six month mark, or annually take stock of your trajectory. Did you finish X amount of projects? Do the drawings you make now look better than the drawings you made last year? Are you landing the jobs that fit your skillset?

Whether they are up or down on any given day shouldn't concern you. It's the trajectory that matters.

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

-Jake

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