Melissa Bailey accurately described every brand of pencil I was going to contribute.

What I will add as a colored pencil artist, is that any set can fit your budget. This idea of needing 76 Colors to make art, is unnecessary. If you have a limited budget, consider buying open stock, and getting primaries. Though my selection of primaries is different than red yellow and blue. I can get a better variety and brightness by using magenta, yellow and cyan than I can from the standard blue red and yellow. Add in white and black and you’re quite well rounded. If the budget is bigger than just those 5 pencils, add the Colors that are harder to create, the soft pastels, warm greys, and I love a paynes grey.

I have invested in pencil crayons, like they’re going out of style, and I have a small jar of my go tos that I constantly use. And I have tonnes that have never been sharpened. It just goes to show, that with practice, you can get a broad range of Colors from a very small spectrum.

My personal favourites are Polychromos, lightfast, and luminance. I’m rather against prismacolor since they changed manufacturing. They break more than not, and I’ve had pencils that crack up the entire shaft with a single turn in the sharpener. I also find that the cores aren’t centered, which leads to more issues with sharpening. I find that they’ll cost you more than buying higher quality because of so much waste in breakage. I would highly advise to skip them. If you want a big set, that’s cheaper, look for something like Derwent Colorsoft.

So I have never really done environments, competitions etc or talked to a great bunch of people all trying to improve - usually, things I made are in the void and this is all was out of my comfort zone. I can see I have things I need to learn which is only a good thing, more work on construction, perspective, more on values and environments and I think it's maybe not really getting the lucky story across anymore etc but I like at least having a place to talk about it.
Somewhat reluctant to enter into the end if the month "lucky" prompt competition because I think I need to get a lot better on areas and things and running out of time. But here are two iterations I came up with and would like any feedback. Untitled_Artwork 5.jpg
Untitled_Artwork 6.jpg

@willicreate Great article. It helped me make a decision about what I need. Thanks

@Valerie-Light maybe I’ll add that guy in! I posted this before making that drawing. That’s a great point about some of the pieces "saying the same thing". I think each piece should have a distinct feeling in a portfolio, otherwise it’s sort of wasted space. I’d never even thought about the fact that I never really illustrate character interactions until I got the responses from this post so I’m glad that I did. An overarching sort of theme in my work for years has been solitude, often just individual characters in a story that’s just their own. I don’t want to abandon those kind of illustrations entirely but I see that they’re not fitting for a children’s book portfolio. Another angle is that maybe I can do some illustrations that are just individual characters but they’re interacting more heavily with the world around them.

@Catherine

Re: A Question for BIPOC Illustrators

I hope it is okay to chip in. I usually read the posts on this forum but never commented on them before 🙂

@Catherine, first of all, thank you for sharing that question openly. I know it comes from a place of discomfort and caution but well done on biting the bullet and keep asking those questions.

A bit of my background, I am Chinese-Malaysian, born in the Netherlands, raised in Belgium and now living in the UK, so my life has always been...for the lack of better word 'multicultural'. In my professional daytime job, I am also very much involved with topics like equality, diversity and inclusion and trying to embed it in organisations. Seeing how it plays out in the publishing world really intrigues me.

From my observation, it really depends on the school of thought. Some ppl would think it should be by BIPOC or other minortised groups (e.g. people with disability or from the LGBTQ+, or class), some ppl are okay with it, some people also don't want to be pigeon-holed and be knowm to illustrate certain type of stories too. I would be a bit frustrated if I were to illustrate just Chinese stories.

So here are my observations:

a) Research, research, research! (Doing Due Diligence)
Whatever story or subject you do, my opinion is that illustrators or writers should do their due diligence and research on their subject. Whether it is a BIPOC character or animals or space ships, good illustrators always do their research and use references of real life. That is what set them apart!

It frustrates me when people would, for example, create an 'African' pattern/illustration, but Africa is a heterogenous continent with diverse population and rich flora and fauna, so which part of Africa are we talking about? I also cringe when I see people mix with 'Chinese', 'Japanese' or other Asian visual elements like landscapes, traditional wear, (e.g. putting chopsticks in their hair, wearing a Vietnamese conical hats on a Chinese character who carries a Japanese katana, bad calligraphy,...). If they did proper research (and not let their biased imagination lead their work), you dont need BIPOC people to do this.

References and research shouldn't just include visual reference of the subject (like if you never draw kangeroos before, now is it the time to look into it), but also including interviewing people of the minoritised communities and consulting with them regularly. Asking about their lived experience is a must. Like how they navigate through stereotypes or a system that is not built for them? And how does it translate in everyday life (like not getting certain hair products or glasses not fitting on my nose... a real struggle for me 🙂 !) Really seek out those people who can share their experience with you and give you honest feedback.

I think it is the lack of research and involving the right people where most people fail.

Having said that, if I were asked to work on a Chinese fairy tale (like based in Mainland China), I would still have to do research and I cant go on the assumption that I 'know' and rely on my visual library I have stored in my head, because my version of 'Chineseness' comes from me being Chinese-Malaysian living in Europe (and Chinese is a very heterogeneous community).

b) Opportunity
@B-rex hit the nail with this one. It is not just about what is on paper, but also who is holding the pencil drawing it on the paper.

In the UK, there aren't enough Black, Asian and Miniority Ethnic (BAME) illustrators (BAME is the UK 'version'). Not because they aren't around or have good skills, but they are not given the opportunity to illustrate, while this piece of work could earn them a commission or could be included in the portfolio to attract future clients. It could be an important stepping stone in their career.
Illustrating is a hard and competitive business for sure and it is challenging to make ends meet if you are just relying on illustrations, but people from minoritised communities are most likely to come from a disadvantegeous background, have less access to support and are therefore more likely to have additional challenges and are likely to give up on their illustration career.

Anyway, just sharing my two cents here 🙂

PS first time posting, really confusing format to submit replies 😃

@davidhohn @Asyas_illos Thank you both so much for your responses and feedback! I am listening to the 3PP episode on fanart now, as I was curious about that also. The topic seems to be a grey area still, but thinking it through is much easier to navigate now. I really appreciate the information!

@NessIllustration thanks! I’m going to try this method out. I think I might share a bunch of my work on here to figure out what stuff could go in my portfolio.

@KatrinaF Thanks!

@skillydan I’d literally be giving you a tour of home if you wanted to see my work space lol

@tessaw Thank you! I watched the vid/printed out the form and put it on my wall. I am going through the steps this next week. Thanks so much for your input!

@melissa_bailey I'm getting these done locally, so I can see how they come out and also get them done quickly. But you're right that I need to make the mailer ones a standard size.

@studiolooong Gotcha - good advice! I'll do that and go up the chain 🙂

@whitney-simms Pretty! This is a situation that calls for a licensing contract. You can outline in the contract what they are and are not able to use it on, how many units they can sell, how long can they manufacture the product, etc. You can ask for royalties, with or without an advance, or a flat fee license (keeping in mind you might not know now how well it will sell, so a flat fee could be a great deal or a terrible deal depending).

@doodlemick sure! I should have time in a week or so -- just finished up a big project and am taking a little breather. 😊 Send it on when you're ready!

@holumpa Ok! Thanks 💛

@davidhohn this will help me guiltlessly do only 2 or 3 for some pages then haha. As I’ve been doing this I’ve been thinking 20 to 30 thumbnails for 30 pages is going to take me a loooong time.

@demotlj I know that with resizing selections there will always be a loss in quality because it is essentially taking it apart and putting it back together again so the more you do it the blurrier it will get. I’m not sure if it works exactly the same for resizing whole images though.

@kim-hunter Thanks very much for that, Kim. Yes, it does help. Great analogy!

Thanks everyone. The issue seems to happen more and more and I took the advice of a few of you suggesting to contact support.

Having to erase and redraw what I wanted to move just isn’t my idea of efficiency 🙂