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Hello!

This week was full of ups and downs as usual. One of the ups for me was my son turned 16 this week! He's getting so big. This kid is pretty much amazing at whatever he does. Piano, deep thoughts, art...I wish I could share his art with you, but he's not into sharing it around, and I don't have permission. Maybe someday!

One of the downs was literally down: my daughter and I got into a bike accident with each other while riding to school. She got scraped up, and I landed on my side and bruised my ribs pretty good. It must have been hilarious to watch, because it happened at a very slow pace, with a chain reaction of minor slip ups that resulted in us both going down on the ground.

Ok, hope your weekend is good and everything you need it to be. Here's 5 things I thought you'd appreciate.

Enjoy!

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1) A Who's Who of the Skull Chaser Universe

From the Department of Video Works

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Took a two month break from video making while I waded through the Inktober waters. Now that I made it to the other side I have a little more breathing room in my schedule to make these. Should be a little more regular as we finish out the year.

In this video I walk you through my Inktober drawings from this year, explain a little about the character, how the prompt influenced the drawing, and what I have planned for these characters in the future.

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2) The Rise of the Graphic Novella

From the Department of Creative Bank Accounting's Comics Division

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Friend and creative peer, Derek Laufman is one of the most consistent and prolific artists I know. Every time I turn around it seems he's either just shipped a new book, or he's kickstarting one. I admire his work ethic...BUT even more so I love his style, voice, and world that he's building.

His latest project The Witch of Wickerson is wrapping up its funding via Kickstarter in the next few days.

This was his Inktober project. A page a day all through October:

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Absolutely incredible!

Here's some finished colored pages:

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You know what I love about this? It isn't a 200 page graphic novel. It's a short and sweet story drawn in a nice square format, it was done in a few months as opposed to a few years. It plants a flag in the sand that this is something he wanted to make, and it might expand from here, but for now it's just this.

Can we have more graphic novellas, please?

Back it here: LINK​

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3) Peak Iberian Sculpture

From the Office of Archeology

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The Iberians were an ancient group of people who lived in what is now Spain almost 3000-5000 BC. Interesting history and good bedtime reading here: LINK​

About 2400 years ago some gifted artisan sculpted the Lady of Elche, an exquisite limestone bust of a goddess.

This thing was brought to my attention, via this tweet, when André Lima Araújo asked if this was designed by Moebius (one of my favorite comic artists...nice collection of his work here: LINK).

Moebius did once say that the Artist belongs to a class of people that are "a nexus of universes." Who's "hand and eye are antennae, sensitive to a certain type of reality."

Perhaps both of these artists were connected through space and time somehow?

I think this piece is just striking and its detail is a gift to us. Looks like it could be the basis of a great character design in anything from DUNE to LotR.

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4) Aeronautic Papercraft

From the Office of Scale Models

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Longtime reader of the newsletter, Pablo Sanches sent me photos of a paper model of Missile Mouses space fighter, the Raven.

My jaw dropped when I saw this. Pablo does all kinds of paper craft models and shares them with me from time to time. I was so excited to see this design realized in three dimensions. I like the ship even better now!

If Pablo has any sort of online presence I couldn't find it, because the other models he's shown me over the years defy imagination.

Just thought I'd share. Here's the drawing he based this off of:

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5) On "Rewilding" your Imagination

From the Inspirational Thought Unit

For the past couple years I've been taking steps to remove my creative inputs from algorithmic influence. I had been noticing an increasing desire to scroll, scroll, scroll to find things that really stimulate my imagination. I was seeing A LOT of things I've seen before albeit variations of those things. It was getting rarer and rarer for me to be surprised by something. My time investment on social media wasn't giving me the interesting returns I was expecting.

And that's what the algorithms are built to do: show you what you like.

But creativity is built on a foundation of connecting dots that no one else thought to connect. How can you connect dots, of all the dots you're seeing are dots that have already been connected?

To combat that I've been returning to pre-web 2.0 websites, like Flickr, wikipedia, and blogs, I've been paying closer attention to the non-digital world around me, I've been reading actual paper books, and a couple months ago I unfollowed everyone on Instagram. All of this to push myself to look at places other than the tiny rectangle in my pocket to find interesting things to read about and experience.

When I stumbled upon this article this week it resonated strongly with me:

​9 Ways to ‘Rewild Your Attention’ by Clive Thompson

Thompson's thesis is:

Instead of crowding your attention with what’s already going viral on the intertubes, focus on the weird stuff. Hunt down the idiosyncratic posts and videos that people are publishing, oftentimes to tiny and niche audiences. It’s decidedly unviral culture — but it’s more likely to plant in your mind the seed of a rare, new idea.

If this is something that concerns you as well, take a look at those 9 suggestions and see what works for you.

If you have other ideas on how to "rewild" your imagination, I'd love to hear it!

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

-Jake

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