Hello!

Hope you had a great week! First off, next week (Thursday, August 19th) I'm going to be an a panel with some amazing and creative and prolific individuals for the AIA Phoenix Metro A+ Talk. I'll be talking about creativity with Architect John Kane, Art Director Irena Jacobs, and Architect/Illustrator Victor Irizarry. It'll be interesting to see what the four of us end up talking about. I can't wait to hear their perspective on things. I'm excited.

This is a free zoom webinar to watch, but it's limited to 100 people. Register here: LINK​

With that, here's 5 things I thought you'd appreciate this weekend:

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1) Drawing a Dragon Mech!

From the Department of Video Works in association with the Art Department

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Had some fun this week just letting my mind wander and drawing this dragon/robot combo. Made a video of it too. You can watch this here:

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I called out in the comments (unintentionally) about how artists sure do talk a lot about making comics, but at the end of the day where's the comics? And I felt seen because it has been over a year since I drew a comic, and the last comic I drew was only 14 pages. Ha.

I think creating a comic is one of the hardest pursuits a visual storyteller can undertake. Regardless of how fun it is to make them, or how much the creator loves comics and wants to be a part of that world, it still requires a ton of creative inertia to write a story that works, then be able to draw the characters, environments, and panel to panel storytelling, and to have the graphic design sensibilities to make everything work together nicely. That’s if you’re doing it on your own. Putting a team together to do this is just as hard. There's roadblocks at every step of the process.

Then the runway between making a comic, and actually making money from a comic is extremely long. If you are a hobbyist you might just quit if it becomes more work than fun. If you are serious and want to do it professionally, you have to balance making comics with making a living. Sometimes there's no creative energy left in the day after putting everything into your job.

I think every comic book, the good ones, the bad ones, and even the ugly ones, are precious miracles that defied all odds to make it into this world.

With this, I'm not excusing myself for not making comics all the time, I'm just reminding myself that I can't get too upset with myself for not being consistent with something want to do (comics), when I've been successful with the stuff I need to do (providing a good living for my family).

And...thanks for being a part of my therapy session here. haha.

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2) Looks like a flying submarine

From the Office of Oceanic Affairs

When I saw this I thought, "my gosh, someone actually went and made a flying submarine." No. this isn't a water based spaceship or some new military weapon. It is far cooler than both of those. What you are looking at here is the worlds most powerful tidal turbine. This thing sucks energy out of the ocean tides.*

Designed, manufactured, and installed by Orbital Marine, this thing will be able to power about 2000 homes in the UK for the next 15 years.

Here's a video of how it works: LINK​

and this is some great footage of it getting installed: LINK​

Still, good inspiration for some kind of dieselpunk flying machine.

* I hope it's safe for the whales

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3) This is the largest composited image of the milky-way ever made

From the Incredible Projects Division

Astrophotographer J-P Metsavainio has spent the last 12 years and 1250 hours working on this image of the milky-way. TWELVE. YEARS. It stretches from Taurus all the way to Cygnus, is over 100,000 pixels wide, and made up of 234 individual images of the night sky.

SEE THE FULL IMAGE HERE: LINK​

Full blog post on how he did this here: LINK​

If you really want to feel something, I recommend taking a few minutes exploring this image while listening to this: LINK​

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4) 16th century metropolis still stands in the desert

From the Department of Interestingness in cooperation with the Architecture Desk

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This looks like something straight out of a fantasy novel. The Old Walled City of Shibam in Yemen is a UNESCO World Heritage site for being one of the best and oldest surviving examples of vertical construction urban planning.

The aerial shots are cool and all, but I love the views from within the city. I imaging it's not great living there, but wha t a cool place to explore.

More about it here: LINK (video)

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5) Meeting at the crossroads of Pain and Passion

From the Inspirational Thought Unit

This one is from Alex Mathers who I don't know nor do I know what he does, I just wrote down something he wrote online one day because it struck a chord with me.

I think that's right, and it's a reminder to me that real progress on projects you are passionate about don't come easy. There's a price to be paid. It can be painful and hard and unforgiving. But that's what makes it worth 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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