INVADER ZIM: Enter the Florpus!

I had the honor of working on this film with a bunch of cool people at Nickelodeon! When the call came asking if I wanted to design a bunch of ships for the show, I had to say yes. Here’s some of my favorites.

Part fo the job was taking old ship designs and giving them a slight update. But the best part was looking at the shape language of the original series and projecting forward what these ships might evolve into.

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Below are the prison ships which offered a completely different design language than what I was used to. It was fun challenge to make brutalist ship designs.

I wanted to share this batch of early sketches as well. Though they were way off the mark of what was needed for the show, I had a lot of fun exploring shapes and seeing how unique I could make the designs.

The final designs (in color above) were a much more brutalist look than what I originally came up with. It was such a great idea from Jhonen to make them look like flying prison cells.

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Lastly, here’s the capital ship called the “Super Massive.” I was tasked with keeping the original design, but making it more detailed and updated slightly.

Super fun project to work on! If you haven’t checked it out on Netflix yet, take the afternoon off and watch it!

-Jake

Are you as excited for this movie as I am?

You know I love me some Star Wars, and with the launch of the FINAL trailer for Episode 9 you know I have some things to say about it.​

If you some how missed seeing this trailer. Here it is:

I'm kind of excited for this movie. Not because it's the "end" of the Skywalker story in the Star Wars universe, but because I'm more curious from a storytelling standpoint how they plan on wrapping up a trilogy of trilogies. JJ Abrams is a masterful entertainer, but he's only ever finished one series, and that was Felicity. Alias, Lost, Mission Impossible 3, Star Trek, and Star Wars were all shows and film series that he's started, but he hasn't really proven that he can wrap a series up. Even if the story falls short there's plenty of cool stuff to see and enjoy. I'm a fan of the Star Wars universe, not just the stories. I'm also a HUGE fan of JJ Abrams' work so I know this is going to be rip-roaring good time. 

Here's 5 things I love about this new trailer:

- A practical puppet working on Threepio's brain

- The Tantive IV (or a ship that looks like it) flying through the jungle

- Riding horses on Star Destroyers

- Space Iceberg

- Palpatine's spikey throne pulled straight from old Ralph McQuarrie concept drawings: LINK

Bonus Like: That shot of all the ships flying together. OH MAN. And the best part was spying the Ghost, which if you don't know is the ship in the series Star Wars Rebels. Rebels, IMO, is one of the greatest things to ever to come out from Lucasfilm. You owe it to yourself to watch it. 

Seville, Spain 2019

Last month I got to go to Spain with my oldest kid, Tate. La Galleria Roja invited me out to teach a weekend workshop and I decided to take a few extra days and turn it onto a post-gradutation drawing trip with my son.

The workshop was a lot of fun, with great students, and David from the gallery was a wonderful host. But what I really enjoyed was the handful of days we had with no agenda, no schedule, just following our interests roaming the city drawing things we thought were cool, only stopping to eat when we were hungry.

I won’t get into all the details of the trip, but I wanted to share some drawings and photos of the trip here.

Thanks,

Jake

Be Nice and Have Fun

With Inktober 2019 in full swing, I thought I’d post a little reminder for you all that Inktober is just a framework to get yourself to draw better and have some fun with your art. It’s not a contest to see who the best artist is. It’s a challenge to see how much you can improve your art in a month, and to be inspired or to help inspire other artists to do the same.⁣
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There's no Inktober police going around looking to shut people down if they aren't using ink or the prompt list.⁣
While it's suggested to use real ink, keep things black and white, and use the official prompt list, the spirit of the challenge is very open to people being creative in what tools they use, how they use them, and what they create.⁣
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This month, if you are tempted to call someone out for not doing Inktober the way you think they should be doing it, I want you to just keep it to yourself. Use your energy to celebrate people's creativity and expression. Do like your mom taught you: "If you can't say somethin' nice, don't say nothin' at all."⁣
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If at any point the challenge gets too overwhelming and you aren’t having fun, pause for a day or two. Catch your breath, and just pick up where you left off.⁣
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In short: be nice, and have fun!⁣

Thanks,

Jake

Some Days the Raptor Hunts You

Some days are better than others. Some days you just want to forget. One day you might be on top. The next day you might get torn to shreds. ​What matters is that you showed up ready for whatever comes instead of staying in bed, because no matter the outcome of the day you're going to learn something and be stronger from it.

When you go out an take action it means you might hit a home run, but you might also strike out. In his historic career as a professional baseball player Babe Ruth hit 714 home runs, but he also struck out 1,330 times.​ You don't hear about the strike outs very often, at least not as much as you hear about his home run record. Your errors are the same way. They are dwarfed by the impact you create by your action. 

So, yeah, you'll have bad days. Days where you didn't get anything done on your list. Days where you put out fires instead of making meaningful progress on important work. There are days where you get sidetracked, confused, blindsided, or hand tied. 

I love this quote from Emerson:

"Finish every day and be done with it . . . You have done what you could; some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. To-morrow is a new day; you shall begin it well and serenely, and with too high a spirit to be cumbered with your old nonsense." - Ralph Waldo Emerson​

At the end of a bad day ask yourself this: Did I get up today and do my work? Did I dress for the hunt? If the answer is yes, then know you did your best, learn from you mistakes and move forward. Tomorrow is a new day. A perfect day for a hunt. 

Writing this because I needed to hear it today. Thanks for reading.

Jake

Hunt print is available in my shop: LINK

KELLAN THE SLAYER

This is Kellan. He’s in a battle against Leukemia right now. A friend of his commissioned me to do a drawing that “depicts Kellan as the hero and fighter that he is.”

Go check out this little warrior’s Instagram account, and offer some words of encouragement: @kellanhoihoang or throw a few bucks at his gofundme.

Learning Hard Skills and Drawing 50 Hands

Drawing anatomy is one of the hard skills you need to learn as an artist. By “hard skills” I don’t mean difficult. I mean high precision skills that need to be performed with exactness and consistency.

Daniel Coyle, the author of The Talent Code (great book btw) says that these are skills that “have one path to an ideal result; skills that you could imagine being performed by a reliable robot. Hard skills are about repeatable precision.”

When a pianist runs their fingers through scales perfectly: hard skill.

When a tennis player swings a perfect serve: hard skill.

When a basketball player does a free throw: hard skill.

When a worker on an assembly line installs a part: hard skill.

When an artist draws a hand: hard skill.

These are skills that need to be performed the same way every time, almost like a reflex, without much thought.

I won’t get into soft skills here, except for this, an artist using soft skills knows where that hand needs to be placed, and what it needs to be doing to help the overall piece elicit an emotional response from the viewer.

Hard Skills is knowing how to draw. Soft skills are knowing why and what to draw.

To get really good at the hard skills you repeatedly do them over and over, until they become second nature.

“Drawing 50 Somethings” is a drawing exercise I’ve given my students over the years to help them get better at drawing hands, and to condition themselves for learning these hard skills. The repetition of drawing the same thing over and over in different positions, and from different angles is challenging, but effective.

What you’re going to do is pick something that you struggle to draw. For example: hands. 

Next, either take photos of your own hands in interesting, or common poses, or search around online for photos and drawings of hands.

Now begin drawing fifty of them in different poses, angles, and proportions. The repetition of drawing the same object over and over imprints the shapes and characteristics of that thing in your mind, like practicing scales for you musicians out there.

If fifty sounds daunting, break it down into five groups of ten drawings. If you’re doing hands, then the first ten drawings would be open hands, the next ten would be closed fists, the next ten might be hands holding an object. You get the idea.

Once you’ve done fifty hands, try doing feet, or legs, or heads, or ears. After you’ve made it through all of the body parts, start over.

Every time you complete a set of fifty compare it to your reference. Ask a friend or teacher to see if they can spot problem areas. When you draw your next set of hands pay close attention to your problem areas making sure to correct any problems you made in the past.

This is an important fundamental skill, and it may seem boring at first. Think of it as an investment with a high interest rate. The more you invest in it now, the better artist you’ll be in the future. And the more capable you’ll be when you want to answer the why and what questions with your art.

A couple book recommendations on learning and drawing anatomy:

Figure Drawing: Design and Invention Perfect Paperback by Michael Hampton

Morpho: Anatomy for Artists by Michel Lauricella

-Jake

On Being an Independent Illustrator

I love working as an independent illustrator.

It’s pretty much like being an entrepreneur, except your start up company is your illustration work, and you are the only employee.

• You set your own schedule.

• You decide where you want to live.

• You decide how much vacation time you get to take.

• You decide what projects you want to work on and what you get to say no to.

• You decide what people you want to work with.

• You have to pay entirely for your own health insurance.

• You bill people, and then are in charge of following up with them.

• You do all your own promotion.

The more creative, and smart you are in these areas the more successful as an illustrator you will be.

Many illustrators work with reps or agents. These people take 15%-30% of every deal they negotiate for you. But if they are good at their job, you'll make enough money for it to be worth it.

The most successful illustrators I know needed 5-10 years to get their careers going strong enough to start making a comfortable living.

In that time they either relied on their spouses income, they worked a day job while growing their illustration career on nights and weekends (me), or they just lived a bohemian lifestyle with zero dependents.

They needed that time to build their network, master their craft, grow their audience, and wait for everything to click.

Many independent illustrators, myself included, rely on multiple revenue streams to make their living.

So far this year I've gotten an advance payment for a children's book, a couple royalty checks for books I've done in the past, sales from my online shop, sales from online classes I've sold, sales from live workshops I'm doing, money from a convention I attended, money from youtube videos, money from amazon affiliate links, and money from a speaking engagement.

There were a few months there where very little money was coming in, and then in May I made $40K. So you need to be good at managing your money. Don't expect a steady paycheck.

I guess whether or not being an independent illustrator is a good fit for you depends on your personality. If you need financial stability, are risk averse, and not very entrepreneurial minded then I would pursue a career in animation, video games, or entertainment. You'll get a steady paycheck, good health benefits. You just show up, do your work, go to a few meetings, and then you don't have to think about it at all until you arrive to work the next day.

However, if you are constantly coming up with ideas for making money with your art, are willing to bet on yourself, don't like people above you calling the shots for you, and are willing to fall on your face frequently, then there are ways to make an illustration career work for you.

Sometimes I feel like I’m way in over my head and the work load is too much. But each challenge has refined me and made me stronger and better equipped to handle the next project I take on. This wasn't always the job I wanted, nor could do, but I'm very happy where I am right now.

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Note:

This post was taken from a response I wrote to an email I received from a student at BYU named Conor Searing. Conor had a bunch of questions about choosing illustration for a career as apposed to entering the animation industry. I answered him privately and with his permission I posted our correspondence here to hopefully help others in the same situation as him. Here’s what he asked:

I was wondering if I could ask you what you do as an illustrator? Has money been a huge stress for you? Do you feel you have enough time to commit to being a good artist as well as spend with your family? If you had any doubts about making a career of illustration how did you over come that?

Thanks for the questions Conor!

My new assistant

One of the perks of working from home is you get to know your kids a lot better. While working the other morning, my daughter and I had a long discussion about saving up money, and ways that kids can earn money. She told me that I forget what it's like being a kid and how hard it is to earn money. Then she asked for a loan to get a mermaid tail and she'd pay me back when she got the cash. I told her I only loan out money for education and real estate. Then I offered to train her to scan my sketchbooks and paid her to do mine. Took her an hour, but she earned $7.

Style vs Technology in Feature Animation

Just wanted to note that Sleeping Beauty was released 21 years after Snow White was released.

Sleeping Beauty, 1959

Snow White, 1938

Sleeping Beauty, 1959

Snow White, 1938

The same amount of time had passed in between Toy Story and Finding Dory:

Finding Dory, 2016

Toy Story, 1995

Finding Dory, 2016

Toy Story, 1995

I’m guessing in the first 20 years of Disney animated films the artists were more concerned with advancing style than they were technology. Once they figured out the techniques of 2D animation, style and artistry became the focus.

In the first 20+ years of CG animation the focus has been technology over artistry. “Look how realistic we can make: plastic/wood, grass, fur, water, lighting, different water, wet fur, clothing, wet clothing, explosions, humans...”

In the last 5 years pretty much every CG technological mountain has been conquered. Right? When the artists no longer have limits to what they can create in CG, they can completely focus on style. Spiderverse is the perfect example:

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, 2018

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, 2018

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, 2018

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, 2018

I think Spiderverse was just scratching the surface of what CG artists can do stylistically and it makes me really excited for the future of CG animation.

-Jake

I Took Over RhinoShield's Instagram Account

Part of the partnership I have with them is to sell some cases with my art on them included me promoting the collaboration online a bunch of different ways. One of the ideas we had was for me to take over their Instagram account and do a story on there.

For the story I did a look at my studio, the books I've made over the years, and a quick drawing demo. They've left it up and you can still watch it here:
My RhinoShield Instagram Story

And here's the drawing I made for them:

-Jake

The gravitational pull of your work

Currently Reading the War of Art by Steven Pressfield

I always like to have one foot in a book about creativity, or creating, or how to improve your life. I can't read these kinds books for more than a few pages at a time because they give me so much to think about and process. I can't recommend this book enough. I'm about 3/4ths through it and there's so much I can relate to and apply.

One idea he stresses is that of resistance and how real it is. He spends plenty of time defining it, casting all kinds of light on it so that you can identify it easily in your work. But then he goes the next step and shares ways to fight it, to stab a sword into it and kill it dead...for a day. It always comes back the next day.

The latter half of the book is about the muse, and how we can tap into creative energy and use it.

I'll leave you with one thing I've been thinking about a lot: The gravitational pull of your work.

On page 108 Pressfield says, “When we sit down each day to do our work, power concentrates around us.” It costs us energy to produce something, but when you show up to do it (and by that I mean actually putting pen to paper) the gods of creativity lend their hand and help. At the end of the day you have a small mass of creative matter that's managed to hold itself together. The more you work on it, the more creative mass your project builds, until it has enough pull to get you out of bed each morning and suck you into it every day. However, leave it alone for a day, or a week, or a month, and that energy dissipates. It starts to lose mass and as a consequence has less pull. If you let go of an idea it floats away instead of falling towards the center of the mass.

All this to say, get up and do your creative work and be consistent. It's the only way you'll ever finish a thing.

-Jake

Also reading:

- Batman: White Knight: What if the Joker was a good guy? Really good story and art. Like REALLY GOOD.
- DUNE: To much going on to explain... but I'll try: a inter-galacti-political storyline with giant sand worms. I read the first half last year, but didn't finish before I left Greenport. Picking it up where I left off. 
- All-New X-Men Vol 3: The X-Men from the 60s are sent to the future to stop their present day selves from making a mess. I've been reading X-Men off and on since the early 90s and it's a huge convoluted mess, but man I love it.

Joy ride

I was only here in AZ a day before I saw a horny toad riding roadrunner down the street!

-Jake

Why I Make videos

After 5 months, I finally made another YouTube video.

The reason I haven’t put a ton of love into my channel this year is because I’ve been really busy with projects, and at the end of the day I don’t want to be a YouTuber who draws. I’d rather be an artist who makes YouTube videos.

As an independent artist you are always on the look out for ways to make money and support yourself with your art.

The ideal project is something that:

1. Uses existing artwork that you’ve already created

2. Puts something cool and/or useful into the world

So, when Rhinoshield contacted me about making phone cases with my artwork it was a no brainer for me.

1. I get to use art that I’ve already created

2. They make sturdy, sleek cases that legitimately protect your phone, and look cool. A useful tool for us phone wielding sapiens.

Part of the deal with them was, they would prep my artwork for the phone cases, manufacture the phone cases, run the website, process orders, and package up and ship the phone cases out to people.

In turn, all I would have to do is some social media posts about the cases. They also specifically asked for a Youtube video.

I’m trying to be as transparent as possible with my Youtube channel. I told my audience that I’d never make a video just becasue I needed to upload a video that week in order to stick to some sort of posting schedule. I don’t want to be a part of the problem of time wasting videos on YouTube.

Also, to just make a video that was all about “BUY MY PHONECASES” seemed a little disingenuous and spammy. So,for this video I did something that I rarely do on my channel: I showed step-by-step how I made the art that ended up on one of the cases Rhinoshield is selling.

I usually charge for tutorials like this, but when I’m already getting paid to do a video, I figured I would give away my knowledge for “free.”

-Jake

Click here to check out my RhinoShield Phone Cases

I Moved to Arizona!

I’m starting to settle in, but I can’t believe I just moved my family down to Arizona.

We've been living in Utah for 9+ years, and I've grown to love the beehivet state with its amazing people, beautiful canyons, and hiking trails everywhere you go. If you haven't visited Utah, you have to make a trip out there some time before you die. It is that great. There's a lot of reasons for this move, and I won't really go into them here other than our family needed a change in climate.

I grew up in Arizona, but I haven't lived there since 2001. It's changed a little bit every time I've gone back to visit to the point that some parts are barely recognizable. I kind of feel like I moved to an entirely new state!

Are you from AZ? If so tell me one cool thing you love about it here. Is there a restaurant I should try? A trail I should hike? A gallery I should visit? I'd love to know more about the area.

About that image up there. I was thinking a lot about the vermillion cliffs in northern Arizona and took some time one day and just tried painting a landscape for fun. I wanted to try something a little different from what I normally do and just experiment with color, value and composition. I hope you like it.

Here’s my temporary studio set up in the apartment we are renting while we house hunt. I still need to get work done and this stripped down set up will do the trick.

Been here almost a week and it’s been so good to see some friends, hang with family, and explore a new area. I think I’m going to like it here.

-Jake

Advice for Recent Graduates...or anyone walking the creative path

In the last few weeks I’ve been visited by a handful of high school kids and college underclassmen asking for advice on what they should do to prepare to get a job in the art world. In response to that, I asked a bunch of my artist friends at Emerald City Comic Con what was once piece of advice they had for someone graduating high school who wants to be an artist for a living. I made a video of their responses.

Lacking from that video was my advice. I have some things to say to people who have chosen to walk the creative path. If that’s you, then settle in. If it’s not you, please share this with a person you know who’s going to art school, or recently graduated. You can read it too, or course. This advice is universal and it just might help you no matter what stage in life you’re at.

A Career in art is possible

By now you’ve probably figured out that it is possible to have a career in art. Some art careers make more money than others. Some are more stable than others. But for anyone who has the skill, the drive to improve, a healthy work ethic, and isn’t afraid of the unknown it’s possible to get to the point where you can support yourself and a family with a career in art.

I want to share with you five things you can do to help you get there. This is stuff I’ve learned over the years that has helped me succeed, and I wish this was advice that was given to me as a high school kid. I remember graduating, having no idea what to do, or where to go, but just knowing that I loved to draw and really wasn't qualified to do anything else. If someone had sat me down and told me these things as a high school kid it would’ve saved me years of spinning my wheels.

1 - Focus on one path.

“Find out who you are and do it on purpose. “ - Dolly Parton

You need to be a heat seeking missile focused one thing. A heat seeking missile works by finding a heat target and then ignoring any heat signal that doesn’t come from that target. That’s why heat seeking missiles don’t just fly straight towards the sun when they’re launched.

Picking one thing to do does not mean that’s the thing you’re going to do forever. In fact, it’s very rare to be ONE THING you’re whole life. Steven Pressfield tells us of this truth in his book The War of Art:

“As artists we serve the Muse, and the Muse may have more than one job for us over our lifetime”

That said, you have to start somewhere, knowing how to do something. So pick something and learn what you need to master in order to get a job in that discipline. Learn how other artists got their job. Study the art of people who work where you want to work. That’s the bar that you need to reach. Visit the studios, meet up with the artists, acquaint yourself with recruiters. Do internships. Insert yourself into that ecosystem. Make it so that when you finally apply for that job, it’s a no brainer for whoever is hiring, to hire YOU.

The side benefit to doing this is that whether you want to go into animation, illustration, video games, film, comics, or children’s books the skills you learn to do one of these jobs has applications for other jobs. If you get into it and realize it’s not quite for you, transitioning to another job isn’t going to be an impossible feat.

2 - Learn your craft.

“We don’t rise to the level of our expectations. We fall to the level of our training.” -Archilochus

It’ll take you about 4 years to learn the fundamentals of art and a lifetime to master it. So learn how to learn, because the most successful artists I know are continually pushing the limits of their abilities. They understand that the levels that can unfold in art are inexhaustible.

Draw things you’re not comfortable drawing. If you’re bad at drawing people, draw people. If you’re bad at drawing environments, draw environments.

Read books on the subject. There’s an amazing amount of information stored in these relics.

Find a good school that can teach you these fundamentals. You’ll know it’s good if the work coming out of the school is good. If not the school, then find a teacher who knows her stuff. Your focus at school isn’t grades or a degree, it’s skill, portfolio, and friends. Those are the three things that matter and are going to stay with you as you leave the school.

Learn from your peers. It’s not who you know, it’s who you help, so look for ways you can help others succeed, and in return you’ll be made better for it as well.

Find a mentor. A mentor doesn’t have to be someone older than you, just someone more experienced than you. Again, see how you can help them, become a linchpin in their system, so that they need you as much as you need them.

3 - Get a life.

“It’s more important that you go off and learn what to make movies about, than how to make movies.” - Advice given to JJ Abrams from his father.

If the goal of mastering your craft is to be able to show the world your vision, then the goal of every artist is to have a vision that’s worth showing. In order to do that you need to live life and have experiences worth building off of and sharing.

Cut the fat, and live deliberately. Live less online, and more in life. Make friends. Date people. Get married. Go places. Whether it’s exploring the south side of town or the southern hemisphere, there’s something to be gained from every excursion outside of your home.

The purpose of this is to fill your creative bank account with enough creative capital that you can barely contain it.

4 - Do one personal project a year.

“You make your place in the world by making part of it.” - Art & Fear

Take all your pent up creativity and use it by putting out a finished product at least once a year. Something tangible. Something you can point to and say, look, I made this thing.

Pump all your experiences, the craft you’ve attained so far, and your passion into this project.

This is going to give you a benchmark for yourself. This will give you something to aspire to beat with your next project. This will also be a calling card and something that other people can point to and say “look, this person made THIS.”

You only become known for your projects you make, not for the craft you’re privately learning. No one will know the experiences your privately having unless you share them through your projects.

5 - Share your work.

“An artists job is not to be perfect, but to be creating.” - Jeff Goins

The students I’ve talked to are a little afraid to share their amateur work. If that’s how you feel, quit thinking of social media as an art gallery with wall space reserved for your best work. Instead, think of social media as a peek into your studio. Invite them in, give them a glass of water and a comfy chair, and show them what you’ve been working on. No pressure there. Use twitter, facebook, or instagram as a way to document your progress online. Think of it as a public journal of your development as an artist.

Tell people who you are and what you’re about. Tell them what you’re going to be someday, and invite them to watch your journey.

What will happen is your audience will grow as you grow. They will be your online cheerleaders sharing your work with others, and first in line to buy whatever you make.

Lastly, I just want to share this quote from Bob Dylan:

“A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and goes to bed at night, and in between does what he wants to do.”

Remember, life is too short to be stuck doing something you don’t want to do, and it’s also too short to waste time doing something that isn’t working for you. I hope these five things give you a head start down that path of doing what you want to do in life. As the good doctor once said, “Your mountain is waiting. So...get on your way!”

-Jake

Order a “Your Mountain is Wating” Print here.

How To Find A Mentor

One of the best ways to find success in any career is to learn from people who are successful. You need mentors! Having a good set of mentors is essential for your growth as a professional artist.

I’ve had a few mentors over the years and they’ve all been indispensable to my success as an illustrator. Some have been decades ahead of me and some my age or younger. Some were actively mentoring me, and others had no idea they were my mentor. In every case, I learned massive amounts of information on how to make a career out of being an artist.

I'd like to take a minute and give a little direction on how to go about finding a mentor. Finding the right mentors is a lot of work, but if you go about finding them in the right way you can form a beautiful and long lasting relationship with someone.

First off, this quote Jeff Goins sums it all up: "It’s not who you know, it’s who you help." (btw, if you haven't read Goins' book Real Artists Don't Starve, you need to before the year is over) You must go into this thinking about how you can help people. Not only will you be an asset to those who mentor you, but you'll grow as you learn to solve problems and find solutions that will also help you in your own career at some point.

I’ve read a bit on the subject, I’ve mentored a bunch of people, and I’ve been a student to my own mentors. And while there’s no slam dunk way to get a mentor every time, I think there’s some best practices you could follow that lead to good results. So, from all of my experience, and the advice of others, I’ve put together a list of three steps to having the perfect mentorship. Here they are:

1) Do your homework

Before you can help someone, you need to become as familiar as you possibly can with what they are doing. 

This means you need to do your homework on what they already offer as a mentor.

• Watch all of their Youtube videos

• Read all of their blog posts

• Listen to all the podcast interviews they've done

• Read any books they've written or created

• If they offer workshops, try and attend one.

• If they offer online classes, sign up for them

Asking them to give you something for nothing if they make part of their living from formalized mentoring is not a good move. They are more likely to help you if you show you have done your homework and participated in what they already offer.

2) Offer them a win/win proposition

Offer to do something for them. Don’t just say you’re available if they need anything. That puts the pressure back on them to think of something for you. Instead do the James Altucher method and give them a list of 5-10 things that they could hand off to you, or things that they could be doing better and how you could do it for them. 

Here's an example I'm just going to throw out there,

"Hi Pro Artist, I'm a huge fan and love your work. I've noticed you only post on Instagram twice a week and the instagram algorithm favors accounts that post daily. I think you could grow your instagram account a ton if you posted every day. I see you have a backlog of portfolio work on your site that hasn't been posted on Instagram. Would it be helpful if I downloaded that art and cropped it for instagram so you could have more content to post? I'd be happy to help you out."

After you've helped them you can approach them about a problem you're having. Don’t just ask “I have a question/problem/project, can you help me?” 

Instead ask the question, then provide 3 solutions and ask them to pick. This eases the burden on them, and also shows your own creativity, it shows you’re proactive, and that you’ve already exhausted your own ideas.

So you might say, "I need help with my senior thesis. I have X problem, and here's three solutions I've come up with to solve it. Which one would you pick? Or is there another solution you would have that I haven't thought of.

3) Follow through, then follow up

If your mentor decides to help you, don’t be a disappointment. This is a huge opportunity. For you to disregard or abandon their advice is the best way to never have this mentor help you again.

Report back and tell them the results.

Thank them! Thank them right away, then in six months, then in a year. It show's you've really internalized their advice and help.

You're way more likely to get help going about it this way. If you repeat this cycle, (you help them, then ask for advice, then deliver) you've essentially created a mentorship for yourself without having to ask someone to be your mentor and built what could be a relationship that outlasts your initial problems you need help with.

Ok, real quick again:

1) Do your homework
2) Offer them a win/win proposition
3) Follow through, then follow up

I hope that helps. Do you have a method that has worked for you? Comment below and let me know your secret!

-Jake

Process: Tie Fighter

How it was made

Since a few people have asked me how this image was made, I thought I’d take a minute (a couple hours actually) and I write up an old school process blog post. I used to do these every so often back in pre-social media era. Nice to be back at it again.

Over the years I’ve refined my process as more tools have become available to me. I float between digital and traditional all along creation of a piece.

However, most of these fancy tools are just there to help speed up the process or make the work a little easier. You by no means have to have a $2000 scanner, a $1000 printer, and a $1300 iPad pro to accomplish what I did here. A cheap printer, an okay scanner, a lightbox, and a computer that runs photoshop are all that I had for years.

Okay, let’s get down to it:

Step 1 -  Initial Sketch

Initial sketch done in my sketchbook.

The initial sketch was done early one morning in my sketchbook. You can see it’s loose, raw, and full of energy. At this stage I’m only really interested in getting a solid vibe of what I want to do for the final. The Underdrawing was done with a vermillion pencil, then inked with a standard technical pen.

Step 2 - Line Drawing

Next I scanned my drawing and imported it into Procreate. I dropped the opacity down and did a more refined line drawing over the top of it.

I bought myself an iPad Pro a few months ago and found that it’s been a great tool for getting some drawing done outside of my studio. I also find myself preferring to draw on it than my Cintiq. Here’s the final line art from Procreate:

Step 3 - Polish Line Art in Photoshop

After getting the line drawing to a point where I felt good about it I brought into Photoshop to see how it looks on my computer monitor. What I realized was the samurai sword was straight, and I felt like making it curved would ad a nice graphic element to the piece as well as be more accurate to the nature of samurai swords.

Step 4 - Printing the Linework

Once the line drawing was finished I printed it out on a sheet of 11x17 card stock. I use an Epson P800 (another recent purchase) to make all my prints and to print artwork I’ll be inking on.

Note: If you’re going to buy any Epson printer I recommend buying from an official distributor, NOT amazon.com. Sometimes you might get a bad printer, or something might break on these intricate machines. If you bought it on Amazon you have little recourse for replacement or fixing. Buying from a distributor gives you more options if one breaks.

Epson P800

I print the artwork at a 40% opacity.

Step 5 - Inking

I inked this piece with a Copic Gasenfude brushpen. It’s a solid waterproof brushpen with springy bristles that make for smooth lines. Highly recommend it.

Copic Gasenfude brushpen

I ink my pages from left to right because I’m right handed and it means less smudging. I usually do all the contour lines first.

Then I’ll finish with adding all the hatching to define form, texture, and shadows.

Step 6 - Scan and Clean Up

About 6 years ago I got a big paycheck for a job and immediately bought an Epson 10000xl scanner. It’s been one of the best purchase I ever bought. I used to have an 8x11 inch scanner and becasue I’m always working at 11x17 I had to scan every comic page 3 times and stitch them together. The time spent doing all the photoshop stitching adds up and I decided that when I had the extra cash I’d get a scanner like this. Worth every penny.

I scan the artwork in at 400ppi as a jpeg file.

Epson Expression 10000XL Wide-Format Graphic Arts Scanner

Once scanned, the art looks like this:

The reason I scan the image in at 400 is because of the threshold adjustment. What this does is it looks at your image and decides if each pixel is dark enough to be a black pixel or light enough to be a white pixel and it divides you image up into just black and white pixels. If you zoom in close the lines look crunchy because there’s zero anti-aliasing. I usually just OK the threshold at the default level:

Once it’s finished you have some crisp linework to color:

Step 7 - Color

Color theory is hard. To hard to explain in this post. I can’t tell you how I arrived at these color choices, because my path there was messy, and fraught with indecision. Once I figure out the colors the rest is pretty easy. There’s 4 parts to this and I won’t go into too many details here. I’ll save that for an in depth color tutorial some day.

Part 1: Flat color

I set my linework to Multiply and do a flat color pass under the linework on a separate layer.

Part 2: Shadow pass

I use a dark purple and draw shadows over the color. I set these layers to Multiply and drop the opacity to 30%. Here’s the shadows without any linework or color:

Part 3: Light Pass

I have a few layers for different levels of light. These are set to either Overlay or Normal. Opacity differs depending on how much light I want. Here’s the light layers over black:

Part 4: Texture and line effects

I then add a texture and I usually make another line layer with a slight blur to it to make the lines richer.

And here it is all put together:

Close up:

Thanks for checking out this process post! Let me know if you have any questions, and please let me know if you want more stuff like this.

This print is available for a very limited time through Art Drop Club. You have until April 30th to join Art Drop Club in order to get this print along with a bunch of other Star Wars inspired artwork.

Thanks,

Jake

The TIE FIGHTER

If I ever get a chance to pitch a Star Wars story to Marvel or Disney or Lucasfilm it’s going to go something like this:

The Empire has fallen.

Lawlessness spreads across the galaxy as the New Republic struggles to maintain order.

On a neglected planet, a former Scout Trooper has taken it upon himself to free his home world from a crime syndicate that threatens to control the entire planet.

He is: The TIE FIGHTER.

Thank You Mom

She passed away on March 22 and I’ve been thinking about her life a lot. I don’t normally post personal stuff on here, but I just wanted to talk about my mom for a bit.

The reason I decided to pursue art is largely because of her support, encouragement, and example. If you like anything I’ve created, it’s because of her.

The daughter of a cowboy and an elementary school nurse, her father was a gifted woodworker who always had a good clean joke to tell. Her mother was a skilled artist who knew how to get things done. These were traits instilled into my mom’s personality which filtered down to me.

She was an educator who found many ways to help encourage, support, and inspire students from all walks of life. She was also an incredible seamstress. Happy to share her love and talent with anyone, she sewed countless dresses and blankets for friends, family and those in need.

She always made sure there was plenty of paper in the house. Though we didn’t have very much money, one time she bought me a full set of Prisma Color pencils. Every Christmas and birthday she made sure I got some kind of art book or comic collection to inspire me.

She taught me to be kind, to help others, to share my knowledge, and most importantly how not to wet the bed (something my wife is incredibly grateful for).

Thank you mom. Everything good in my life is because of something you did for me, or something you taught me.

Thank you for reading this. I just wanted you to know a little bit about her.

- Jake