@Dulcie Welcome 🙂 I'm relatively new as well (I think) and it's nice to be able to interact with other illustrator's this way. By the way, awesome image!

@Aaron Cool! Thanks!! It is http://forum.svslearn.com/topic/460/october-3rd-thursday-ostrich-flies
meant to put it in the "3rd Thursday" section of this forum:)

@tallison7 I think this will answer your questions. Its from Lee White: "I'd say this is a good breakdown for a portfolio:

Show three images from the same story. Try to highlight character interaction and get a sense of emotion and story.

Show 2 images that highlight environment. You can have some characters in there, but make sure the environment is the main thing. Will does this extremely well so poke around his website for inspiration.

For the remaining 5, try to vary the stories and how you show the story. Be specific to the type of work you want to get.

Leave room for text in at least 75% of the work. I typically put the text in there. It shows art directors that you understand the business that we are in.

Have fun! Don't put too much pressure to get 10 perfect images right away. Shoot for painting 20 or 30 and then picking the best 10 out of that.

When I was leaving school, I did two things for my work that helped get the all important first book deal. I did half my portfolio on classic fairy tales from around the world which was a blast. Then I did the other half doing images from current magazine articles in kids lit (highlights, Spider, Cricket, etc.). This worked well. On my first trip to NY I landed an agent and a book!

One thing that helped me here in Omaha was to create a Meetup on meetup.com. It costs like 15 a month to create/host the group but once you get a steady group of people, like we did, we essentially moved it to a facebook group. I created one for digital artists (was thinking production pipeline type stuff) and we ended up having 110+ members with about 15-20 that show up on a consistent basis. Maybe that would help some.

not bad, Well done

@Suzy-Heitz thanks for doing this! I was going to ask Lee for it but now I don't have to!

@Lee-White I just finished watching your class and I have to tell you it was just wonderful. Its well designed, flows well and is straight to the point! I love all of your creative examples and fun assignments. I have to say it may be my favorite class yet. Very well done and thank you for doing it. This class will help everyone perform better!!

@kimchizerbe Doing that has never, ever resulted in anything but drawings get infinitely better. Do it 🙂

Ace

I never know haha but I put myself out anyway. Well at least when I think I found a my style that i'm comfortable with and of course love doing.

I really like the textures and values. I assume this is for some kind of educational purpose and meant to be subtle and non confrontational. I think they are well done.

@kevinpaul hi Kevin, LOVE your itchy comment! Its wasn't grumpy at all. I wish I had a economical talent, but the thing that drives me to get out of my bed in the morning is creating, so I am not really fit for a well paid job. But I love what I am doing: drawing, and it makes me sooo proud getting paid for it, so that I can support my family and feed my four teenage boys (they are always hungry). When I can take them to a restaurant, ore buy them a new pair of trousers Yes! I think for you its just the same. So in the end, its seems that we agree. XD

By the way, everyone worrying about the palm rejection - there are now a load of videos of people using their palms and having no problem, and they gave the iPad pro to the guys at Pixar and the one thing they were surprised about was how good the palm rejection was.

Ace

These are looking good!! I really like the last two, lots of expression 🙂

Oh OK thanks. It's true, he does, since his eyes are bit bugged out! I have changed their expressions now, on the other one (the first one).

Back in 2013 I wrote a story for a picture book. Looking back on it now the story was only so so but I was bound and determined to make it into a Kindle book. I did the illustrations and figured out how to publish the book to the Kindle store using fixed position HTML code. It worked and the book went on to make a very small amount of money. Does the artwork look that great to me now...No! But the I did something which lead to something else, which lead to something else. Just start something, give yourself a deadline and meet that deadline. Working for yourself is very rewarding.

Thanks! I think Its a lot better too. And I'm actually excited to work on it now, which is always a good thing. I'm really gonna have to budget my time with doing this, Inktober, AND work next month. 🙂

Ooo! Thanks @Naroth Kean that really boosts ny confidence 😃

Another artist/writer to check out is Craig Thompson the author of Habibi and Blankets. Amazing work!

I agree. I think that if you're working for free, you might as well be working for yourself doing projects that YOU like. However, once in awhile there be a project someone else is putting together that you WANT to be involved in. If you WANT to do it, that fits under the category of "working for yourself" in my book.

like it!