DINO-FORCE

August 14, 2018

As long as we're adding more massively funded bureaucratic agencies can we please have a dinosaur branch of the military?

Finally saw Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom with my wife and A) I loved it way more than it's predecessor, and B) couldn't stop think about where this franchise is going next.

When you've invested half a trillion dollars bringing dinosaurs back from extinction and then weaponizing them every unit counts. So when D-103 lost her leg from an IED they replaced it with a fully functional cyber limb. Good as new in a few days and back in the field in under a week.

This image: All digital. Drawn in @adobe Photoshop, on a @wacom Cintiq when I should've been working on something else.

- Jake

Abe Washington Eagle

July 10, 2018 in The Art Department

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

Attack of the Commissions!

June 27, 2018 in The Art Department

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:

Howl and Calcifer from Howl's Moving Castle

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 Tea Dragon Society

The Stranger in the Woods: The Extraordinary Story of the Last True Hermit

Daytripper

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

SkyHeart Proofs!

June 13, 2018 in The Art Department

I got the proofs back from the printer and the book is looking great!

I'll admit that when I delivered the files to the printer I was SO DONE. I didn't want to think about SkyHeart. But now, seeing these pages, leafing through them with my fingers, it's making me want to drop everything and start book 2.

You can still pre-order SkyHeart now.

The most ambitious crossover event ever?

May 30, 2018 in The Art Department

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:

Skull Chaser Comic

Skull Chaser Development Art

Missile Mouse Comic

Missile Mouse Development Art

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.

New SkyHeart Cover

May 11, 2018 in The Art Department

I'm wrapping up the loose ends with my SkyHeart project before I send it off to the printers. This week I finished the cover!

I had already designed and illustrated a cover for the book. However, I did it BEFORE I ever drew the book. I created it for the Kickstarter to show people what the finished book might look like. I had just barely figured out the designs for most of my characters, and I hadn't finished the story yet.

After I had finished the book, I revisited the cover and realized the character designs were off, and there were elements on the cover that never ended upr in the book. I felt like the cover could do a better job at reflecting what was in the books pages.

The original cover design was more of a mood piece than anything. It was meant to capture the feeling of what I wanted the book to be, and to try and sell that idea to potential backers. Now that the book was finished I realized I needed to redesign it. I really liked the vibe of the first cover so I pretty much stuck with the same composition and color palette.

Here's a comparison of the two:

I think it definitely gets the designs for Wake and Mal Threck right. And I like what's going on with the tengru better in the background. Yahna's character pose better reflects her attitude in the book. And the ship at the bottom is the right color. There's some color stuff that I couldn't quite repolicate with the second one. Sometimes illustration is just alchemy and I have no idea how I get a certain effect. All in all, I'm pretty happy with the revised cover.

I'm launching a pre-order for the book on May 21. So if you want to get in on this print run be sure to pre-order then.

If you'd like to be notified when that pre-order launches, just click here to sign up for the list.

-Jake

Why I made a Podcast

May 02, 2018 in Audio Visual Department

I've been an avid podcast listener for the last 10 years. I discovered podcasts around 2008 when I was working on my Missile Mouse graphic novel. Much of the work was tedious, often grueling.

I had a day job for an animation studio and then at nights and weekends I'd come home and work until about 1AM, alone, in the basement. I calculated that I spent about 12-14 hours per page. At 170+ pages you can start to see how much time this book took.

After the excitement of working on a graphic novel wore off (which was like 20 pages into it), one of the biggest battles was overcoming fatigue and giving myself an instant gratifying reason to sit in a cold dark leaky basement and ink a page.

What got me down there was podcasts. I knew that an exciting/interesting/engaging story was waiting for me if I sat down and got to work.

My first few podcasts that I listened to religiously were Hard Core History, Radio Lab, and Stuff You Should Know.

These podcasts saved me!

Over the years more and more podcasts became available and they niched down to pretty specific topics like comics and children's books. Pretty soon I found myself being invited to come on podcasts and talk about my work as an artist.

(Here's a few I've been on: Bancroft Brothers, All the Wonders, Art Side of Life, Your Creative Push, Dan Blank.)

But in all those years listening and participating with podcasts, what I never thought I'd do was start my own podcast.

You see, in my mind podcasts were something that (and this is going to sound stupid)...they were something that podcasters did. Somebody who has a great voice, an ability to talk interestingly about a topic, and they had the time and resources to record, edit, and publish online.

I am an illustrator. Illustrators illustrate. They don't podcast. (see, stupid. Right?)

Then this last year I was looking for podcasts specifically about illustration and all I could find were just a small handful, many of which had ended. (Bobby Chiu actually has a pretty good one, which you should listen to if you don't already).

That got the gears in my noggin rolling. I had an idea for a podcast where you get 3 illustrators (with different backgrounds and approaches to their art and careers) and you have them all discuss a single topic each episode.

Then I realized that if this was going to happen I'd have to start the podcast myself. Sometimes if you want to see a thing happen YOU have to be the one to do it.

And here I am, doing something I never thought I'd do, PODCASTING.

I'm really pumped for this new podcast. It's called:

3 Point Perspective: The Illustration Podcast

This is THE podcast about illustration: how to do it, how to make a living at it, and how to make an impact in the world with your art.

Each episode me and my two cohosts (Will terry and Lee White) tackle a subject related to illustration from 3 perspectives. Sometimes we agree, sometimes we argue, but everytime you learn something new.

All three of us are professional illustrators and for the last 25 years have worked with every major publisher and publication in the biz. We’ve published over 50 books, and have all taught illustration at different universities.

You can subscribe to it on iTunes, Google Play, or listen on the website. (Spotify coming soon)

We've already got 7 episodes in the can. The First episode dropped Monday. It's called: My Art Is Great! Why Won't Anyone Hire Me?

That episode is well stocked with actionable advice on how to get your work seen by the right people and get hired. Other episodes get into all the other nitty gritty stuff about being a professional illustrator.

I think you'll like it. Please subscribe so that you don't miss our episodes!

My hope with this podcast is to:

a) give someone a reason to get down into their leaky basement and work on that project that seems too big to ever finish.

b) give actionable advice that could point someone in the right direction with their career in illustration.

You can use the image above so that if you wanted to share it online you'd have a picture to go with you post. I'd love it if you told at least one other artist in your life about this.

All right, thanks for reading all of this. I need to get back to work on this book cover I'm finishing up.

- Jake

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The Hero We Need Right Now.

April 27, 2018 in The desk of Jake Parker

Superman turns 80 in a couple weeks, and I thought I'd share why I think Superman is not just the greatest superhero but the hero we need right now.

I understand why most people don’t get Superman. This is no fault of the character. I put the blame on most writers of Superman. I think the common mistake is to make him relatable by giving him weaknesses that he has to deal with. The writers of Superman give him kryptonite, or they give him a love interest, or a family, or an inescapable past. All of these are designed to be pressure points that a villain can manipulate him with.

Something like kryptonite makes him weak, but it isn't his weakness. This misses the mark, because Superman already has a built in weakness that should be exploited in every story.

His true weakness is the fact that he can't be everywhere at the same time. He can't save everybody. A frustrating thing for someone who is a Christ figure, a savior of the world. He came from another realm not to rule the world, which he could so easily do, but to be one of us and to save us from ourselves.

How do you save a planet that’s hellbent on destroying itself from the inside out? And how do you approach a character that has already fulfilled the needs of safety, acceptance, self esteem, and self-actualization?

A Superman story shouldn’t be about super powers, or secret identities, or being the sole survivor of the planet krypton, they should be stories about him having more faith in us than we have in ourselves.

Every person Superman encounters in a Superman story should inherit his values of truth, liberty, justice, and life just by being in contact with him. A Superman story should be about how we can be better, how we can find safety, how we gain acceptance, how to build our self esteem, and how to achieve self-actualization. A Superman story isn’t about his character growth, it’s about our character growth.

That’s Superman’s true power. Not leaping over buildings, melting steel beams with eye lasers, or flying faster than a speeding bullet. His power is changing people. One man can’t save an entire world, but one man can inspire a world to save itself.

And that’s the story we need to hear right now.

If you're interested in reading a handful of really good comics, here’s four of THE BEST Superman stories. These are the ones I keep coming back to:

Superman Birthright: I actually bought this book for the art but stayed for the story. It's a great origin story of Clark Kent taking on the mantle of Superman. Maybe the first time I read a really good explanation of the "S" on his chest.

Superman for All Seasons: A quiet Superman story that narrated by those who knew Clark Kent the best and how they impacted his life, and in turn how he's impacted theirs.

All-Star Superman: My favorite of this bunch. This takes a bunch of the crazy Golden and Silver-Age Superman characters, experiences, and set pieces and weaves it into a serious story about the Man of Steel's last year on earth. It was heartfelt, engaging, and fun. Plus the art is incredible.

Superman Secret Identity: An alternate universe re-telling of the Superman origin story. I didn't know what to expect when I bought this, I just heard it was really good. Took me by surprise a little, but I enjoyed it. Also, really great art.

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Roald Dahl, Double Barrel Cannons, Yaretas, and Breaking into Comics

April 20, 2018 in The desk of Jake Parker

I like keeping my creative bank account full and fresh, so I'm always on the look out for cool/interesting/thought provoking/inspiring stuff. To keep track of it, I'm posting it here on my blog, so that a) I can access it easily, and b) so you can benefit from it too.

In that same spirit, if you run into anything you think I might like please share it with me, either in the comments or via my contact page. Thanks!

Okay, here's 5 cool things that came across my screen recently:

1) Roald Dahl’s Letter of Advice to a Young Writer.

Always interesting to see what advice successful creative people have for amateurs. Lessons learned from this brief exchange:

1 - Don't ask too much of them. You should have already studied their work, and the work that they studied to get where they are. Once you've done that, if there's any gaps in your understanding you can ask for them to fill that for you.

2 - Do your homework on the person you're contacting so you don't ask them for information that is already readily available. When you only have one shot to talk to someone you look up to you don't want to waste it on something that you already had access to.

2) Double Barrel Cannon

I had no idea these things actually existed. What a brutal weapon! The ingenious part is connecting the cannon balls with a chain. Might be cool to put something like this in SkyHeart...I'm thinking on a bigger scale. Maybe the tengru use a massive version of this to level cities?

3) Yareta, the 3000 years old plant

Another thing I never knew existed! This was brought to my attention by Rebecca Dart who shared this on her twitter feed. Pretty cool to know that stuff like this grows on our planet. Might be good reference for an alien civilization. I can imagine tiny villages built on these plants, with little alien farmers harvesting them for food.

4) "I feared releasing something unimportant, so I didn’t release anything at all."

Short read about allowing your ego to get in the way of you putting something out into the world. I think they nail it. If you haven't created something and shared it with people in a long while, could this be the reason?

5) How to Work in Comics? The “Don’t Break In” Panel

I was a part of a panel at Emerald City and Comics Beat did a nice write up of it. In the panel we unpacked the idea of making comics on your own as a way to "break in" to the comic industry. Jason Brubaker, Lucy Bellwood, and I have all had success self publishing our comics. A great discussion, and really nice to hear three different perspectives on this topic.

That's it for this week. See you next time.

Jake

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Old art from my late teens and what I learned from it

March 30, 2018 in The Art Department

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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On Doing Commissions

March 23, 2018 in The Art Department

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.

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

To Art Students in Puerto Rico

March 21, 2018 in The desk of Jake Parker

I met Samuel at the CTN Animation Expo last year. He’s an animation student from Puerto Rico. Last summer Puerto Rico was hit by a massive hurricane that destroyed a lot of the infrastructure of the country and, by extension, the infrastructure of the art school Samuel attends.

I’m trying to imagine the full extent of the damage this caused. Two months after the hurricane Samuel told me that there was still no power. A trip to the school that took 45 minutes took 2 hours. Instead of washing clothes in a washing machine, clothes are washed in the river.

I’m trying to imagine finishing school under these circumstances.

Unfortunately, due to the nature of news cycles, the situation in Puerto Rico has largely gone forgotten by the world. There are problems that can’t be fixed in six months and the effects of this hurricane will be felt for years to come. This leaves the people left cleaning up the mess to feel even more isolated and marginalized.

At CTN Samuel asked me if I had any words I could send along to his fellow classmates. Anything positive that might inspire them to keep going.

At Samuel’s request I’ve written this letter to offer a message of hope in the face of such hardship:

To the art students of Puerto Rico let me first say I’ve never had to face mountains like yours, but I’ve had my own mountains that have tested me. In those times I’ve had to remind myself this:

You need to create.

Your community needs you to create.

The world needs you to create.

There’s a reason you chose art as a career path. It is in your nature to create and share. That’s because you have stories, images, characters, and experiences inside of you that need to get out. Leaving those things to wither and die inside of you is not an option. The act of creation is also an act of healing. It requires your mind, your emotion, and your body to make something. Engaging all of those at once provides an outlet for your frustrations, but also elevates you out of your situation for a moment, and shows how things can be. For your own well being you need to create.

As your country rebuilds it needs healthy communities who live and work together peacefully. Your art can be a part of this by showing your community an ideal by which it can strive for. Your art can be the language in which your community uses to understand each other. As your community comes together there are experiences it might not necessarily fully understand or know how to express. You art can help share thoughts, ideas and a vision of your community that may not be able to be articulated any other way. In order to thrive your community needs you to create.

Lastly, artists are on the frontline of culture. They give us tools to understand our past, what we are dealing with now, and most importantly how things can be. Throughout history the world has been changed forever by small groups of artists who dared to create in the face of uncertainty and instability.

Think of Picasso’s Guernica which brought the horrors of the Spanish Civil War to the attention of the world. Or the impressionists which showed us that art shouldn’t just be a representation of what we see, but also of what we feel. Or Disney’s Snow White which showed that animation wasn’t just for gags and laughs, but could be used to tell meaningful, emotionally impactful stories. Your art could be just as provocative. What you create in this situation could just be what the world needs to see right now. The world needs you to create.

Now, telling someone to create, and actually creating are two different things. I understand that making a work of art falls to the bottom of the list of priorities when most of your energy is finding a way to feed yourself that day. Don’t let that stop you from doing these two small things:

Make something every day.
Be 1% better than you were yesterday.

It might be one drawing on one page in your sketchbook. Or a scribble on a napkin. Or a journal entry. Or a quick sketch you made on the bus. Whatever it is, make/draw/write something every day.

It might be that today you spent one more minute creating than you did yesterday. Or you started a second drawing and the day before you only did one. It might be that instead of having a moment of feeling sorry for yourself you took one moment to feel gratitude toward some thing. Whatever you’re doing, try to just be one percent better today than you were yesterday.

Both of these compound. They are small, but after weeks and months of doing these seemingly insignificant things you will see change happen. Something bigger will start to come from your small, consistent acts of creativity and self improvement.

First you will see change in yourself.

Then you’ll see it in others around you.

One day the effect will be noticeable in your community.

In time, it will be felt around the world.

And that’s something you, your community, and the world need right now.

-Jake

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Experimentation vs Execution

March 14, 2018 in The Art Department

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. — 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.

Cooling off.This was all digital from sketch to final. Took 2 hours. I drew it for an svslearn.com live demo. You can order, download, and watch it here. — Cooling off.

This was all digital from sketch to final. Took 2 hours. I drew it for an svslearn .com live demo. You can order, download, and watch it here.

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SkyHeart Colors

March 08, 2018 in The Art Department

Hello! In keeping with the spirit of this blog as a place to post more longer form content and stuff I'm thinking about, I thought I'd also share some production updates for whatever it is I'm working on. In this case it's my all-ages graphic novel SkyHeart.

Right now I'm neck deep in coloring SkyHeart.

I only have 36 pages left to finish coloring out of 126! Wanted to share a few of my favorite pages with you:

The back alley ways of Bridgeport are the perfect place for a stick fight.

Wake's mom has had to take on extra work since he went off to war.

I've also updated the SkyHeart webpage with a ton of info, PLUS a preview of the first 10 pages of the book. So head over there to check it out.

I had to pause production while I went to Emerald City Comic Con. This week and next has me tied up with accounting, taxes, and a bunch of loose ends on various projects. I'm hoping to get back to coloring by the end of the month.

Lastly, a huge shout out to Ryan Nimtz, Rachel Everett, Cam Kendell, Dado, and Tanner Garlick for all their help in assisting me on this book so far. These guys are incredible to work with!

-Jake

The SkyHeart Transmissions!

Receive SkyHeart updates in your Inbox:

10,000 Minutes

February 22, 2018 in The desk of Jake Parker

Been thinking about the 10,000 hour rule.

Malcolm Gladwell popularized it in his 2008 book Outliers. Based on studies of elite performers in a spectrum of disciplines Gladwell proposed that people aren't born geniuses, but arrive there through hours upon hours of practice and work.

He contends that “ten thousand hours is the magic number of greatness." He backs that up by giving examples of greatness, and how Bill Gates, Mozart, and the Beatles achieved mastery by combining their nascent talent with 10,000 hours of practice.

Whether you're learning to code, play piano, illustrate, or wrangle dinosaurs, Gladwell says it'll take 10,000 hours of practice to master it.

10,000 hours of hard learning is daunting. It can be insurmountable for anyone over 40, and it is crippling to a teen. How can you live a balanced life when 5 hours of free time a day for 8-9 years is spent holed up in your room practicing?

Here’s a question: Maybe you don’t need to be a master in order to be successful?

Sometimes to be successful at something you just need to be above average. Maybe even just 1% better than the next guy. Mastery can come later if you want it. In fact, I think if you spend 10 years practicing at an above average level, mastery will be a nice side effect.

Let mastery happen on its own schedule, In the meantime just strive for being above average.

To get to above average you’ll need a lot less time than 10,000 hours. How about we see what you can learn in 10,000 minutes?

10,000 minutes as about 167 hours. If you attack this full time, and spend 8 hours a day, for 5 days a week, you’ll get your 10,000 minutes in a MONTH. I don’t think that’s healthy. Do not try it.

Let’s look at something a little more doable: 2 hours every week day (weekends off) gets you your 10,000 minutes in just 3 months.

That’s way more manageable. You can still have a life while doing this. Which is important for having a well stocked creative bank account.

But not all hours drawing are created equal. Just drawing for fun 2 hours a day isn’t going to get you to above average. You need to make those hours really count.

In order to make this the most effective use of your hours here’s FOUR things you need to do.

1) Define the micro skills

Being a great artist means mastering 40+ different micro-skills. These small skills are stacked on top of each other and make it look like the master artist doing magic, when really she is just doing 40+ small things all at the same time.

Some of these skills are:

Line weight
Tone
Proportion
Silhouette
Light
Shadow
Design
Concept
Form
Composition
Color
Value

That’s a good list to start with. If you want to know more, study up on some of your favorite artists. Perhaps ask them what skills they think are most important, then add those to your list of micro skills.

2) Deliberate Practice

Now that you’ve got the list of micro-skills you need to learn set out to learn each one individually. You do this through deliberate practice.

Deliberate practice is seen as one of the most effective ways to learn because it’s about narrowing in on specific sub skills and mastering those first.

For example, line weight is the first on the list there. What you might do is print out a line drawing that someone has already done, then you’ll trace over that drawing trying to copy the line weight exactly. Repeat this as many times as it takes so that you learn when to do thick heavy lines and when to do thin light lines.

Once you’ve gotten good at that, do the same with tone. Copy drawings that are excellent examples of tonal structure. And try to match that with your drawing.

Repeat this for all the micro-skills one-by-one.

Note: this is hard. Professionals who practice this way state that they can only concentrate for, at most, 4 hours every day on learning one specific micro-skill.

So don’t get frustrated if you can only do this for 30 minutes at a time at first.

3) Establish a feedback loop

One of the best ways to spot your problem areas and identify ways to improve is by creating a feedback loop for yourself. For some skills you’ll be able to track your performance by yourself. Just by comparing your line weight to the line weight of the drawing your learning from you should be able to see where you nailed it and where you need improvement.

But some skills are a little more subjective, or you haven’t learned enough yet to know what’s working and what isn’t in your studies. For that you’ll need to either find a mentor or find a community to show your work to. A place like the SVSlearn.com forums is a great place to share your progress and get feedback.

Showing a teacher or a professional is also a great way to get feedback. Many online schools offer access to their teachers in live classes. Schoolism, CGMA, and SVSlearn.com all have great options.

4) The 1% Rule

Just try to be one percent better today than you were yesterday. I learned about this from James Altucher who writes about this here.

Do this and you’ll see your expertise compound. Don’t worry about making giant strides every day. Just look at yesterday’s work and try to make it one percent better than it was yesterday.

Do this for 167 days and that 1% becomes… 167% better? I don’t know exactly. I’m not very good at percentages, but you get the point.

Get Started!

So that’s it, forget the 10,000 hour rule and see what you can accomplish in 10,000 minutes.

I’ve seen massive gains in my abilities by doing these four things. Check your own learning regiment and see if introducing micro-skill tracking, deliberate practice, feedback loops, and the 1% rule make any difference in the next 3 months.

I’d love to know how it goes for you.

Also, let me know what other learning techniques you do that have proven super effective. I’d love to try and apply those to my learning as well.

Thanks,
Jake

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The Pre-History of SkyHeart

February 16, 2018 in The desk of Jake Parker, The Art Department

As I get close to wrapping up this first volume of SkyHeart I thought I'd share the development history for this project.

It all started here:

I remember having tons of story ideas and I'd keep forgetting them, so I decided to write them down as they came to mind so I'd never lose them.

One of the first entries was for an idea about a planet that had been hollowed out and was now crumbling. I had no idea what to call it so "hollow planet" seemed to work for the time being.

These first few entries were just about world building, not thinking of characters or stories just yet. I wanted to figure out what the parameters of this world was before delving into who my characters were.

First entry for SkyHeart, then titled "Hollow Planet"

Not long after my initial journal entries I started sketching out ideas for the characters and the world they lived in.

I believe this is the first drawing I ever did of Airth. It's not dated, but it was in a stack of drawings from 2001 so it's from that year.

I knew I wanted it to be about animals in flying machines. But what animals? What kind of flying machines? Here was one of my very first explorations:

One of my first drawings for what would become SkyHeart. A group of crazy animals flying around in a gunship.

As I thought more about the idea and the world I wondered what would a typical day be like for an explorer of this planet. A scene came to mind, not of perilous adventure, but of the mundane act of refueling and stocking up on supplies:

It's been a lot of fun looking at these OLD drawings now. I wish the Jake that drew these 14 years ago could see what became of this little idea.

The idea simmered in my imagination for a year or so, until I was asked to be a part of an anthology book called FLIGHT. I thought this would be a great time to dig in to this world I was building, figure out some characters, and start crafting a story.

One of the first things I drew was this:

Sometimes an idea just hits you and you go with it. In this case it was a boy riding a flying whale with a winged pig at his side. The idea grew on me and a developed the character designs even more:

As I was drawing these characters I started asking myself questions: What are their personalities? Why are they together? What were they riding in the sky for?

The answers started coming and soon I had a story. It was epic, and had many moving parts. I had no idea how I would ever draw this story, and besides it wouldn't fit in an anthology where I only had 14 pages I was allowed to fill. So I wrote a little vignette about a day in the life of these guys. It was called Hugo Earhart and here's a couple pages from that:

I loved putting together this little story. It was only 14 pages, but it alluded to the much bigger world I was developing. I started fleshing out the world even more.

Here's some more sketches I found:

And here's a few development designs for a side character in the story; a sky-elf. She would evolve to become a main character in SkyHeart, but I had no idea she would become that when I was designing her for this story.

After writing more ideas about the story I decided I wasn't up to the task. It would be too hard for me to draw it and write it. I just wasn't good enough.

I decided to shelve it for a few years as I focused on my Missile Mouse Graphic novels.

A couple years after MM, I launched a Kickstarter for a book that would collect all my short comic stories that I had drawn. It was called The Antler Boy and Other Stories. One of the stretch goals was for me to add a new Hugo Earhart story to it.

Here's a few pages from that story:

Crafting this story rekindled my love for this world and I started to think about it a lot. I thought about how I had grown as a storyteller and as an artist. I thought about what I could do with this story and where I could take it. But I still didn't feel like I was ready to tackle an entire graphic novel.

So I did what I do best: world build!

I decided to mix some more fantasy elements into it and began figuring out the mythology of this universe. Here's some concept sketches of the new direction:

It was this mix of fantasy and diesel-punk tech that made me feel like I was really onto something.

But then again, the world and story overwhelmed me and I decided to shelve it again when I thought I'd be ready.

For three years distracted myself with Lord Balderben, SkullChaser, Rocket Raccoon, and Little Bot. In those years I felt like I got much better at my craft, but I knew I would need a real kick in the pants to motivate me to overcome my fears and doubts with drawing SkyHeart.

That kick in the pants came in the form of Kickstarter. That Kickstarter got me to finally put me in a place where I HAD to do SkyHeart whether I was ready or not. I talk all about how doing the book helped me overcome fear and doubt here.

This post is already way too long, so I'll stop. The SkyHeart Kickstarter had it's own development that I'll share in another post. Like, how Hugo went from being a boy to becoming a fox-like character named Wake.

Thanks for reading this far. See you next week.

-Jake

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Why Do You Create?

February 05, 2018 in The desk of Jake Parker

I was asked this question on the SVS forums several months ago and it has stuck with me. I think about this a lot.

Before I start unpacking this, there’s another (maybe even more important?) question:

Why does knowing why you create even matter?

You need to figure this out because knowing why you create informs everything you do as a creator.

Knowing why you create helps you stave off feelings of inadequacy, frustration, and imposter syndrome that often come with putting your creative self out there for people to see, judge, and respond to.

Knowing why you create motivates you to improve your craft, and sets a foundation for you to build a career on.

Knowing why you create gives purpose to your art, and by extension, to you.

Knowing why you create is key to being a happy, satisfied, and more creative person.

I think there’s three reasons to create. There might be more. If you can think of others, please share in the comments.

A particular act of creation can satisfy one of these reasons, or all of them. I also think that all of these reasons are the right reasons. And you shouldn’t feel bad for being predisposed to one over the other.

But I think these three just about cover everything.

So, why does a person create?

Reason 1: Personal Fulfillment

This is the most basic and primal reason for creating. This is why little children pick up crayons and fill sheets of construction paper with colors. This reason satisfies one of our most innate desires: to turn raw materials into something organized; to turn imagination into reality.

I had a knack for drawing early on...but I admit, when I look at my early drawings they look no more special than any other kid who liked to draw. However, I got a lot of positive reinforcement from my parents and classmates, and that gave me confidence to to improve.

I remember getting a rush when I would create things, sometimes with my art, sometimes with LEGO, sometimes it was just combining my toys into new creations. I loved putting something that had my creative fingerprint on it out into the world. I began to crave that feeling and I found myself in what I call my “creative rush” cycle:

- step one: put myself in a position to get the creative rush

- step two: feed off the rush creating something as awesome as I could create

- step three: get positive feedback and reinforcement from parents, teachers, and peers on the thing I created

At every step I was feeling good things, and that's why I did what I did, to feel good. To keep those feelings coming I kept repeating the cycle.

What happens when you do something a lot, over and over and over again? You get good at it.

By the time I was in high school I was the best artist at the school. I was known as the kid who was good at drawing and was sought out to draw things for people. I designed a bunch of t-shirts, I was president of the Art Club (and we went on to win club of the year that year). I won the artist of the year award my senior year. Drawing and art was a central part of my identity.

It is this very personal reaction to creation that I think drives many people to pick up a pen and make something that wasn’t there before.

Reason 2: Reciprocation

This is creating as an act of mutual giving and receiving. You create to receive something beneficial in return. Sometimes this is a job or contract work that you’re financially compensated for. Sometimes it’s not for money, but for exposure. Sometimes it’s to build out your portfolio, or to learn how to do something better. In the end, your act of creation facilitated the means to receiving something that benefited you.

When it was time for me to go get a job and make something of myself I realized I wasn't qualified, nor interested in doing anything that wasn't creative. In my early 20's I found myself working for an animation studio, getting married, and having a kid all in the space of 3-4 years

Now my reasons for creating meant doing the thing I was good at to get a steady paycheck. Personal satisfaction would have to take a back seat. For about 12 years I grinded at different studios working on projects that I was sort of interested in (I wasn't super excited designing foliage for background environments in talking animal movies full of fart jokes). But I was getting better at my craft and supporting a family.

I was creating to support a family and a lifestyle, but I still craved the rush from reason 1, so I did a lot of personal side projects that allowed me to go through my “creative rush” cycle. I posted on forums, then blogs, then social media, then got work published. I got the rush of creating things I thought were awesome. These were things that I wanted to create AND got a lot of positive reinforcement from my peers.

Reciprocation is the reason so many things you love were put in the world. Harry Potter, Star Wars, and Spider-man all exist because people had rent due at the end of the month.

Reason 3: Societal Enrichment

This reason for creating is based on a selfless need to put something good into the world. This could be because the creator feels indebted and wants to pay back the community. Or a creator sees a need and tries to fill it with something only they can create.

If you’re a storyteller, you hope that your stories strike a chord with an audience, and that the audience is changed by your creation. An artist hopes that her art adds to the conversation that society is continually having about how we should behave and think. The teacher is motivated by his student’s success in their application of his teachings.

While the rush and the financial support are still a part of what I do, I’m finding myself more and more motivated to share what I do with others as a way to improve their life on some level. That’s why I like teaching, I like making youtube videos that unpack issues/problems facing creative people. I like drawing things that have a story to them; they aren’t just pretty pictures, but hopefully they make someone stop and take someone to a place in their imagination.

If I have a mission now, it’s to help elevate people’s ability to create good things. I want people to have that awesome feeling you get when you make something, I want them to get positive feedback from peers, and I would love it if they could someday turn it into a career or a way to supplement their income.

Whether it’s the impetus or a side-effect of a creative work, societal enrichment is a beautiful reason to create.

As I look at these reasons through the lense of my own creative life it’s interesting to see what was driving my decisions at different times of my life.

At first I was drawing because I wanted to do what was good for me.

Then that turned into drawing because it was a means to do what was good for those I was immediately responsible for.

Then that turned into drawing because I want to do what is good for the larger community.

Creations that have the biggest impact in the world satisfy these three reasons. They fulfill your needs, they fulfill the needs of your responsibilities, and they fulfill the needs of the community.

That said, not everyone sets out to impact the world with their art, and that’s perfectly fine.

If a drawing puts a smile on your face, that’s reason enough.

-Jake

Why You Need To Finish Your Project

January 30, 2018 in The Art Department

This is a stack of 126 hand drawn comic pages. I started drawing this in 2016 and it's taken me two years to finish it.

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:

"The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way."

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

Blogging Again

January 26, 2018 in The desk of Jake Parker

Recently, I had to research something for a project I’m working on which required me to use the wayback machine to track down some dates on my old blog.

I got sucked in and started reading 10 year old posts I wrote.

It was incredible to revisit old artwork and be reminded of my thought process back then. I may have gotten a little nostalgic, but more so I was reminded of what an engaging medium blogging is to to tackle subjects and share process.

I began to wonder why I ever abandoned my blog.

Then it hit me, I stopped blogging around the time I started using Instagram.

I exchanged the ease and glitz of social media for my lame-o blog that didn’t even show how many followers I had, and couldn't tell me if people liked my post or not.

Social media has been great, and there’s a bah-jillion artists on there to follow. But I’ve been feeling this urge to engage in deeper ways with people online that I’m not getting that with tweets, grams, and status updates.

I think social media values and promotes the superficial and easily consumed. Because of that, creators are trained to create work that fits those needs. As a result everyone is interacting in increasingly smaller ways with increasingly more people.

A blog post asks a person to settle in. Whether you’re sharing your process, unpacking an idea, or telling a story, you’re asking for a more captive audience. You’re requiring more attention, and the audience that accepts that invitation is more likely to build a stronger bond with you and your work.

That’s why I’m blogging again. I know only a small percentage of my online following will read my blog posts, but I’ll know that those that do are my people. They are the ones who will want to connect on a less superficial level.

To my blog: Sorry I tucked you away in a little box and abandoned you. I'm back now, and will never leave you again.

- Jake

Jake’s Desk

A blog about what inspires me and what I’ve done with that inspiration.

Updated weekly.