Drawings Unit
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.
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.
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?
“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.
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!
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
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
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
Last week it was Independence Day here in the United States. It's probably my favorite holiday. I usually spend way to much money on fireworks and put on a show for the neighborhood kids. Which would be good enough by itself to celebrate the holiday, but the city I've been living in for the past 7 years really knows how to do the 4th of July right. There's the Freedom Run first thing in the morning with thousands of participants, a hot air balloon launch, my neighborhood has a pancake breakfast in the church parking lot, there's a giant parade, and then a huge fireworks show at the stadium with an F-22 flyover.
Oh, and my neighbor has a replica revolutionary war canon that he fires off at 6 AM to wake everyone up.
In that spirit, for the last 5 years I've done a ridiculously over-the-top illustration staring Abe Washington Eagle, a character I made up that embodies the patriotic soul of my country. Here's the drawings from the last 5 years:
Hope your 4th was explosive!
-Jake
A couple weeks ago I went to the Denver Comic Con and here is my report:
1) I did ELEVEN commissions. I love doing these at shows because:
A - I always end up drawing something, or being exposed to something I never really new that much about (i.e Modok?!)
B - I love seeing people's faces when they see their commission.
C - It's a great way to make some extra cash at the show.
Here they are:
Hellboy Mech
MewTwo Mech
Hyper Light Drifter
Gordon Freeman
Kraven the Hunter
Invincible
Nightwing Mech
Howl and Calcifer from Howl's Moving Castle
The Roll Out Rangers
Modok
C'Thulhu Mech
2) I made about 20% less money at this show than the last time I went to Denver and I think it's because:
A - I went from selling $30 prints to small $20 prints
B - I had only one table instead of two. It seems like having two tables demands more attention and invites people to inspect your wares. Plus it displays your artwork a lot better. I have a friend that calls it the gauntlet. As people are walking by they see image after image, and if it's just one table they can easily get their attention pulled away by the next table. But two tables has a way of sucking them in by the time they get to the end of it and they have to stop and take a look.
C - Con-fatigue. I talked to a lot of other exhibitors and they said their numbers were down too. I think maybe the good people of Denver are spending less money on things they might not need, or their money is being spent somewhere else at the show. I don't know. Just a theory.
3) Recommended books
I went to an after-party for the book awards that the Denver Comic Con gave out. At the party I met a bunch of Librarians who were flown in to be judges for the award. So I asked them for book recommendations for summer reading. Here's what they said I should read:
The Best We Could Do: An Illustrated Memoir
The Stranger in the Woods: The Extraordinary Story of the Last True Hermit
Eighty Days: Nellie Bly and Elizabeth Bisland's History-Making Race Around the World - This was the one that sounded the most interesting to me!
-Jake
With SkyHeart at the printers I've been thinking about doing a couple smaller comic stories before I start the second chapter of SkyHeart. One idea I had was to pair these two up. What do you think?
My intern did an incredible job updating my website the last few weeks. There's a few pages he made devoted just to these guys:
I really think I should do something with Missile Mouse. I've got two more great graphic novel ideas. I just need a couple of free years to draw them. haha.
Hello!
Hope you've had a great week.
Last week I took a trip down to Arizona to visited my mother, who isn't feeling very well. We got to catch up, and I took some time to clean up her shed. In it, I found a bunch of old artwork I had done in high school that I haven't seen since I packed up the box back in 2002.
I thought I'd share them with you and talk a little about what I was trying to learn with each piece.
This was one of many attempts to start a comic strip. There's a lot going on here. I was trying on a new style, and tried to learn what I could from the successful comic strips I followed in the 90's. I was figuring out how to do inking, panel structure, and storytelling.
I remember seeing an amazing ink drawing of Predator in a comic book I had. I wanted to ink like that so I came up with my own pose, but tried to copy the inking style. Not content enough to just draw a predator I had to mash it with Star Wars, so I gave him a light saber and some Mandalorian inspired armor.
One of my final projects senior art class was this inked Boba Fett with colored pencils. I felt like I had inking down at this point, but my coloring skills weren't there yet. I didn't know how to use Photoshop yet, otherwise I would've colored this digitally. Basically colored pencils were the best coloring option I had at the time.
Another senior project was a cut out 3D paper assignment. I did Missile Mouse battling a space hydra over a barren moon. This monster was based on a bunch of Bill Watterson aliens. I remember I copied the pose of Missile Mouse from an X-Men comic drawn by Jim Lee. This was me putting a bunch of influences together to try and make something new. Skills that would become very valuable later on in my career.
My friend came up with a character called Jet-Dog and this was my fan art of him. I was big into Appleseed and Superpatriot so I learned a lot about mechanics from those comics.
I don't remember what this was for, but Hellboy had just came out and I was learning how to draw tentacles from those first few issues.
Here's some Star Wars letterhead I made when I was about 20 years old. This was in the late nineties when there wasn't as much Star Wars stuff all over the place. I saw a cool Spider-man letterhead that all these characters on it and I wanted something like that for Star Wars. So I drew my own! I made copies of this and wrote letters to people on them. (Also before email!) I learned a lot about graphic design and how to put a bunch of elements together. This would be soooo much easier with Photoshop now.
And lastly, here's a Batman drawing I did when I was about 5. I was a BIG fan of the Adam West Batman series. I remember drawing this from a batmobile toy I had. What's cool is to see how my 5 year old brain simplified the shapes and only drew what was necessary to get the point across.
It's been fun to go through these, I haven't looked at this art in 16 years!
There's THREE take-aways from all of this:
1) Learning happens from experimentation. I did a lot of experimentation in my early years. I experimented with style, tools, subject matter, techniques, etc. This is how you find out how you make your own work. You take pieces of all of these and find what works for you.
2) Learning also happens from just A LOT of copying. I found pieces that really spoke to me and copied what I could from them to make my own pieces. Copying helps you close the gap between idea and execution.
3) Use each piece you do to focus on one skill. Even though your piece might be pushing you abilities in a bunch of different skill sets, have the main thrust of the piece be about learning one particular skill.
Alright, that's it for this blogpost. Thanks for reading!
-Jake
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At the beginning of the month I tabled at Emerald City Comic Con, my favorite con to attend btw.
I don't normally take on commissions because my day-to-day is pretty packed with projects and jobs. However, when I'm at a con I use it as an opportunity to take on around 10 commissions. This is because I'm away from my family working all weekend anyway, I might as well fill the in the time gaps with drawing something. Not only does this make the con a better financial return on my time out of the studio, but I get to make something cool for someone.
This is also someone's chance to play art director. They get to be a part of the creative experience by imparting their imagination on my drawing skills. And together we come up with something wholly unique: an artifact that acts as the ultimate memento of that event and that particular thing of which the commissioner is a fan of.
With that, I thought I’d share some recent commissions I did for fans at Emerald City Comic Con.
Robo-pug
Mech-Hulk dropped his coffee
Kikaider, from an old seventies Japanese show that I was not aware of until a fan asked me to do my take on it.
Spent waaaay too much time on this one, but it was for a friend, and worth it.
Miranda from Mass Effect. Thought it would be cool to do her in a more cartoony style since she's always portrayed pretty realistically.
Wake with the commissioner's dog Pip. (I actually did this on in my studio before Emerald City, as a special request)
Sometimes you just want a picture of a raccoon with a remote controlled car.
Venom-Thor! I thought this was a pretty creative idea this guy had me do.
This were a lot of fun. It had been over a year since I last did commissions like these.
If you're interested in getting an original pice of art from me, I post drawings in my shop from time to time. If you're wanting a commission, definitely hit me up at a con, (I'll be at Denver Comic Con in June) or shoot me an email. I'll let you know if I have the time in my schedule or not.
-Jake
We are well into the 3rd month of the year here and I thought I'd share the drawings I've done for fun so far this year.
Been spending most of my time for the last 4 months on SkyHeart, so I haven't been drawing for fun as much as I have in past years. I think it's important to just sandbox draw because so many cool ideas come out of that. I get so busy with urgent work I sometimes forget to draw for fun. And by fun I mean exploration, play, and experimentation.
I guess that's the way the pendulum swings. I used to draw an awful lot for fun and didn't making anything of lasting importance (like graphic novels or picture books). For several years I did a lot of exploration; trying to find new designs for characters and world building. I did a ton of exploration in my 20's and early 30's; figuring out what styles, mediums, and tools worked well for my goals.
But now I'm in execution mode. Which means my last sketch book took a full 9 months to fill (I usually fill 4 in a year), but I've been able to sketch, pencil, and ink an entire graphic novel.
But maybe that's how it's supposed to work, you explore, play, and experiment, then find something you want to sink your teeth into and deploy, execute, and produce. I just wish I could figure out a way to not do one at the expense of the other.
Hoping I find the balance between these two before my career is over!
Anyway, here's my drawings. Commentary in the captions.
-Jake
Only after I posted this on Instagram and someone mentioned the word "avocado" did I realize this looks like an AVOCADO BOT. Maybe I should do more food based robots.
An Emerald City Street Guard is startled by a rascal riding a kangaroo-rabbit.
I colored this with my Winsor Newton watercolor set which I love.
he Emerald City Air Squadron defends the city from all enemies, foreign and domestic. I drew this in anticipation of Emerald City ComicCon. Every year before I go I do some kind of Emerald City themed drawing.
This is my go-to default subject matter when I don't know what to draw. Little bots with numbers on them. I did 200 of them several years ago. This drawing and the next are me toying with the idea of doing another hundred.
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In that time I've had a lot of serious doubts about the story, my strengths as a character artist, and my ability to write good dialogue. It's been nearly debilitating at times. I've read so many amazing graphic novels that I sometimes wonder, "who am I to contribute anything to this medium?" A few times I've had to pause production, take a step back, and think about it before cautiously resuming work on it again.
For years my main hang-up with drawing SkyHeart was that I wasn't a good enough artist to draw human characters, I wasn't good enough to tell the story, and my dialogue writing was stiff. So I kept putting off this dream project until I got better at my craft. I think that's a fair approach: get good at something by practicing on a smaller scale before taking on something BIG.
But when is a creator ever good enough? When you compare yourself to your influences and idols, you always come up short. At some point you just have to start your big project, realizing that if your idol waited until they felt like they were good enough, they would've never started either.
But starting a project and finishing a project are two different things. Just because I made the resolve to start didn't mean I had overcome my self doubt.
Self doubt can wreak havoc on a project. Concerns about one's abilities are legitimate, but it shouldn't stop a project from happening. What's amazing to me is that as I flip through my SkyHeart pages I see a rad story unfolding, I see an artist gaining confidence in his character drawings, and I see dialogue flowing more naturally.
All of that came about because I pushed through and kept working on it. I'm a firm believer that you learn more from doing X than from studying X. However, when you're lost in the weeds of a project it's hard to remember that. I clearly forgot about that during the duration of this graphic novel.
I'm posting this here to remind me that regardless of how I feel about the quality of the my work on a project, halting it until I get better at the craft is not the answer.
Roman Emperor and part-time philosopher, Marcus Aurelius wrote on this. He said:
In my case, my abilities were my impediment to finishing SkyHeart. They were a roadblock standing in my way of finishing this book. Ironically, finishing the book was the only way to remove that roadblock.
In short, getting better at the craft happens only by working on and finishing things.
That's the outlook that sees me through the next 126 pages.
-Jake
